Books with author David Michaels

When Charlotte's cello is broken, she is given a new one by a mysterious old man. Her already brilliant playing becomes even more extraordinary and she is invited to play before the conductor, Vladimir Ashkenazy and the principal cello and concertmaster of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. They identify her instrument as "The lost Amati" which is said to hold an amazing secret. But Charlotte must survive great dangers before the secret is revealed and Charlotte can play at the Opera House with the SSO.

Kaiden and Hazel meet at school and soon discover they have an extraordinary connection. They soon discover that they are twins, separated at birth and adopted by two different couples. As they research their origins, they find that they were the result of extraordinary medical experimentation that at the time was illegal. These experimenta have given them some super-human abilities. Together, they can travel into the past and find themselves in Victorian England and Prohibition-era Chicago, they create a magical fantasy world and then go to a future Sydney. They must learn to control these powers in order to live normal lives.

Charlotte plays her cello brilliantly, but her life was almost shattered when her instrument, a gift from her grandfather who had taught her to play, is broken in an accident. But a mysterious old man gives her another one, an instrument of great beauty and glorious sound. After playing a concert with a youth orchestra, word of her playing reaches the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and she is invited to the Sydney Opera House to play before the chief conductor, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Concertmaster Dene Olding and Principal Cello, Catherine Hewgill. They are delighted with her skill and fascinated by her cello. When Catherine asks to play it and examines it in detail, she and Dene Olding decide that this could be the legendary lost cello made by the great luthier Nicolo Amati and believed stolen in the late 1500s. The instrument is thought to contain a great secret, though what this is, is unknown.Other people are also interested in the cello and its secret and Charlotte is kidnapped and held for ransom in return for the cello. The police begin a process of finding Charlotte and her kidnappers but decide to examine the instrument with some very hi-tech equipment. They find evidence that a label inside reveals the existence of more than thirty instruments made by Nicolo Amati's grandfather for the Court of France and never found. Charlotte is released by her kidnappers for unknown reasons and the hunt for the missing instruments eventually leads to their discovery before Charlotte is able to realise her dream of playing her favourite piece, the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Opera House, with Dene Olding and Catherine Hewgill, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Mickie has been travelling aboard the inter-galactic trading ship for a year, trying to find clues to the mysteries of what happened to his race and how he came to be on Earth. Slowly, he starts to find clues to the nature of his people, the Pfafth, how they once ruled over 40 galaxies but then suddenly vanished without trace over a million years ago. But the ancient enemy, the Sillaron are also looking for him to complete the destruction of the Pfafth. As Mickie begins to develop some of the astonishing powers of the Pfafth, the battle for survival intensifies and Mickie must call on all those powers and the help of his allies, some strange, some beautiful and some quite terrifying as he fights to save himself, his companions on the ship and even his entire species when he can find them.

Mickie Dalton is aged 12 and has a miserable home life. A strange couple meet him and tell him he is not a human, but just what his race is and how he came to be on Earth are a mystery. He takes the chance to travel on the inter-galactic trading ship and try to seek out his origins. He meets amazing races, some beautiful, some friendly, some terrifying and slowly finds traces of his origins. But something else has learned of Mickie's presence and is determined to complete what it had tried before, the extermination of his people. A million year old war has restarted and Mickie must draw on all his emerging powers to survive and protect his friends and new family aboard the ship.

When Geoff, Natasha, Emma and Adrian are "double-dared" to go into a spooky new store in town, they can't resist. What they find is frightening. Newspapers that seem new but tell of events of sixty years ago or more, a radio broadcast of a cricket match that happened over seventy years ago and most frightenof all, an ancient oil painting of themselves. They will need all their courage and intelligence to conquer the evil picture that attaches itself to Geoff and threatens his very life.