Books published by publisher University of Queensland Press

Growing up is tough, especially the bit between being a boy and being a man. It s tough because so much is changing at once. Using humour and sensitivity, James Roy presents a book that will help any young man navigate the confusing minefield that lies between boyhood and manhood. With some help from his friend Richard the Wise, he talks frankly about sex, puberty and relationships, and shows that becoming a man doesn t have to scare the pants off you

Does your imagination ever run wild Charli is at riding camp, where her dream is about to come true - she will finally learn to ride a real, live horse. But when show-off Mikaela picks the horse Charli wants, her heart bungees to her toes. Instead of the beautiful palomino Razz, Charli's stuck riding the massive retired racehorse Spud. And what about the bats that fill the night sky Don't bats spread deadly diseases Riding camp isn't turning out the way Charli planned, especially when she finds herself in the middle of a life-threatening disaster. An action-packed adventure about horses, bats and getting carried away by your imagination.

In the remote mill town of Salmon Falls, Vermont, the dead of winter can feel like death itself. Jobs are scarce, kids are bored, and it sometimes seems there’s nothing better to do than drink. But when eighteen-year-old Kyle Nelson and a motley group of friends decide to challenge both the legal drinking age and the local drinking culture with a daring act of civil disobedience, they find there’s more to do than they ever imagined. Garret Keizer’s gripping novel about young men and women in revolt bears witness to the power of ideas, the bonds of friendship, and the trials of working-class kids on the margins of American society. His story never flinches in the face of those forces that conspire against, but needn’t overcome, the resilient spirits of the young.

Charlotte’s Rose—justifiably back in print—tells the story of a young Welsh girl, Charlotte Edwards, who, soon after her mother dies, sails with her father from England to the United States to become part of a company of Mormon handcart pioneers—emigrants with no horses or oxen who themselves pulled the heavy carts filled with their belongings. These were arduous journeys. While on the Mormon Trail, Charlotte befriends a young mother who later dies in childbirth. Though only 12 years old, Charlotte assumes responsibility for the infant and carries her to Utah. Over the course of their journey together, Charlotte becomes deeply attached to the baby she calls Rose, which makes Charlotte’s choice at the novel’s end particularly poignant.The author, A. E. Cannon, is adept at creating vivid, multifaceted, believable characters and has crafted a story of pioneers that will seem relevant to today’s young people. The reader will quickly be drawn into the story as Charlotte struggles to navigate the trials of an adolescent moving into adulthood. Although this is a book about Mormon pioneers, it is in fact about the larger American experience of immigration—a drama still unfolding today­—and Charlotte’s coming-of-age journey will resonate with readers young and old.

When the paths of a runaway teenage boy, an old hobo, and a rich girl intersect in an abandoned train yard, each carries their own personal baggage. Over early mornings, long walks, and cheap coffee they discover, no matter how big or small, it’s the simple gifts in life that really make a difference. A life-affirming look at humanity, generosity and love, this is a special reissue of a bestselling and award-winning Australian classic that includes up-to-date teacher’s notes.

Saria is the last of her kind, the final child to be born in the Darklands, a quarantined expanse of outback desert, contaminated generations earlier by the remote and mysterious Nightpeople. Spirited away at her birth before the Nightpeople could remove her from the genetic pool, Saria, now in her early teens, is called before the Council of Dreamers to be used as a bargaining chip. There she discovers the truth about her own past, and that of her people. Nightpeople explores a society turned in upon itself and a future which readers will find both alien and disturbingly familiar.

The third book in the Chook Chook series set against the backdrop of rural China It’s Chinese New Year, and for Mei and her family things are looking grim. It’s been another bad harvest and a disappointing year for their farm. And now, the government is building a major freeway that will rip right through their village and tear their little farm apart. One by one, Mei’s neighbors are convinced to sell their land and despite Ma’s and stepfather Jin’s best efforts to fight, it looks like their farm will be next. What can Mei and her beloved chickens, Little and Lo, do to save their farm and keep the family together? As the deadline for bulldozing draws near, villagers young and old will come to realize that it takes a village to save a farm.

Summer 1948. In the scenic, remote river town of Oregon, Illinois, a young couple visiting the local lovers’ lane is murdered. The shocking crime garners headlines from Portland, Maine, to Long Beach, California. But after a sweeping manhunt, no one is arrested and the violent deaths of Mary Jane Reed and Stanley Skridla fade into time’s indifference.Fast forward fifty years. Eccentric entrepreneur Michael Arians moves to Oregon, opens a roadhouse, gets elected mayor, and becomes obsessed with the crime. He comes up with a scandalous conspiracy theory and starts to believe that Mary Jane’s ghost is haunting his establishment. He also reaches out to the Chicago Tribune for help.Arians’s letter falls on the desk of general assignment reporter Ted Gregory. For the next thirteen years, while he ricochets from story to story and his newspaper is deconstructed around him, Gregory remains beguiled by the case of the teenaged telephone operator Mary Jane and twenty-eight-year-old Navy vet Stanley—and equally fascinated by Arians’s seemingly hopeless pursuit of whoever murdered them. Mary Jane’s Ghost is the story of these two odysseys.

Under New England introduces the reader (approximately ages 7 to 12) to the formation of the rocks and fossils that lie beneath New England and explains the fascinating geology that defines our landscape. The book presents the incredible story of colliding continents, fiery volcanoes, oceans closing and opening, and ice sheets more than a mile thick slowly scraping across the land―all shaping the place we now know as New England. The book explores the region’s geological past, taking readers far below the familiar sights of New England to show what lies beneath, from the soil under the cobblestone streets of Boston and the sandy shores of Cape Cod, to the mountains of Northern New England and the birth of the Berkshires, from the Precambrian to the present. Most of all, the book will inspire both children and adults to see New England in an entirely different way. Placed throughout the book are poems and quotes relating to the region’s landscape by some of New England’s favorite writers, providing a link from the geology of the land to its literature. Fully illustrated with charming and enlightening illustrations by the author.

When Barry Phipps relocated to Iowa City from Chicago in 2012, he knew nothing of Iowa. He began taking day trips across Iowa in the spirit of wonder and discovery. His marked-up road map soon became a work of art in and of itself, covered with spokes, lines, and places both seen and needing to be seen. Along the way he plied his trade, taking photographs. Inspired by such seminal work as Robert Frank’s The Americans, this is a unique vision of the Midwest and Iowa. Without condescending or overemphasizing the decline of small town America, Phipps documents rural communities as they are now, noting abstract shapes and colors as he photographs business districts with quirky and/or artful signs, streetscapes and landscapes, buildings with ghosts of paint from previous lives, and the occasional resident. In addition to their startling attention to color and geometry, Phipps’s photos delight because they suggest an author who isn’t on intimate terms with his subject matter, but very much wants to be. Though the photographs in this collection frequently maintain a cautious distance from the houses, water towers, and iconography he captures on film, the pictures feel, at once, eager and shy. Phipps admires his new home—from afar, by varying degrees—and excitedly introduces himself to it: the first steps of a journey toward claiming Iowa as his.

When a group of close friends leaves the dusty outback orphanage where thy've grown up for a summer holiday together at the coast, their furture is full of possibilities. But the chance that one of them, just one, might gain a real family to live with calls everything they thought they knew about themselves and each other into question. Because the future is as unknown as the ocean's depths. And family comes in many forms...