Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Gina Ingoglia)

Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Gina Ingoglia

Blurb: One day out there.

Quasimodo longs to join the world beyond his gloomy bell tower, far from the influence of his evil guardian, Frollo. On the morning of the Festival of Fools, the lonely hunchback gets his chance. With the help of his comical gargoyle friends, Hugo, Victor and Laverne, Quasimodo joins the crow in the streets of Paris below. There he meets and falls in love with a beautiful gypsy girl named Esmeralda and is crowned King of Fools! But the celebration ends when Frollo learns of Quasimodo's escape from the cathedral and of his friendship with Esmeralda. Can Quasimodo find the courage to face Frollo's wrath once more, even to save Esmeralda?

Based on the Disney movie, this classic story of comedy and adventure contains eight pages of full-colour stills from the film.

ISBN: 0732327814 (Paperback)

Year: 1996

Publisher: Reed for Kids

Pages: 75 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Goodreads page for the author

3. Goodreads page for the book

4. Wikipedia page for the film

5. Wiki on the film

An Eye For Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark (Mark McKenna)

An Eye For Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark

Mark McKenna

Blurb: Manning Clark (1915-1991) was a complex, demanding and brilliant man. Mark McKenna's compelling biography of this giant of Australia's cultural landscape is informed by his reading of Clark's extensive private letters, journals and diaries - many that have never been read before.

An Eye for Eternity paints a sweeping portrait of the man who gave Australians the signature account of their own history. It tells of his friendships with Patrick White and Sidney Nolan. It details an urgent and dynamic marriage, ripped apart at times by Clark's constant need for extramarital love. A son who wrote letters to his dead parents. A historian who played narrative ahead of facts. A doubter who flirted with Catholicism. A controversial public figure who marked slights and criticisms with deeply help grudges.

To understand Clark's life is to understand twentieth century Australia. And it raises fundamental questions about the craft of biography. When are letters too personal, comments too hurtful and insights to private to publish? Clark incessantly documented his life - leaving notes to biographers he knew would pursue his story. He had a deep need to be remembered and this book means he will now be understood in an unforgettable way.

ISBN: 9780522856170 (Hardback)

Year: 2011

Publisher: Melbourne University Press

Pages: 793 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Readings

2. Article on the book

3. Story on the book from ABC

4. Review from The West

5. Another review

A Kestrel For a Knave (Barry Hines)

A Kestrel For a Knave

Barry Hines

Blurb: This is a powerful story of survival in a tough, joyless world. Billy Casper is a troubled teenager growing up in a Yorkshire mining town. Beaten by his drunken brother, ignored by his mother and failing at school, he seems destined for a hard, miserable life down the pits. But Billy discovers a new passion in life when he finds Kes, a kestrel hawk. Billy identifies with her silent strength and she inspires in him the trust and love that nothing else can.

ISBN: 9780143566403 (Paperback)

Year: 1968

Publisher: Penguin Books

Pages: 208 (Fiction)

Links

1. Wikipedia page for the book

2. Study resources for the book

3. Review of the book

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Blog on the book

Burning for Revenge - Tomorrow Series #5 (John Marsden)

Burning for Revenge - Tomorrow Series #5

John Marsden

Blurb: You look behind - there's nothing but smoke.

Ahead of you the future has just burst into flames.

Your life is on fire. The world's an inferno.

You're burning... with passion and fear, with love and rage.

You're burning for revenge.

ISBN: 0330360639 (Paperback)

Year: 1997

Publisher: Pan

Pages: 274 (Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Wikipedia page for the series

3. Review of the book

4. Another review

5. Google books page

Perfectly Cool Kermit (Anna Ludlow & Charlie Gardner)

Perfectly Cool Kermit

Anna Ludlow & Charlie Gardner

Blurb: Who is the most famous and respected frog of all time? No other TV host has had quite as many stars falling over themselves to do guest spots on his show.

No-one else deserves as much admiration as he does, for his talents as a host, performer, singer, writer, actor and film director.

Kermit, the coolest, greenest frog in the world is here to give us his tips on how to be... cool and green!

ISBN: 0732330521 (Paperback)

Year: 1997

Publisher: Reed for Kids

Pages: 32 (Fiction)

Links

1. Google books page

2. Lots of Muppet books

3. Muppet wiki page for the book

4. Buy from Amazon

5. Buy from the Book Depository

Larry the Leprechaun (Anne Hall and Peter Hall)

Larry the Leprechaun

Anne Hall and Peter Hall

Blurb: Every holiday, a young boy named Scott stays with his Grandparents on their farm.

This year, there is to be excitement and a touch of magic. Scott meets a mystical character called Larry who will totally change his holiday.

ISBN: 0646231499 (Paperback)

Year: 1995

Publisher: By Kids for Kids

Pages: 32 (Fiction)

Links

1. Google books page

2. Article on the authors

3. Colouring page

4. Publisher's page

5. A unit of teaching St. Pat's day in the classroom

Ma, He Sold Me For a Few Cigarettes (Martha Long)

Ma, He Sold Me For a Few Cigarettes

Martha Long

Blurb: Born a bastard to a teenage mother in the slums of 1950s Dublin, Martha has to be a fighter from the very start.

As her mother moves from man to man, and more children follow, they live hand-to-mouth in squalid, freezing tenements, clothed in rags and forced to beg for food. But just when it seems things can't get any worse, her mother meets Jackser.

Despite her trials, Martha is a child with an irrepressible spirit and a wit beyond her years. She tells the story of her early life without an ounce of self-pity and manages to recreate a lost era in which the shadow of the Catholic Church loomed large and if you didn't work, you didn't eat.

Martha never stops believing she is worth more than the hand she has been dealt, and her remarkable voice will remain with you long after you've finished the last line.

ISBN: 9781845965433 (Paperback)

Year: 2007

Publisher: Mainstream Publishing

Pages: 479 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy from Amazon

2. Good reads page

3. Google books page

4. Blog on the book

5. Publisher's Site

Searching for Schindler (Tom Keneally)

Searching for Schindler

Tom Keneally

Blurb: A memoir of Tom's journey around the world to discover the complete story of Oskar Schindler and those on his now-famous list.

In 1980, Tom Keneally walked into a store in Beverly Hills owned by Polish Jew Leopold Pfefferberg Page to buy a new briefcase. For the next few years, Tom's life was taken over by this charismatic and driven man, known as Poldek, and the story of his saviour, the ambiguous hero Oskar Schindler.

Inspired by Poldek's vision, Tom's 1982 novel, Schindler's Ark, won the Booker Prize and ultimately became the Oscar-award-winning film Schindler's List.

Tom and Poldek travelled across the US, Germany, Israel, Austria and Poland, interviewing survivors and discovering their extraordinary stories. Searching for Schindler is very much Tom's journey; he reflects on his early days as a successful but less than confident writer, and how this book, the film it became and the people he met, changed his and his family's lives forever.

Filled with stories of Poldek, Steven Spielberg, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and many other fascinating characters, Searching for Schindler gives us a unique insight into the wonderful, warm, thinking, compassionate and very funny man that is Tom Keneally.

ISBN: 9781741666151 (Paperback)

Year: 2007

Publisher: Vintage Books

Pages: 304 (Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Review from The Independent

2. Buy from Amazon

3. Google books page

4. Author's Wikipedia page

5. Review from The Times

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming + James Bond (Ben Macintyre)

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming + James Bond

Ben Macintyre

Blurb: One morning in February 1952, a journalist called Ian Fleming sat down at his desk and set about creating a fictional secret agent. James Bond was born and would go on to become one of the most successful, enduring and lucrative creations in literature. But Bond's world of glamour and romance, gadgets and cocktails, espionage and villainy wasn't entirely drawn from imagination: Fleming's background and his experiences as an intelligence officer during the Second World War were all formative parts in the creation of the world's most famous spy.

Packed with astonishing detail and written in Macintyre's inimitable style, For Your Eyes Only is the most enlightening biography of Ian Fleming and James Bond, the spy who not only lived twice, but proved to be immortal.

ISBN: 9780747598664 (Paperback)

Year: 2008

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 236(Non-Fiction)

Links

1. Buy at Amazon

2. Good reads page for the book

3. Author's page on the book

4. James Bond Exhibition page

5. Bond Movies page