Hilary Bell

Alphabetical Sydney turns ten!This is our Sydney, the brightest and best of it,North to the south to the east and the west of it.Bats and cicadas, lawn bowls and the zoo,This is our town. Let us share it with you.This bestselling playful and vibrantly illustrated picture book celebrates Sydney in all its diversity – from A to Z.

Summer is here.Put your school shoes away,The long, lazy days can begin.Mangoes and magpies, municipal pools…Take a deep breath and dive in.Age 3+The bestselling creators of Alphabetical Sydney and Numerical Street are back with their new picture book, Summer Time – a stunning tribute to an Australian summer.Summer Time pays tribute to the quintessentially Australian summer - filled with mangoes, waterslides, pools, mozzie bites, and the beach. Filled with stunning illustrations and clever texts that will appeal to children and adults alike, this book takes time - a notoriously tricky concept for children - and presents it in a fun and playful way.

Who fought the first duel in Sydney? Where were the city’s first dancing horses? And who was the daredevil who crossed Middle Harbour on a tightrope in 1877?This whimsical, witty history of Sydney will entertain children like nothing else they’ve seen. In a series of unexpected, adventurous and just plain crazy firsts, Hilary Bell and Matthew Martin trace the events, people and places that have shaped their city, however unintentionally. Where else will you find Sydney’s first surfer-girl sharing pages with the astonishing tightrope-walking feats of the marvellous funambulist himself, Henri L’Estrange?

From the creators of the bestselling Alphabetical Sydney comes a counting book set in a bright and quirky streetscape where there’s always something new to find. Children will love counting the objects they see as they hop, skip or jump up Numerical Street – past cake shops, hair stylists, laundromats, pet stores and shoe repairers, with all their curious wares on display.

A playful and vibrantly illustrated picture book that celebrates Sydney in all its diversity – from A to Z. This is our Sydney, the brightest and best of it, North to the south to the east and the west of it. Bats and cicadas, lawn bowls and the zoo, This is our town. Let us share it with you.

In 1948, Angela left Malta. Having gathered up five children, she sailed out on the Strathnavar, leaving poverty and the war behind. Her destination: Australia. In Surry Hills, she could build a bright new life. Back in Malta, someone else has made a journey. Making his way along Kalkara's glistening harbourside, a young man with flowing black hair has returned to claim his past. Paul Capsis is walking home.

This brilliant new collection of ten plays for young people will prove indispensable to schools, colleges and youth theatre groups. Specially commissioned by the National Theatre for the Connections Festival 2012 involving 200 schools and youth theatre groups across the UK and Ireland, each play is accompanied by production notes and exercises. Power struggles, rites of passage, love and forbidden relationships are some of the rich themes that run through the 2012 cycle of plays. Some are deeply funny, some are provocative and some reflective; and one has really catchy songs!For the 2012 Festival, the anthology has an international feel and offers a window on the world. It includes from Australia a play based on a nineteenth century court case in which a teenage girl was falsely convicted; from Brazil a drama about young lovers doomed to tragedy; set in Russia, a play exploring differing attitudes to National Service and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; a drama about students' rights to an education and the Cultural Revolution of 1966 in China; and a comedy involving a group of Irish country girls travelling to London to audition for the X-Factor.

Is there intrinsic evil in the world? In a bleak, remote town, a small child is murdered. Suspicion falls on nine-year-old Lizzie. Convinced her daughter is guilty, Lizzie's young mother must make the torturous choice between ignoring her intuition and presenting Lizzie to the police. Lizzie is not the only one who is changed forever by the act. The adults around her, bewildered and full of denial, find their accepted beliefs crumbling around them in a play which explores the sources of violence and its legacy. 1998 Jill Blewett Playwright's Award.