About the author: 

Jan Wallace Dickinson has lived for many decades between Australia and Italy, for the past twenty-five years, based in Florence. Her background is in Italian History and Literature, with postgraduate studies on the early Medici. She has worked as editor, bookseller and translator. Her first work of fiction was The Sweet Hills of Florence, a novel of the Resistance and civil war in Florence during WWII as the partisans fought the retreating German Army and the remnants of the Fascist troops.

About the authors:

Ross Fitzgerald AM, Emeritus Professor of History and Politics at Griffith University, is the author, co-author or editor of 47 books spanning history, politics, biography, satire, fiction and alcoholism. A long-standing member of Alcoholics Anonymous, he has also written extensively about recovery and sobriety, and now lives in Redfern, Sydney.

Richard (Dick) Whitaker is a scientist, meteorologist, author and lecturer with a lifelong passion for weather and history. After serving in the Australian Army, he spent thirty-one years with the Bureau of Meteorology and later became Chief Meteorologist with the Weather Channel and Sky News Weather. He has been author, co-author and consultant editor of seventeen books about the weather, and remains an active public speaker.

“Driftwood is a real page turner with its blend of history, romance, mystery, detective fiction and humour.” – Sharon Ross, English teacher

When her marriage and fashion dreams collapse, Jade Lin escapes Sydney for Driftwood, where she accepts a year-long position caring for the mysterious antique shop of the late Alice Wong. Expecting solitude, Jade instead discovers an eccentric community, enigmatic Otto Pound, a loyal German Shepherd and a collection of meticulously labelled keys. Following their clues uncovers Alice’s extraordinary life, secrets spanning decades and continents, and a fortune others will lie and cheat to possess. As Jade confronts dangerous rivals and her family’s inherited superstitions, Alice’s final mystery transforms her understanding of courage, sacrifice, generosity and belonging.

About the author: Vivian Bi has a PhD in literary criticism and has taught Chinese at the University of Sydney and Ascham School, Sydney. She is a published author of several novels and memoirs (including Bright Swallow, Hybrid Publishers, 2019), short stories, translations and textbooks. She lives in Sydney.

• Winner of the 2018 WAYBRA Book of the Year for older readers
• Shortlisted for the 2017 CBCA Book of the Year for younger readers
• Australian Teachers’ Notes click here: Teachers’ notes 
• International Teachers’ Notes click here: Teachers’ notes
• The teachers’ notes are written by Michelle Prawer, the child of a Holocaust survivor, Guta Goldstein, in the belief that education is the pathway to change.

… a wrenching story of survival amidst the horrors of the Holocaust. All events are based on things which really happened. Within These Walls makes this disturbing part of history accessible to children. – Sally Murphy, Aussie Reviews

‘Live, Miri. Don’t let the Nazis wipe out our entire family, our entire people … Don’t think of anything but survival …Promise me, Miri. Promise me you’ll try to survive.’

I nodded slowly. And promised.

Miri’s happy life is interrupted when the Jew-hating Germans march into Warsaw. Soon, she and her family must move to the ghetto. She hopes that now they will be left alone, but what the Nazis have planned is far worse than she could have ever imagined.

Based on true events, Within These Walls gives a realistic account of what it was like to be a Jewish child in Warsaw during the Holocaust. It is suitable for middle school readers.

‘I learned so much of the history … without being bogged down by facts and figures’

– Jennifer Mors, Reading Time

About the author: Robyn Bavati is the award-winning author of Dancing in the Dark, Pirouette and A Weekend With Oscar. Dancing in the Dark was a CBCA Notable Book, a Sydney Taylor Honour Book, and was shortlisted in both the YABBA and KOALA awards . A Weekend With Oscar won the 2024-25 Victor Youth Book Prize in Belgium. Within These Walls, first published in 2016, was a CBCA Shortlisted Book and winner of the 2018 WAYRBA award. An experienced presenter and long-term member of Toastmasters International, Robyn enjoys public speaking. She lives in Melbourne and loves visiting schools to discuss her work.

Australian Teachers’ Notes (click here: teachers’ notes)

International Teachers’ Notes (click here)

The teachers’ notes are written by Michelle Prawer, the child of a Holocaust survivor, Guta Goldstein, in the belief that education is the pathway to change.