Gracie Faltrain Gets it Right (Finally)

Cath Crowley

As Gracie begins Year 12, she has only one thing on her mind, and it's not school work. It's not even Martin, now that he's dumped her for the third time. It's soccer: a new season, a new team, a new league. This is the big time, the state trials, and Gracie can't wait. Except there's one small problem. She's no longer the biggest fish in the pond, and one of the other players is the cousin of her arch enemy, Annabelle Orion.

Gracie wants to get it right this year, but everything seems to be going wrong – she hardly has time to see her friends, Martin won't talk to her, and she's falling even further behind at school.

Gracie needs help both on and off the field, but when it shows up, it is not from the person she expected...

The Incredibly Boring Monotonous Family

Philip Barry (Illust by Charlotte Lance)

A Dahl-esque fantasy adventure for children in which the very boring Monotonous family discovers a taste for excitement through the workings of a magic key.

Ann and Stan Monotonous are extremely brainy nine-year-old twins. However, their family life is painfully dull – dull routines, stultifying hobbies – even their meals are agonisingly awful, as they are all rigidly based on the most basic of food pyramids. Their only excitement in life is a recording of a bland voice reciting the numbers of pi which they listen to in the car.

Then one day Ann Monotonous finds a magic key. The key comes with a special message and Ann suddenly, and literally, finds exciting new doors opening for the Monotonous family. Then the unthinkable happens – the Monotonous family becomes entirely too exciting. Now it's up to Ann to save her family... from themselves.