It is early morning on a warm day in Roman Italy. Sixteen-year-old Tiro gets the water, makes breakfast, and works in the kitchen - like he does day after day. Tiro is a slave. But today is different. He is going to Pompeii for the first time. He is excited, but it is AD 79: and on Mount Vesuvius, very bad things are beginning to happen...
With so much news around about the coronavirus COVID-19, it’s natural that kids are going to have questions and, this week, we’re going to answer some of them. It was announced this week that the wire service Australian Associated Press or AAP will close after 85 years and some reckon its closure will be a big blow for independent and accurate journalism. Australia’s new Children’s Laureate is worried that too many schools are moving away from traditional libraries and swapping rows of paper books for computers. We meet Presley, a 12-year-old kid who dreams of a career in ballet. He’s on his way to a training session run by the Queensland Ballet Company.
Anna wants to be a writer, so when she gets a summer job at a fashion and beauty website called Gloss, she's very excited. But things are not easy. Anna's best friend Katie is upset with her, her mother phones her every day at work, and Tina, the editor of Gloss, wants her to make the coffee and pick up the post, not write features. 'Am I ever going to write something for Gloss?' Anna thinks. 'And how am I going to get my best friend back, and explain to my mum that I'm fifteen, not five?
Anna is a new student at Oxford University. When she arrives in Oxford, she meets Selim, and they become good friends. But Selim is not English, and living in a different country is not easy for him. Anna tries to help but she knows that her father isn't going to like it. Selim and Anna have each other. But is that enough? And can they find true happiness together?
A Swiss family is going to Australia when their ship sinks in a storm. They must make their home on a Pacific island. Do they always want to stay there, or are they going to leave one day?
