by Des Hunt
Some hours later, when the night was at its darkest, the frogs stopped their singing. As their songs died, the sound of a miner’s pick was once again heard in the glade where the caravan stood.
Clink, clink, clink…
Salami and Frankfurter peeped anxiously for a while, before cuddling closer and tucking their heads under each-other’s wing.
In the caravan, the boy continued to sleep—peaceful and contented.
Praise
Praise for The Moa Cave
Another edge-of-seat page-turner.
Reading Time
…a real page-turner avoiding obvious plotlines and neatly capturing modern-day “tween” sensibilities.
NorthSouth
I couldn’t put the book down…it would be ideal for reading aloud.
Hauraki Herald
This is a fast-paced mystery-adventure that children will love and find a great read that they can’t put down.
Tomorrow’s Schools Today
A strong plot and interesting and credible characters…
A definite “need to read”.
Marlborough Express
Praise for A Friend in Paradise
A really good read that touches on a variety of themes…a good story line with an interesting plot, strong believable characters, New Zealand content and plenty of page turning adventure to keep readers interested.
The Saturday Express
A thrilling mix
Otago Daily Times
This is an exciting read that is so very New Zealand you can just about smell the bush.
New Books
A Friend in Paradise
When 12-year-old Robbie’s father dies of cancer, he starts to spin out of control, taking out his anger on his mother and sisters. At her wit’s end, his mother arranges for him to spend the holidays with his Uncle Jim, on a farm near Opotiki where his father grew up. He decides the holiday might not be a dead loss after all when he visits a secret valley his father used to call Paradise, where he unexpectedly finds a new friend. But danger also lurks in Paradise, danger that entangles him in an awesome adventure that will take him all the way to the fiery volcano of White Island. Robbie must use his knowledge, wit, computer savvy and all his courage to save his new friend…and his own life.
A Friend in Paradise was a finalist in the 2003 NZ Post Children’s Book Awards.
The Moa Cave
When Tyler Matthews wins a national competition for a weeklong Nature South Eco Tour, he has no idea how much his life will change.
After he travels to the bottom of the South Island to join the tour, he meets two other winners—Hine and the maddening Mandy—and soon finds himself caught in a maze of intrigue and adventure. Someone is rustling cattle, and when Tyler finds the mummified remains of a moa hunter in a secret cave he also finds an ancient mystery. Who was the dead boy and how did he die—and what is the significance of his stone pendant?
In a fast-paced and exciting story Tyler, Hine and Mandy must put aside their differences to solve the mystery of the disappearing dolphins—and stay alive when a game of dare goes dangerously wrong!
The Guardian of the Land
When David is sent to Kaikoura to recover from a long illness, he makes friends with Rua, and meets Nanny Henare, Rua’s grandmother. She’s a powerful kuia, determined to recover the long-lost ‘guardian of the land’ for her people before she dies.
When the boys go to look at a seal colony, they get caught up in a strange adventure, and are thrown backwards in time. Without knowing it, David and Rua have become part of Nanny Henare’s quest. But her powers are fading, and after a series of time trips the boys are no closer to finding the guardian of the land. Will they discover its hiding place in time?
First published in 1985, renowned author Joanna Orwin’s much-loved classic has been chosen as a Collins Modern New Zealand Classic.
A Canoe in the Mist
When two young girls, New Zealander Lillian Perham and English tourist Mattie Hensley, visit Lake Rotomahana with Guide Sophia in 1886, they find a strange and mysterious place where beauty and danger exist side by side.
But when they see a mysterious canoe making for the sacred mountain where Maori chiefs are buried, and hear a frightening prediction from an ancient tohunga, they begin to feel uneasy. Soon, their day of wonder turns into a time of fear and terrible destruction as the two friends witness the eruption of Mt Tarawera and have to flee for their lives. Set in a volcanic wonderland of boiling springs, fierce geysers and bubbling mud pools, A Canoe in the Mist tells the true story of the destruction of the famous Pink and White Terraces over a hundred years ago.
First published in 1984, renowned author Elsie Locke’s much-loved story has been chosen as a Collins Modern New Zealand Classic.
Tripswitch
‘You are not without power,’ the voice tells them. But what powers do Jocasta, Flora and Cilla have, and how can they harness them to escape their Aunt Lureene?
The more the three orphaned cousins discover about their cruel aunt, the more secrets they unearth, and the more horrified they become. What will happen to them if Lureene’s ultimate plan succeeds? Would Lureene really sacrifice her own twin sons for power? And what is it the girls possess that Lureene wants so desperately? They must find the answers before it’s too late.
Tripswitch is the first title chosen to be a Collins Modern New Zealand Classic. With a new foreword written especially for this edition by Tessa Duder, this popular story is now available to a new generation of young readers. Tripswitch’s dark and humorous blend of witchcraft and intrigue is every bit as exciting today as it was when first written by Gaelyn Gordon in 1992.
Portable Ghosts
What would you do if a ghost got into your computer?
Ditta is a sassy twelve-year-old who wants to be a detective—and when she meets a ghostly boy in her school library she has her very first mystery. When her best friend Max tells her the floor in his brand new bedroom is also haunted, mysteries come thick and fast and soon she has a handful.
With Ditta’s computer-geek sister, Mirabel, the friends discover that an old man who never stops talking has some of the answers. But before they can solve the mystery of the groaning floorboards they have to uncover a deep, dark secret. They also learn that ghosts are more adaptable than they had thought, and Ditta must find not one but two ways of making them portable.
Margaret Mahy is one of the world’s best-loved authors, writing funny children’s stories as well as novels for young adults, enthralling her readers with delightfully original tales. Margaret is a member of the Order of New Zealand, an honorary doctor of letters, twice winner of Britain’s Carnegie Medal for Children’s Literature, and winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
Ocean Without End
From pirate slave to pirate princess…
During a raid on her island home of Santa Lucia, 12-year-old Lily Swann is taken at gunpoint by the tyrannical El Capitan de Diablo and forced to work as a slave on his ship, Gisella. That night she learns that her father, who she thought was dead, had been taken by pirates years before.
Ocean Without End tells of Lily’s adventures as she makes her mark on the pirate world and embarks on a perilous journey in search of her father. With swashbuckling action on the high seas, it is also a story of unexpected friendship, longing and belonging as Lily struggles to survive in a strange and sometimes violent world.
Titles in the Swashbuckler Trilogy are: Ocean Without End; The Pirate’s Revenge; The Silver Swan.
Kelly Gardiner was born in Melbourne, and now lives on an island in New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf. Ocean Without End is her first novel for young readers.
See her website at www.swashbuckler.co.nz.
Mountains of Fire
In a world where they can be sung into submission by dragon charmers, people have forgotten the true power of dragons…but when feral red dragons seize a royal prince, that power threatens everything.
L
ogan lives with Zared, an elderly and absent-minded wizard, in Shanoria—the Kingdom of Dragons. His closest friend is Alyxa, a dragon charmer with the rare gift of soothing and commanding dragons. But not all dragons in Shanoria are tame, and when the feral Reds kidnap the crown prince, Logan and Alyxa are thrust into a fast-paced adventure.
The Reds, and their evil leader, Firetongue, are plotting a volcanic upheaval that will make the world hot, flame-filled and free of humans. Logan, Alyxa and the obnoxious Prince Myles have to find the legendary white dragon, Silverhorn, and convince him to help prevent their fiery doom.
Linda McNabb lives and works in Auckland with her husband and two daughters. Mountains of Fire, Book One of The Dragon Charmers, is her fifth children’s fantasy novel, to be followed by Valley of Silver. Her first, The Dragon’s Apprentice, was a finalist in the 2003 New Zealand Post Childrens’ Book Awards.
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in 2006
This edition published in 2010
by HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1, Auckland
Copyright © Des Hunt 2006
Des Hunt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Hunt, Des, 1941-
Frog Whistle Mine / Des Hunt.
ISBN 1 86950 595 6 (pbk.)
ISBN 978 0 7304 4448 0 (epub)
[1. Ghost towns—Fiction. 2. Gold mines and mining—Fiction.
3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 4. Charleston (N.Z.)—
Fiction.] I. Title.
NZ823.3—dc 22
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