Kids into books: Shadrach Girl

Author: Joy Cowley

Illustrator: Dexter Fry

Publisher: Puffin Books $15.95

Age Group: 9-12 years


Phew! Scented markers! Sky couldn't believe that he'd liked them when he was a little kid. They didn't really smell like peaches, watermelon and roses, but fake, the sort of chemical stuff that got sprayed around toilets. The green marker reminded him of the bathroom when his brother Mikey forgot to flush.

'Hannah. You got a pen I can borrow?'

No answer. His sister and her friend Andrea were ironing white blouses at the other end of the kitchen. They had a holiday job waitressing at the St Omer guest-house and they were talking about paying taxes as though they were real adults and not just sixteen years old.

'Hannah! Hannah!'

'What?' When she turned quickly like that her curly hair floated out like a woolly tent around her head. If Hannah was a spy, she'd be able to hide heaps of stuff in that hair, little cameras and tape recorders, secret messages, bottles of poison.


Tomorrow: What's so urgent?