Kids into Books:The Week Of The Jellyhoppers

Author: Pauline Cartwright

Illustrator: Martin Bailey

Publisher: Shortland Publications, $8.75

Age: 11-12 years


Mrs Hopgood looked triumphant and impressed at the same time. She had been babysitting while Mr Miro was at a meeting at the Community Centre. "I must have had the TV up too loud to hear it. But that's just what they say in the paper. They say it made a sort of whining noise!"

Isobel remembered how the knot of loneliness tightening inside her had meant she was unable to sleep. She had wished that there had been the swish of cars going by, for even that would have seemed like some kind of company. But their new home was right on the edge of the small town and there was little traffic. It was great that her father had got the bank manager's job, but ti was awful to be nearly eleven years old and friendless in yet another new town, the third in the last six years.