The Secret Pop Star

Who is the secret pop star and what is he running away from? Can the children help him in The Secret Pop Star? Biff, Chip and Kipper Stories: Decode and Develop are an exciting new set of stories from Roderick Hunt and Alex Brychta. Full of humour and drama with a delightful mixture of familiar settings and brand new magic key adventures to inspire young readers. Featuring all your favourite characters, children will enjoy exploring the detailed humorous illustrations and be captivated by the storylines. These phonics-based stories are perfect for embedding and building on children's phonics knowledge. They contain high-interest vocabulary to support language development beyond Phase 5 of Letters and Sounds. Each book contains inside cover notes to help adults read and explore the content with the child, supporting their decoding and language comprehension development. Teaching notes on Oxford Owl support independent reading, guided reading, writing, and speaking, listening and drama activities.

When three boys all run away from home to try and live like pirates, life is easy at first. Then they meet Bonnie-Ann who trains them like real pirates. But their real talent turns out to be more musical.

Take a tour through the wilder side of art history, and discover true tales of murder, forgery, and trickery—featuring jaw-dropping profiles over 30 iconic artists like Leonardo Da Vinci and Salvadori Dalí. With outrageous anecdotes about everyone from Leonardo Da Vinci to Caravaggio to Edward Hopper, Secret Lives of Great Artists recounts the seamy, steamy and gritty history behind the great masters of international art. Here, you’ll learn that Michelangelo’s body odor was so bad, his assistants couldn’t stand working for him; that Vincent van Gogh sometimes ate paint directly from the tube; and Georgia O’Keeffe loved to paint in the nude. This is one art history lesson you’ll never forget!

Has the world’s hottest pop star been kidnapped, joined a secret sect, or simply gone into hiding? The answer lies in the abandoned subway stations of Chicago . . . One minute insanely famous pop singer Molly Metropolis is on her way to a major performance in Chicago, and the next, she’s gone. A journalist who’s been covering Molly joins the singer's personal assistant in an increasingly desperate search to find her, guided by a journal left behind in her hotel room, and possible clues hidden in her songs—all of which seem to point to an abandoned line in the Chicago subway system. It leads them to a map of half-completed train lines underneath Chicago, which in turn leads them to the secret, subterranean headquarters of an obscure intellectual sect—and the realization that they’ve gone too far to turn back. And if a superstar can disappear without a trace . . . what can happen to these young women? Suspenseful and wildly original, The Ghost Network is a novel about larger-than-life fantasies—of love, sex, pop music, amateur detective work, and personal reinvention. Debut novelist Catie Disabato bursts on the scene with an ingeniously plotted, witty, haunting mystery.

Sometimes there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes? there?s not. Because true light doesn?t appear at the end of a long, hard road. True light comes from within. Most of the time, however, we live unaware of this secret shine, and it is not found until someone shows us that it?s there. During the hardest times of her life, Natalie Winters struggled with what light to seek and what star to wish upon. She lived a life in which she was enriched with a deep darkness that caused even the brightest of glows to fade away into darker shadows. A Secret Star is a memoir of the horrific stories of her childhood? the abandonment, the abuse, and the absence of love. However, this little girl found that in her darkest of tunnels, she was not alone. For even the darkest of skies still have the sparkle of the stars.

Pop stars have provided audiences with performative moments that have become ingrained in popular consciousness. They are a lens through which deeper understandings about race, gender, politics, history and the artistic process can be understood. When combined with the most affective of mediums – cinema, the combination can be both thrilling and alarming. From the relatively early days of cinema, figures from the world of popular music have made forays into acting and contributed cameo appearances. From Little Richard and Kylie Minogue to Nick Cave and Tom Waits, Pop Stars On Film: Popular Culture in a Global Market offers a collection of essays on some of the most influential international performances from a diverse range of cultural icons. The book considers industry shifts, access and diversity, but also the notion of cultural appropriation, audience appeal, marketing and demographics. Perhaps most importantly, the publication will look at what happens when cultures collide and coalesce.

A "collection of personal essays exploring the intersection of queerness, relationships, pop culture, the Internet, and identity, introducing one of the most undeniably original new voices today. Jill Gutowitz's life--for better and worse--has always been on a collision course with pop culture, [including] ... the pivotal day when Orange Is the New Black hit the airwaves and broke down the door to Jill's own sexuality. In these honest examinations of identity, desire, and self-worth, Jill explores perhaps the most monumental cultural shift of our lifetimes: the mainstreaming of lesbian culture"--

All the Ponies want to start a band when they hear Sweetsong play her mandolin at the Cotton Candy Cafe, so they get together and hold try-outs.

In this exciting third installment of the Poptropica series, we find Mya, Oliver, and Jorge in the custody of a secret society whose mission is to protect and preserve Poptropica—a mysterious, uncharted island world. These Protectors, as they call themselves, believe that any outside interference with the islands of Poptropica could have catastrophic results on the course of history in the real world. As if things aren’t bad enough, Octavian has finally claimed possession of the confounding map, thwarted the society’s attempts to capture him, and is determined to alter the time line. The trio must join forces with the Protectors and find Octavian before he can go through with his evil plot, or all of human history might be changed—or worse—destroyed!

Gladys Berejiklian was Australia's rockstar premier. The first woman elected to lead NSW, she steered the state through devastating bushfires, drought and a once-in-a-generation pandemic with a steady hand. To many, she was 'The Woman Who Saved Australia' for the way in which she navigated the first wave of COVID, with a sterling reputation as a dedicated and reliable public servant. But for all of her premiership, and well before, Berejiklian was harbouring a secret that she kept from her friends, family, colleagues and constituents. That secret - revealed during ICAC proceedings in 2020 - would eventually bring down one of the country's most deeply respected leaders. Journalist Alexandra Smith tells the inside story of the dramatic last weeks of Berejiklian's premiership and examines the political decisions and personal sacrifices that characterised her early days in public life, her rise to the top and her eventual downfall. The Secret is an unputdownable account of a story that captured Australia's attention, and a vital investigation of how the toxic power and gender dynamics of politics can shape ambition - and end careers. LONGLISTED FOR THE WALKLEY BOOK AWARD 2022