This book is about Norah Linton, her brother Jim, her father David and Jim's chum Wally from Australia. They all move to England during WWI because Jim and Wally want to fight in the war.When a Irish friend of the family dies, Norah inherits a big house in Surrey: Homewood. To keep up the Irishman's memory they want to use the house to help the war effort. They turn it into a home for "Tired People"--soldiers recovering from injuries, or soldiers on leave that have no family to go home to, can come here to have a good time and enjoy the country-side, so that they can go back to their regiments fully rested and restored...

An Australian childrens' classic about life on a ranch around the same time of A Little Florida Lady, with a similarly plucky tomboy heroine. Also, like the latter story, expect some racial stereotyping of Asian and Aboriginal characters. This originally ran as a newspaper serial and it shows in the episodic nature of the chapters, such as a vivid trip to the circus sandwiched by talk of a mad killer and an unexpectedly sentimental ending.

Mary Grant Bruce was an Australian children's writer who spent one year collecting Aboriginal stories in Gippsland - a part of Victoria which it is thought had a dense population of the early Australians. Sadly, now there are no tribal people living, though their descendants are still around. This book contains 13 stories of the Gunaikurnai people, as told by their elders to the author. From the preface: Year by year the old black tribes are dying out, and many of their legends and beliefs are dying with them...