Novel for young readers that evokes the hardship of the Depression through the story of a young boy trying to raise the spirits of those around him by reintroducing music into their lives. Based on his family's accounts of life in the 1930s, this is the author's first children's novel. He has also written short stories, crime fiction, writers' handbooks and school texts on Australian history. Winner of the Children's Book Council of Australia Younger Reader Book of the Year in 1993.