A CLUE FOR CLARA

Can a scruffy chicken crack a crime? Perhaps, if she's a genius like Clara. From the highly-acclaimed author of Ella and the Ocean and The Keepers series comes this egg-cellent stand-alone funny tale about a small chicken and a big crime.

Clara, a much pecked and picked-on chicken, learnt all about being a detective from watching television with the Boss and thinks it's her ticket out of the chicken yard. She just needs a girl genius partner (like her favourite TV detective, Amelia X) and an important case. Clara might not be able to speak English (beaks are no good for this) but she is awfully clever and it doesn't take much to learn how to use a smartphone when she meets Detective Olive in the back seat of a police car: 'GREETINGS I AM A DETECTIVE I WISH TO WORK WITH YOU ON AN IMPORTANT CASE A JEWEL HEIST OR A MURDER' Little Dismal is a country town with a real problem. Times are hard and livestock is going missing. Twelve-year-old Olive has a big problem too. She misses her mum, and her dad, the local sergeant, seems to have given up on work and life. So, when a small scruffy chicken comes up with a great plan to find out what's happening in the town, Olive's keen to help. After all, solving the case might help save her dad too. Lian Tanner is a highly acclaimed, multi-award winning children's author and playwright and her work is sold and loved around the world. Lian has also worked as a teacher, tourist bus driver, journalist, juggler, editor and a professional actor. She has been dynamited while scuba diving, arrested while busking and once spent a week in the jungles of PNG searching for a soldier. She now realises this was preparation for becoming a writer. Cheryl Orsini is a highly sought illustrator for books and magazines alike. She's studied Visual Communications and has illustrated over 20 books.