PATH OF BEASTS

After an adventurous voyage back to Jewel during which Goldie is reunited with her long-lost auntie Praise, the boat approaches Jewel and Goldie learns that the Fugleman has murdered the Protector and staged a coup.

The children slip into the city secretly, thinking that, somehow, they are going to have to recapture it by themselves. But their parents have by now found their own courage and there is a small resistance, centred around the Museum. And so, with trickery, boldness and the survival skills that they learned in Spoke, plus some unexpected help from auntie Praise and a dozen white mice, Goldie and Toadspit join the fight to beat the Fugleman once and for all. Goldie has learned a different sort of courage. And the city of Jewel and its people will never be the same again. Lian Tanner is a freelance playwright and children's writer whose plays include 'Heroes', 'Yolla', 'Corpus Nullius' (all for Terrapin Theatre), 'Underworld' and 'Inquest into the Disappearance of a Sensible Woman' (both for ABC Radio National's Airplay). Her children's novel, Rats! was published by Lothian in 2004.