Hester Hitchins and the Falling Stars

(Hardback)

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Description

Eleven-year-old Hester Hitchins has an exceptional talent for mathematics, but in 1866 girls aren't meant to be clever with numbers.

Hester's Uncle Henry, who has taken her out of school and put her to work, doesn't think she should be clever at all. Despite that, Hester wants to join Addington's Nautical Navigation Academy to learn astronomy and find her father, who is lost at sea. But the academy is only for boys.

Hester feels lost too - until she learns of a celestial event that might just fix everything. The Leonid meteor storm happens once every thirty-three years and the stars will fall like rain ... or so they say.

Navigation skills have many uses, but can they help Hester find her own place in the universe

Author Bio

Catherine Norton's first novel, Crossing, was joint winner of the Patricia Wrightson Prize in the 2015 NSW Premier's Literary Awards. It was also a CBCA Notable Book. She was born in the UK but grew up mostly in Adelaide, where she lives with her husband, children and a very lazy whippet called Archer. She has had dozens of jobs, including travel agent, cleaner, packer of tulip bulbs and novelty stationery, publishing assistant and academic, but she has only ever been fired from two of them. Writing novels is by far her favourite. You can find her online at www.catherinenorton.com.au.