Jeannie Meekins: 172 books

“If I was a boy, you’d let me play,” grumbled Gertrude.“Yeah,” Flynn agreed. “But you’re not a boy. You’re a girl.”Gertrude wants to play footy. But the coach of the school footy team won’t let her play and the boys just laugh at her.If she were a boy, things would be different....

“You stole Freddie!” Billy yelled, pushing George in the chest. George stumbled backwards, slipped and fell in the mud. All the other kids began laughing as George sat there looking up at a furious Billy. “I didn’t steal Freddie.” George tried to hold back the tears. “Why would I want...

What a father will do to protect his son and what a son will do to save his father.For as long as he can remember, Declan has loved his father, Michael. He has also been aware of the strange... something... between his father and the powerful Mr Cantala.One fateful night, Declan’s illusions and...

“Why can’t I play footy with you?” Michael asked.“Because I said so,” Jake answered.“Oh, who made you boss anyway, Jake?” Kyle asked.“Stay out of this, Kyle.” Jake turned his attention from Michael. “We’ve got nothing against you.”“What have you got against him?”“He’s...

You’ve probably heard of Saint Valentine’s Day. You may have given someone a card or a present. You may even have done it in secret, and watched the look of happiness on their face. You probably tried not to blush as that person tried to figure out who their secret Valentine was. But what do you...

Ears sit on opposite sides of our head. They are flappy bits of skin that stick out. Sometimes we decorate them with piercings. Ears are our own little satellite dishes. They pick up sound waves and send them through the ear canal, where the tiniest bones and muscles in our body pick up the vibrations...

Eclipses have amazed and terrified people for thousands of years. The sky grows dark. Daytime animals go to sleep and nocturnal animals wake up. Roosters crow and cows come in for milking. The sun is slowly covered by some mysterious celestial object. Sometimes it is blocked out completely. What had...

In the 1920s, the first passenger airplanes began to fly over the Peruvian mountains. Passengers looking out their windows said they could see lines on the Nazca plateau below. The lines looked like runways where airplanes could land. They could also see animals and other objects. There are birds,...

Circling the heavens is a belt of rock and dust. Lying between Mars and Jupiter and orbiting our sun, The Main Asteroid Belt was once thought to be the remnants of an exploded planet or the beginnings of a planet that never formed. How much do you know about asteroids? Can you answer these questions: Where...

McMurdo Dry Valleys, in Antarctica, is one of the world’s cruelest deserts. You may think that a desert is a hot, dry place, full of sand. Science defines a desert as a place that has less than 10 inches (254 millimetres) of rainfall per year. Antarctica has none. Even if the snow that falls on...

Comets often streak across the night sky. They are fascinating flashes of light, but how much do we really know about them? Here are some things that scientists do know. Find out: What the name comet means. How comets are named. When the earliest comets were recorded. How scientists predict when a...

Our eyes are round objects that sit at the halfway point of our head. They are about one inch (25 mm) in diameter and come in a variety of colors. They allow us to see all the wonders of the world and beyond. We still don’t understand exactly how they work in transforming light into color and objects,...

It was once thought that our solar system ended at Saturn. Then the first telescopes revealed Uranus and Neptune. Differences in the calculations of the gravity of these giants set off another search and Pluto was discovered. Pluto was then thought to be the last planet of our solar system. Beyond...

It was once thought that our solar system ended at Saturn. Then the first telescopes revealed Uranus and Neptune. Differences in the calculations of the gravity of these giants set off another search and Pluto was discovered. Pluto was then thought to be the last planet of our solar system. Beyond...