Pat M Jang: 3 books

When I was growing up I lived in more than ten houses. I can remember five on the prairies and five on the coast. This is about houses, but it's also about schools, friends, sisters, my mother, my childhood. I've changed the names of streets, places and people.

Their parents are somewhere else. Uncle Houston is away at sea. Delphinia, Hector, their little brother Horatio and their shy cousin Addie, who doesn't know any of these people, travel to Uncle Houston's lonely, isolated house on the Hoot Peninsula for a holiday at the edge of the ocean...

Their mother and father are far away, working on the other side of the world. The goldfish are gone and now, out in their long green backyard, the fishpond is only empty water with rocky edges. Teeka and Tugg decide they need a pet. One that's easy to look after, not a big nuisance. But what should it be? An ordinary animal or an unusual creature?