Tommy Bell Bushranger Boy: Shoot-out at the Rock

Book excerpt: CBCA Children’s Book of the Year – Notable 2017. Included on the South Australian Premier’s Reading Challenge list. An exciting new Australian adventure series full of danger, daring and wild colonial boys! Tommy Bell, Bushranger Boy is a wonderful new series featuring Tommy’s time travelling escapades that take him face-to-face with some of Australia’s most notorious bushrangers. The hero of the series, Tommy Bell, lives in regional NSW in contemporary times but is able to travel back in time to the gold rush days by wearing an old bushranger’s hat that he discovered on his grandfather’s farm. Tommy and his friends find themselves up close and personal with one of Australia’s well known outlaws. With each adventure there is plenty of danger and excitement: armed hold-ups, sieges, frauds, shoot-outs, police chases, jail-time and much more. Each book cleverly incorporates a parallel story from Tommy’s twenty-first century life that tests his friendships and develops his character. Book 1 – Shoot-out at the Rock Tommy Bell has been sent to work on his grandparents’ farm for the school holidays. He doesn’t want to go, but when he discovers an old bushranger’s hat hidden in a cave, everything changes. Suddenly he is sent back to the gold rush days and finds himself face-to-face with the bushranger Captain Thunderbolt! At first, the life of a bushranger seems full of thrills and adventure. But Tommy soon learns that it is full of danger as well…