Unseen is the ninth in a series of collections of short stories by Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n author Paul Jennings

Paul Jennings (Australian author)

Paul Jennings AM is an English-born Australian children's book writer. His books mainly feature short stories that lead the reader through an unusual series of events that end with a twist.-Biography:...

. It was first released in 1998.

One-Finger Salute

A boy always gets the rude finger from the school bully when he walks home from school, and does nothing about it because he doesn't have middle fingers himself. So one day, he eats a lizard's tail, and he ends up growing new fingers. However, it's not long before his fingers become more of an embarassment than anything else.

Round the Bend

On the way to a sports game, some boys run over a dog; they try to get the dog replaced before its owners find out. They later find out it's the work of a taxidermist.

Seeshell

A boy gets a job fishing with triplet brothers. He gets a crush on their sister, though the brothers really hate it when anyone kisses her. One day, while fishing, they find a seashell that has an eye in it; whenever the shell opens, the nearest person sees a vision about something that does eventually come true.

Piddler on the Roof

A sequel to the Unmentionable

Unmentionable

Unmentionable is the sixth in a series of collections of short stories by Australian author Paul Jennings. It was first released in 1991.-Ice Maiden:...

 story Little Squirt. When the water in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

 becomes contaminated, Weesle is forced to stay with his aunt in the countryside. He dislikes his aunt because she is a health freak, and her son enjoys telling on Weesle whenever he does anything even remotely wrong.

Ticker

An old man has a watch that runs on his movement whenever he wears it. When he dies, he loses it, and his wife is unable to feel happy. However, their grandson tries to get the watch back and make his grandmother happy.

Guts

A man tries to buy land from another man. When the man owning the land refuses, the other man steals his car. The man sends his children to look for the car; however, the forest they live near is believed to be haunted by a ghost that can change shape, force people and animals into it, and eat them.

Shadows

A boy goes to the fairground, but has no money, so he offers a job to clean the floor of the hall of mirrors. However, all the reflections seem to come to life.

Squawk Talk

A boy gets a toilet seat stuck on his head (and a parrot following him) and makes belittling comments to anyone who teases him about it. But for those who do offer to help him, the parrot forces him to repeat the belittling comments.

Reception and Awards

Unseen won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Children's Books in 1999.

External links

• The book at Paul Jennings's site