Publisher details

Author: Catherine Norton
Publisher: HarperCollins
Genre: Children’s Fiction
Released: 31 July, 2024
ISBN: 9781460763179

Hester Hitchins and the Falling Stars

Catherine Norton

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Synopsis

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

Fans of The Fortune Maker will be sure to love Catherine Norton's enchanting new middle-grade historical fiction book.

It's 1866 and Hester Hitchins' father is missing at sea.

Determined to find him, eleven-year-old Hester wins a place at Addington's Nautical Navigation Academy, where she will learn to navigate by the stars. But the academy is just for boys, and what's more, no one seems to be in charge.

Bumbling schoolmaster Captain Slingsby doesn't know anything about navigation. Lord Addington is obsessed with building the world's biggest telescope and Lady Addington believes that falling stars are the souls of the dead.

With the help of a lodestone, her new friends Pru and Nelson, and a dazzling meteor storm, can Hester set things right - and find her own place in the universe?

Reviews

3 Reasons Why You Should Read Hester Hitchins and the Falling Stars by Catherine Norton

Review

Review

5 August 2024

3 Reasons Why You Should Read Hester Hitchins and the Falling Stars by Catherine Norton

Kids & Ya

About the author

Catherine Norton

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.