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  • Published: 1 May 2010
  • ISBN: 9781864714661
  • Imprint: Random House Australia
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 348

Hunting Elephants




Sometimes, when you search for the truth, you find you're just . . . Hunting Elephants.

Sometimes, when you search for the truth, you find you're just . . . Hunting Elephants.

Harry reads books, he asks questions; he's a naturally curious young man. So when he and his parents head out to the country for Great-uncle Frank's fourth wedding, he prepares himself. He learns what he can before they leave. After all, he doesn't want to look stupid when Frank's time in the Vietnam War comes up in conversation. If it comes up.

But perhaps Harry has more to worry about than an old man's war stories. Is there a crazed gunman in the bush? And what's being kept hidden in the old caravan behind Frank's house? Besides, Harry has scars and memories and guilt of his own to deal with, which won't be easy while ever he's surrounded by truths that sound like lies, and lies that might just be true.

Like Captain Mack and Billy Mack's War, this novel bravely takes the young reader into the real world, where the assumptions we make can sometimes be dead wrong, and where the things we refuse to talk about might be bigger than we ever imagined.

  • Published: 1 May 2010
  • ISBN: 9781864714661
  • Imprint: Random House Australia
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 348

About the author

James Roy

James Roy was born in western New South Wales in 1968 and spent much of his childhood in Papua New Guinea and Fiji, adventuring by day and reading books at night. Then one day, tired of reading books by dead people, he decided to start writing his own. Since his first novel was released in 1996, James has written a number of critically acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction for young people, including the CBCA Honour Books Captain Mack and Billy Mack's War, and six CBCA Notable Books. In 2008, Town won the Ethel Turner Prize for Young People’s Literature in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, as well as the Golden Inky in Australia’s only teenage choice awards. Anonymity Jones won the 2010 Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for young adult literature.

James lives with his family in the Blue Mountains. He enjoys trying to make music and art, doesn’t like olives very much, and hasn’t entirely abandoned his dream of sailing around the world.

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Praise for Hunting Elephants

PRAISE FOR CAPTAIN MACK