Description:From award-winning author Diane Armstrong comes a dramatic and heartwarming novel which brilliantly evokes postwar Sydney. A heart-warming novel in the tradition of CLOUDStREEt and tHE HARP IN tHE SOUtH Empire Day, 1948. A back street in Bondi is transformed as the fireworks of Cracker Night cast a magical glow over its humble cottages. But Australia as a whole is being transformed in this postwar era and the people of Wattle Street know that life will never be the same again. the 'reffos' have moved in, and their strange ways are threatening the comfortable world of salt-of-the-earth locals like Pop Wilson, deserted mum Kath and sharp-tongued Maude McNulty. With suspicious and disapproving eyes, the Australians observe their new neighbours - mysterious Mr Emil, fragile young Lilija and all the other Europeans starting their lives afresh. Mistrust and misunderstandings abound on both sides. to Hania, an angry teenager struggling to cope with her hysterical mother, and to Sala, an...