War is not suitable for children : and other stories / Judith O'Connor

"Stories of laughter and tears. A jealous young woman is trapped in remote bushland. Should she save her husband or let him die? A man travelling on top of a train during the Depression hurtles towards a tunnel not knowing if his head will be chopped off. Wartime prime minister, Ben Chifley, spins the chocolate wheel in a country town. An Irish wharfie juggles the moral dilemma between church and rugby during the militant Apartheid years. Which should he choose? The 1940s crooner Bing Crosby features in a moment of closeness between father and daughter. A set of Encyclopaedia Britannica leads a young mother straight to a charity shop in search of the meaning of sex. Other stories tell of the fear and danger of being alone on a remote snow-covered volcano; a confronting brush with the law and a conversation with a disinterested cat; a curly-haired boy whose mother is a chain-smoker; a teenager's near-death experience; and the whispered secrets of an old house."--Ginninderra Press.