Text Classics: Careful, He May Hear You

‘Oh, aren’t you lucky, PS.’
‘Goodness, what a lucky boy.’
‘What a treat!’
‘Your Aunt Vanessa is coming.’
Vanessa was coming all the way from England back to Australia and she was coming on a piano boat.

It’s the Great Depression. Six-year-old PS is an orphan. He lives in Sydney with his Aunt Lila. But all that is about to change. Now his Aunt Vanessa has decided to take proper care of him.

Careful, He Might Hear You is one of the most extraordinary portraits of childhood in Australian fiction.