Bind-Up Edition.

These two popular and award-winning stories are now combined in one book! Hailed at the time of its original publication as Australia’s first multicultural book for children, Five Times Dizzy and its sequel, Dancing in the Anzac Deli, speak to today’s young Australians just as they did to their first generation of readers.

Five Times Dizzy tells the story of Mareka Nikakis and her beloved grandmother, Yaya. Newly-arrived from Greece, Yaya is so homesick that Mareka decides to get her a goat as a way of making her feel at home in her new country. To bring this about, Mareka needs to make friends with the other kids and neighbours of Smith Street. In the final scenes, the community celebration brings the whole neighbourhood together.

In Dancing in the Anzac Deli, the Smith Street kids and their parents find their homes and happiness threatened by outsiders. Once again it is the strength of community spirit (and a little bit of ancient Greek Magic from Yaya) that breaks the evil spell.

The combined stories were produced in 1986 as the television mini-series, Five Times Dizzy, with a script by Nadia Wheatley and Terry Larsen. When this went to air on the Special Broadcasting Service, it was the first Australian children’s television series to be set in a multicultural Australian community.