John Midas in the Dreamtime — Patrick Skene Catling

When John Midas enters a forbidden cave in the Australian Outback, he stumbles into the beginning of time!

John Midas thinks this Christmas vacation could be his best ever -- the Midas family is bound for Australia! But they spend most of their time sightseeing in big cities like Sydney. John's mother and his fact-spouting sister are making this trip as boring as a school lesson.

John is relieved when they finally leave for Ayers Rock, one of the oldest mountains in the world, in the heart of the Australian Outback. While his family examines ancient cave paintings, John wanders into the forbidden sacred caves of Ayers, and into a very different world. He finds himself in the Dreamtime, the mythical place where time itself began. Here John must use his twentieth-century knowledge to teach the Australian aborigines the most basic survival skills -- like how to make a fire!