Your brother or sister, it might be said, is your other self - your grander, sadder, braver, shrewder, uglier, slenderer self. A girl sneaks into her brothersÕ rooms to go through their pockets while theyÕre out. A man boards a plane to go to his brotherÕs funeral. Another manÕs brother comes home from jail. A young woman watches her sister embrace life and London while she is left behind. Two girls compete for the colour pink and their fatherÕs love. Trespass and abandonment, old secrets and new truths, rivalry and protection, love and fear: twelve of AustraliaÕs best writers tell surprising stories of the abiding bonds - bad, beautiful or broken - between brothers and sisters.

Your brother or sister, it might be said, is your other self - your grander, sadder, braver, shrewder, uglier, slenderer self. A girl sneaks into her brothers rooms to go through their pockets while theyre out. A man boards a plane to go to his brothers funeral. Another mans brother comes home from jail. A young woman watches her sister embrace life and London while she is left behind. Two girls compete for the colour pink and their fathers love. Trespass and abandonment, old secrets and new truths, rivalry and protection, love and fear: twelve of Australias best writers tell surprising stories of the abiding bonds - bad, beautiful or broken - between brothers and sisters.

Charlotte Wood (far right) with her brother Simon and sister Bernadette at the beach, somewhere on the New South Wales South Coast, in 1969. Photo by their father, John Wood.