Colin Thiele's "Fire in the Stone" [is] gripping…. Here with a vengeance is the real world: the world of Ernie, who lives alone with his wastrel father in a house dug out of sandstone, in the strange lovely-desolate part of Central Australia where men seek their fortunes in the opal fields….

This is a marvelous novel, not only bringing Australia to vivid life but giving the young reader an uncompromising, provocative picture of the situation of man.