My son is studying Nadia Wheatley’s wonderful book My Place, in class. He is enthralled! He has long been fascinated by history and Australian history has always been a favourite of his. In fact he has been watching the My Place TV series avidly for sometime. In an effort to help him explore the book [...]
Recently I was lucky enough to be a part of the Penguin Secondary Professional Development day, at which Dr Susan LaMarca spoke about units of work for the classroom. One of the novels she mentioned was The Reluctant Fundamentalist- Mohsin Hamid. I had never heard of this particular novel, but listening to Dr LaMarca, I [...]
What a beautiful, beautiful book. Sally Rippin has such a delightfully lyrical quality to her writing style, a cadence, that is best described as melodic. Angel Creek is no exception. It has just enough of everything…adventure, intrigue, a surprising (and refreshing) take on what Angels might be like, friendship, heartache and lots of giggles. Angel Creek, [...]
Eerily prescient. The entire time I was reading The Unidentified- Rae Mariz, my subconscious was exploring what I already know to be true of the teenagers I interact with daily and how media and advertising affects their lives. I pondered the premise Mariz explores in this novel, a world where Education has become a Game, [...]
HAPPY HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY TO LEANNE HALL!!!!! Finally, I get to post my review of Leanne’s unforgettable book, This is Shyness… If you’ve ever had one of those strange and seemingly endless nights where the impossible feels possible and the very darkness seems imbued with the promise of dangerous adventure, if you’ve ever met someone [...]
WOW. I realise I run the risk of sounding like a complete idiot by starting my review with this word, but I kid you not. Its where I am at. I’m going out on a limb here and making assumptions that most all of us have had to read Shakespeare at some point in our [...]
I believe that the ability to ‘write’ the complexity of families and friendships is a true gift that sadly, few master. I often find there is usually an awkwardness or a falsity of feeling to most of them. No one writes people like Melina Marchetta. In my review of her latest novel The Piper’s Son [...]
Hall Leanne 9781921656521 United Book Distributors 02 Aug 2010 NYP Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to read Leanne Hall’s much anticipated debut novel This Is Shyness. (Clicking on the cover illustration will take you to Leanne’s Blog) I will not be posting my full review at this time, rather I will wait until [...]
“Ned is a teenager with an encyclopedic knowledge of Australian Bush rangers. He is also autistic. Erin is a sixteen year old trouble magnet trying to make a fresh start in a new town.Ned never speaks, Erin rarely stops- and when she stands up to a bully the consequences are catastrophic.” Sometimes, we as readers [...]
