Australia Day ~ Book Focus
Sun, Jan. 24th, 2010 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annarti
I'll be honest, I know of no post-worthy Australian authors for adults. I grew up living on Aussie authors, with only Roald Dahl as the exception to the rule. Morris Gleitzman, Paul Jennings, John Marsden, SO MANY children's and young adults' authors in this country that are household names, but once you leave school, nnnnot a lot. I trust the Aussies on my flist will correct me on this--bloody hope they will--but for the time being, here, have the childhood and adolescence of my nation :D
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie ~ May Gibbs
THE childhood of my nation. Written in about 1920, if I remember correctly, and still popular as ever. I remember learning to read with this book, and having Mum read it to me before bed, putting on voices for the possum and the lizard, and little Obelia who was GORGEOUS and eee yes. The art is absolutely stunning, so unique and beautiful. More scans from the book can be found here. DO LOVE.
The Muddle-Headed Wombat ~ Ruth Park
The book that made wombats my favourite animal :D We had this as a book-on-tape, too, that would get played on any long car journey or camping trip. I don't remember there really being an actual story so much as a lot of short stories about Wombat, Tabby and Mouse that were conveniently linked together into one. At one point, Tabby lost a tooth and got a gold tooth replacement. Wombat got jealous of his bling, so he painted all his own teeth gold, and made Mouse and Tabby think he'd knocked all his teeth out. Loved this book~ <3
The Tomorrow series ~ John Marsden
The adolescence of my nation, assuming you were an adolescent from the mid 80s, at least. It's a seven-part series that started out as a trilogy with Tomorrow, when the war began, but then the people wanted more~ and so Marsden gave us more~ :D The series has been so popular and so recognisable by those two strings of barbed wire that, by the time the final book was released, nine years after the first, the cover was just as you see there: black with the string of barbed wire. It's absolutely iconic.
As for the story itself, it's told from the perspective of a girl living in a country town on the day Australia gets invaded, and it's all just so incredibly REAL. You could really see these kids going through all that, the way they can never tell which country it is invading, or what's going on even 50km from their little town in the middle of nowhere. It's just them and it's awesome. I need to get onto buying the rest of them. Only got 2-4, and only the second is first edition (which is, let's face it, the most iconic and therefore the best). If I were to push just one from this list on you, it'd be Tomorrow, when the war began, no questions asked. Also, a movie is currently being made of it :DDDDD There's been talk of this happening for the past, what, 15 years? FINALLY HAPPENING EEE. I'm both excited and nervous. Please~ don't ruin my favourite Aussie books~
Looking for Alibrandi ~ Melena Marchetta
Another iconic novel that HAS been turned into a movie, not mentioned in the movies post because it's famous for being a book =3 Story of a girl going through year 12 in a rich bitch private school in Sydney who finds out more than she really wanted to know about her surname, Alibrandi. I stole Colin's copy because he had to read it for English when I never did =(
Blabbermouth ~ Morris Gleitzman
I could put about twenty books here for Morris Gleitzman, really. He was my absolute favourite author as a teenager. Often got compared to Roald Dahl for reasons I never saw as a kid and still don't oO Less (read: no) magic involved, just real-life situations that end up being... not so much. And he's still just as prolific an author now as he was then :DD Blabbermouth is about a girl who was born with bits missing from her throat and so she can't talk. It's just awesome the situations he throws his characters into XD
Unreal! ~ Paul Jennings
My other favourite author as a teenager :D Most famous for his Un- series (Unreal, Unmentionable, Uncovered, etc) which are all full of short stories, but he's written plenty of novels, too, like Gizmo which was one of my favourites :D Similar vein to Morris Gleitzman only more weird XD
Wicked! ~ Morris Gleitzman and Paul Jennings
ASdg/ahskjh this was my ULTIMATE FAVOURITE BOOK EVER. Well, series technically, but I swear they only cut it into six so they could each have a turn of being the first author listed on the cover. They were squibby little things and I think it only comes in single-book format now, but I have ALL SIX BOOKS which is awesome because, as you can see, the covers are pretty spectacular. OH GOD I LOVED THIS SO MUCH. My two favourite authors EVER (at the time) combined in one book. And even then I could tell their different styles. Jennings wrote one character's chapters, Gleitzman wrote the other. So fantastically twisted~ *^^* I hear they teamed up for another series, and I suddenly really want to get my hands on that. And also reread Wicked!
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie ~ May Gibbs
THE childhood of my nation. Written in about 1920, if I remember correctly, and still popular as ever. I remember learning to read with this book, and having Mum read it to me before bed, putting on voices for the possum and the lizard, and little Obelia who was GORGEOUS and eee yes. The art is absolutely stunning, so unique and beautiful. More scans from the book can be found here. DO LOVE.
The Muddle-Headed Wombat ~ Ruth Park
The book that made wombats my favourite animal :D We had this as a book-on-tape, too, that would get played on any long car journey or camping trip. I don't remember there really being an actual story so much as a lot of short stories about Wombat, Tabby and Mouse that were conveniently linked together into one. At one point, Tabby lost a tooth and got a gold tooth replacement. Wombat got jealous of his bling, so he painted all his own teeth gold, and made Mouse and Tabby think he'd knocked all his teeth out. Loved this book~ <3
The Tomorrow series ~ John Marsden
The adolescence of my nation, assuming you were an adolescent from the mid 80s, at least. It's a seven-part series that started out as a trilogy with Tomorrow, when the war began, but then the people wanted more~ and so Marsden gave us more~ :D The series has been so popular and so recognisable by those two strings of barbed wire that, by the time the final book was released, nine years after the first, the cover was just as you see there: black with the string of barbed wire. It's absolutely iconic.
As for the story itself, it's told from the perspective of a girl living in a country town on the day Australia gets invaded, and it's all just so incredibly REAL. You could really see these kids going through all that, the way they can never tell which country it is invading, or what's going on even 50km from their little town in the middle of nowhere. It's just them and it's awesome. I need to get onto buying the rest of them. Only got 2-4, and only the second is first edition (which is, let's face it, the most iconic and therefore the best). If I were to push just one from this list on you, it'd be Tomorrow, when the war began, no questions asked. Also, a movie is currently being made of it :DDDDD There's been talk of this happening for the past, what, 15 years? FINALLY HAPPENING EEE. I'm both excited and nervous. Please~ don't ruin my favourite Aussie books~
Looking for Alibrandi ~ Melena Marchetta
Another iconic novel that HAS been turned into a movie, not mentioned in the movies post because it's famous for being a book =3 Story of a girl going through year 12 in a rich bitch private school in Sydney who finds out more than she really wanted to know about her surname, Alibrandi. I stole Colin's copy because he had to read it for English when I never did =(
Blabbermouth ~ Morris Gleitzman
I could put about twenty books here for Morris Gleitzman, really. He was my absolute favourite author as a teenager. Often got compared to Roald Dahl for reasons I never saw as a kid and still don't oO Less (read: no) magic involved, just real-life situations that end up being... not so much. And he's still just as prolific an author now as he was then :DD Blabbermouth is about a girl who was born with bits missing from her throat and so she can't talk. It's just awesome the situations he throws his characters into XD
Unreal! ~ Paul Jennings
My other favourite author as a teenager :D Most famous for his Un- series (Unreal, Unmentionable, Uncovered, etc) which are all full of short stories, but he's written plenty of novels, too, like Gizmo which was one of my favourites :D Similar vein to Morris Gleitzman only more weird XD
Wicked! ~ Morris Gleitzman and Paul Jennings
ASdg/ahskjh this was my ULTIMATE FAVOURITE BOOK EVER. Well, series technically, but I swear they only cut it into six so they could each have a turn of being the first author listed on the cover. They were squibby little things and I think it only comes in single-book format now, but I have ALL SIX BOOKS which is awesome because, as you can see, the covers are pretty spectacular. OH GOD I LOVED THIS SO MUCH. My two favourite authors EVER (at the time) combined in one book. And even then I could tell their different styles. Jennings wrote one character's chapters, Gleitzman wrote the other. So fantastically twisted~ *^^* I hear they teamed up for another series, and I suddenly really want to get my hands on that. And also reread Wicked!
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Date: Sun, Jan. 24th, 2010 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tue, Jan. 26th, 2010 01:49 am (UTC)