my australian story – Aussie Reviews

My Australian Story: Vietnam, by Deborah Challinor

It’s supposed to be a fair way to decide who does national service and who doesn’t, but Mum reckons it isn’t. She says the fate of a mother’s son shouldn’t depend on a number picked out of a barrel. The marbles that go in the barrel have the days of the month on them. An agreed number of marbles are drawn out of the barrel, and if your birth date is on one, you’re ‘balloted in’.

It’s 1969 and Davey’s big brother Tom has been conscripted. Chosen because of his birthdate, he has no choice but to report for service. Soon, Tom is in Vietnam and his family are back home worrying about him. But there are other things happening in Davey’s life, too. He and his two best mates love surfing, and are determined to win the inaugural Newcastle Under-14 Championship. Thye are fascinated, too, by the planned moon landing, and follow preparations keenly. But growing up isn’t always fun, and Davey and his mates have some hard lessons to learn.

Vietnam , part of the My Australian Story series, is a wonderful diary format story giving an insight into Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War through the experiences of one family. It also offers a snapshot of late 1960s life, including the music of the time, key events in the year, the union movement, the impact of war on generations of Australians and more.

An excellent offering for primary aged readers.

My Australian Story: Vietnam , by Deborah Challinor
Scholastic Australia, 2015
ISBN 9781743628003

Convict Girl, by Chrissie Michaels

Almost one year ago I arrived in this colony on board an English transport. I am about to leave on board a French discovery ship…the Geographe…a journey I cannot fathom.

It is 1802 and fourteen year old Mary Beckwith is struggling to adjust to her new life. She and her mother have been transported for life to New South Wales, for stealing fabric. Assigned as nursemaid to a judge’s daughters, Mary tries hard to settle down and do her job, but it isn’t long before she falls foul of the lady of the house, and is sent to serve a French explorer, Nicholas Baudin, who is visiting the colony. Soon, Mary is travelling with the explorer, also crossing paths with Matthew Flinders as the two explorers make their Voyages of Discovery.

Convict Girl , part of the My Australian Story series, is a diary-format tale. As such we are offered insight into Mary’s thoughts and motivation, including her mixed feelings about what loyalty and honesty really mean. Set in the early days of the colony, readers are taken inside the life of the times, and issues such as the treatment of Aborigines and of convicts, as well as the journeys of the two famed explorers Baudin and Flinders.

A wonderfully accessible way to explore Australia’s history, the series is suitable for primary aged readers and younger teens.

Convict Girl (My Australian Story)

Convict Girl , by Chrissie Michaels
Scholastic, 2014
ISBN 9781743620151

Available from good bookstores and online .

Escape from Cockatoo Island by Yvette Poshoglian

Olivia has been sent from the orphanage in Newcastle where she grew up to Biloela on Cockatoo Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour. At Biloela, she is to learn the necessary skills for a house servant, before being placed with a Sydney family. The industrial school is more like a prison than a place of learning and Olivia struggles to survive here. The only compensation is that she meets new friends. Her needlework skills may be improving, but she is a long way from the school’s version of ‘employable’. Her writing skills must remain hidden, so she writes her diary at night under the covers. As her friends find families, Olivia begins to believe she will never escape from this island. Historical Notes at the end of the novel give background to the existence of this prison school on an island, and the reason there were so many girls there.

Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour

8^th August 1879

Tonight I clutch you to my heart, dear copybook. Thankfully your soft leather folds and my precious quill and ink were protected as we rowed from Kelly’s Bush and pulled ashore at the Fitzroy Dock.

Although the water was choppy and my petticoats got wet, I had you tucked safely into my bodice so that no one could find you. Your pages stayed dry and my name, Olivia Markham, hasn’t blotted on the front page where I wrote it last Christmas Day.

Escape from Cockatoo Island is a new offering in Scholastic’s My Australian Story series. Each title puts a fictional character in a particular place in Australian history. Escape from Cockatoo Island is told in first person and the reader has the opportunity to travel with the main character through their experiences. Olivia has been fortunate to be able to read and write, as so many of her companions cannot. Although she has been very accepting of her life so far, she begins to long for more. Other possible outcomes for Cockatoo Island residents are showcased in her friends and acquaintances. The reader also learns a little about ‘street arabs’ and other children who end up at the school. Recommended for upper primary readers.

Escape from Cockatoo Island , Yvette Poshoglian Scholastic Press 2013 ISBN: 9781742832456

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Available from good bookstores and online .

Sydney Harbour Bridge by Vashti Farrer

Billy Thompson and Alice Carson are children in 1931. Billy is part of a struggling working class family living in The Rocks. Alice lives on the north side, in a family more financially secure.

The Rocks, Wednesday, August 20, 1930

Bluey Waters,

c/o Happy Valley Camp, La Perouse

Dear Bluey,

I wish you could have been there. It was terrific! A bonza night, with enough noise for you to hear over your way. And all because the spans have joined! Me and Davo like to pretend the Bridge is a monster, a giant stick insect made of steel, with these big arms that are reaching out, ready to grab something. But one arm is a bit longer than the other and we think it might end up missing, only the engineers must know what they are doing. They’ve been building bridges for years and the Sydney Harbour Bridge for four at least, every day except Sundays and public holidays or when it’s too dangerous, like during heavy rain or high winds. The steel can get awfully slippery then, and there’s nothing to hang on to, no steps or handrails or anything.

Billy Thompson and Alice Carson are children in 1931. Billy is part of a struggling working class family living in The Rocks. Alice lives on the north side, in a family more financially secure. Both their lives and the lives of their families are bound up in the construction of the most famous bridge in Australia. In their alternating diary entries, the reader is presented with a number of differing perspectives of both the bridge and its construction and life in Sydney during the Depression era. Billy’s father is a donkeyman, riding the wire ropes that dangle down from the cranes. Alice’s father is an engineer. He ‘has to work out all the sizes and how the steel will fit together’. Bluey, Billy’s friend, and his family are moved to the euphemistically-named Happy Valley Camp when their rented home is ‘resumed’ to provide the land for the south-side bridge foundations.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge is an iconic structure recognised by most within and many beyond Australia. Although it may seem to Australians today as though the bridge has always been there, of course it hasn’t. Few people in Sydney can have been unaffected by the bridge construction. For some it was a curiosity, for others it meant losing their homes, and for yet others it provided much needed work. ‘Sydney Harbour Bridge’, a ‘My Australian Story’ series title, is a fictional account of life in 1931-1932, based on real events. In addition to the descriptions of the bridge construction, it is a dual social history of two different classes, neither with much awareness of the other. Readers will discover some of the joys and challenges of being an almost-teenager in another time. Recommended for upper primary and anyone interested in social history and how an icon was built.

Sydney Harbour Bridge, Vashti Farrer
Scholastic 2012
ISBN: 9781741699530

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

The Phar Lap Mystery, by Sophie Masson

April 3, 1931
It’s funny how some days that start of well can end up really badly. Today, my eleventh birthday, was just like that. It was bright and sunny when I woke up, and Dad sang happy birthday to me at breakfast and gave me a new set of pencils and this diary. he knows how much I love writing, and that I want to be a writer when I grow up. So he picked out a really nice one for me, it’s even got a tiny key so you can lock it up and no-one can poke their nose into what you’ve written! He said, ‘This is for you to practise, sweetheart, because all famous writers have to start somewhere!’

It’s the 1930s in Australia – Depression time – and Sally and Dad are doing it tough. Dad’s a private detective, but he hasn’t worked for months. Then he gets a call about investigating attacks on Phar Lap, the most famous horse in Australia. It pays well and Sally begins to see her old happy Dad, not the grump he’s been lately. It’s just Sally and Dad since Mum’s death, so Sally travels with Dad to Melbourne to begin the investigation. She keeps track of what’s going on in her diary, seeing it as practice for her future career as a mystery writer. But it’s all very exciting too, as she gets to meet Phar Lap and the people who look after him. Fact blends with fiction as Sally and her dad follow Phar Lap’s fortunes and fame across the ocean to America and Mexico. And throughout, Sally maintains her diary, documenting her own life, as well as Phar Lap’s.

Phar Lap is well-known now to most Australians, but what was it like to be around when he was actually winning races? Sophie Masson takes the reader back in time to show them what it was like to be living alongside a legend. What Australians remember now is a fast, good-looking horse, universally loved. But of course nothing is ever that simple. A horse that wins every race is no good to bookies who make their money on the chance that a horse will win, not the certainty. Sally is exposed to the romance of the unbeatable Phar Lap but also the criminal elements of the racing world. Sally’s diary spans a year from her eleventh to her twelfth birthday. As well as recording the excitement of the Phar Lap story, she documents the evolution of her ‘family’ from just Dad, to include friends new and old, locally, interstate and internationally. Recommended for upper primary readers.

The Phar Lap Mystery, Sophie Masson
Scholastic Press 2010
ISBN: 9781741697278

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author
www.clairesaxby.com.

This book can be purchased in good bookstores or online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

The Hunt for Ned Kelly, by Sophie Masson

I do not think that anyone alive in our time will ever forget Ned Kelly. I know I never shall. Was he a hero? Was he a villain? I cannot say, even now. But he will live in my memory forever, the dark and the bright, together.

It is 1879 and 12 year old Jamie Ross and his older sister Ellen are travelling through Victoria. The Kelly Gang is on the roam, but Jamie and Ellen are not afraid. Rather, Ellen is hoping to have the opportunity to photograph them and make her fortune.

But their encounters with the Kelly’s and their supporters are not as they expect, and when the chance to take the photo arises, the chance to make money is no longer as exciting as it seems.

The Hunt for Ned Kelly is a diary format story exploring the life and times of Ned Kelly through the experiences of a child character. Like other titles in the My Australian Story series, the story combines fiction with history to give young readers a personal experience of this piece of history.

The Hunt for Ned Kelly will appeal to upper primary aged readers.

The Hunt for Ned Kelly (My Australian Story), by Sophie Masson
Scholastic, 2010

This title can be purchased online from Fishpond . Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Atomic Testing, by Alan Tucker

Dad warned us we’d either love it or hate it here. Mum hates it. Or at least I think she does, because she’s done a mountain of grizzling since we arrived last Saturday. She hates the dust and the flies. And she hates that there are hardly any other women here. Dad said she’ll meet a few at the barbecue this weekend.
I love it. There are a lot of kids my age. They’re friendly because they’re all fairly new to town. They don’t call Woomera a town. They call it ‘the village’.

Moving from Townsville to isolated Woomera is a big change for Anthony’s family. His father works for the army and has been assigned to work on the top-secret atomic testing programme. His mother, who had friends, a garden and a pleasant lifestyle in Townsville, hates Woomera, and doesn’t agree with the atomic testing. For Anthony, though, life at Woomera is great. He has spent the past six years recovering from polio, and Woomera gives him the freedom to rediscover his childhood. He soon makes friends and has fun exploring the desert around the town site, playing cricket, and having loads of adventures.

Atomic Testing is a new title in the My Australian Story series and, like others titles in the series, uses diary format. Anthony is a likeable narrator, and the use of a background of childhood illness allows his adventures an extra element – as he finds added delight in doing things which for other young teens might be run of the mill, including riding a bike for the first time, and being allowed to play cricket. As well as being an interesting story, the book offers a glimpse at a significant part of Australian history which many young readers may know little about, and explores issues both of the time period and of contemporary times, including war and weaponry, family breakdown and childhood illness.

Atomic Testing, by Alan Tucker
Scholastic, 2009

This book can be purchased online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

Outback, by Christine Harris

Before I came up north, I imagined that the outback would be dead quiet. But it never is. The bush is alive. It might sound silly, but it’s true. There’s the wind shaking leaves or blowing dust. Bird calls. The pounding of kangaroos…And even on a day when there is no wind and no animals or birds close by, if you sit really still you can hear bugs scratching under tree bark.

When Jimmy Porter’s dad is sent to prison, Jimmy is sent to live with relatives he’s never met, who live in Central Australia. It is 1927 and life in the outback is harsh. There is no communication with the outside world, no power, water supplies, education or shopping facilities. Jimmy misses his father and their city life, but soon comes to see the beauty of this strange place, and to form a bond with the cousins who make up his new ‘family’. When disaster strikes, Jimmy and his young cousins have to trek for help.

Outback is a diary-form novel, part of Scholastic’s My Australian Story series. Jimmy’s story is one which will intrigue young readers, with its contrasts to modern life. Harris creates likeable characters, set amidst events which are both exciting and significant. The storyline also provides an opportunity for readers to learn about the birth of the Flying Doctor service, and its importance to remote communities.

Outback: The Diary of Jimmy Porter, by Christine Harris
Scholastic, 2005

New Gold Mountain, by Christopher W Cheng

I hate being here. I feel lonely. I miss Baba and Mama, and I feel not worthy because I cannot earn enough gold to send back to China and I can’t pay respects to Baba at his grave.

Shu Cheong came to Australia with his father and Third Uncle in search of gold and a new life for their family back home. But now Father and Third Uncle are dead and Shu Cheong is in the care of a new uncle who is not really his uncle at all. They are living and working on the goldfields at Lambing Flat.

Life is hard for all of the gold miners, but particularly so for the Chinese, who have to face the increasing hostility of the white miners. Shu Cheong shares his day to day life and his community’s battle for a fair go, through first person diary entries.

This is a story of hardship, but also about hope, as author Christopher Cheng shares a sad, but important tale of a part of Australian history with which most children would not be familiar. Part of the My Australian Story collection, this hardback offering is suitable for private reading, but would also make an outstanding addition to classroom or library collections.

My Australian Story: New Gold Mountain, by Christopher W. Cheng
Scholastic Press, 2005

Our Enemy , My Friend, by Jenny Blackman

We had taken our shoes off to walk over the ford, when Rob, Johnny, Dave and Richard jumped out at us from the bushes on the far side of the ford. I screamed at them, but that didn’t help. They pushed Hannelore and Ruth into the creek and sang out, ‘Clean up the dirty Huns.’

Before the war Emma and Hannelore were best friends. But now Australia is at war against the Germans and Hannelore is German – or is she? Emma must balance what she sees around her, what she is told and what she feels is right.

Set in the village of Wirreebilla in the Adelaide Hills in 1915, this diary-format offering provides a child’s perspective on the society and events of the day. The district has a large population of German settlers, many of whom have been in Australia for several generations. Now, though, they are being treated as the enemy as other locals see them and their German traditions as a threat to their existence and as a daily reminder of the horrors of the war their boys are away fighting.

This offering is part of Scholastic’s My Story series, a series which focusses on the lives of children in various times and places in history. Emma’s diary is set in a significant era of Australian and world history, yet offers an insight into events about which primary aged children may be unaware. As well as the major plot exploring the issues of a nation at war, there are also explorations of family life and education during that time period.

Our Enemy, My Friend is a high interest, accessible offering for primary aged readers.

Our Enemy, My Friend, by Jenny Blackman
Scholastic, 2005