opening lines

I love a great opening line.

You know these classics, but here are the first sentences (sometimes first two) of the books currently on my to-read (or recently read) pile:

I said a silent prayer.
Actually, silent is probably the only type of prayer a guy should attempt when his head's in a toilet.

– Winger, Andrew Smith

Tommy was a talker and didn't much like the other ghosts, so he was forever talking to Kelpie.

– Razorhurst, Justine Larbalestier

 'I think Bill is in love with Mrs Peck,' I confide to an undersized blue swimmer crab that has become all tangled up in my line.

– The Minnow, Diana Sweeney

The ring is small and space is tight, and their circles feel like flying.

– The One and Only Jack Chant, Rosie Borella

The first thing we had to do was catch the Tralfamosaur.

– The Eye of Zoltar, Jasper Fforde

It happened before Jack was born.
When Amrei was six, a spider appeared on her shoulder.

– No Stars to Wish On, Zana Fraillon

The first thing is the smell of blood and coffee.

– Why We Took the Car, Wolfgang Herrndorf

The ground is hard and dry. The dirt yields grudgingly as the gravedigger thrusts his shovel in.

– The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka, Clare Wright

 And how about this breath-taker:

It took slightly under eight hours for Melbourne to die.

– Pandora Jones: Admission, Barry Jonsberg

the museum of australian children's literature

This is a good place, with weekend bread* all week long, it's a writers' retreat where I don't have to pay, where there are fresh eggs, sixteen puppies and four dogs.

There's Where the Forest Meets the Sea, Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge and Barbro Lindgren's The Wild Baby**.

There's all those Paul Jennings Un- books and The Wayne Manifesto and Penny Pollard's Diary.

There's Killer McKenzie, a whole mess of well-thumbed Margaret Clark books, about fifteen copies of Bridge to Wiseman's Cove, advance reader copies of late-90s Australian YA, there's Margo Lanagan's perfect Touching Earth Lightly.

I haven't lived at "home" since I was seventeen, but that just makes going to visit even better. And it's not just the puppies and the homemade sourdough and the lovely things to read...

*at my house we only buy special sourdough (like Irrewarra or Phillippa's or Zeally Bay) on the weekends, for a treat.
**not Australian. but still the best.

KYD YA Championship

Kill Your Darlings have asked a whole lot of book-reading, YA-loving, story-defending people to passionately put forward the case for a particular Australian young adult book from the past 30 years. The posts will go up between July 30 and August 17 on their blog.

Then, it's over to everyone else. That's you. Once you've calmly and rationally read all the persuasive posts and weighed the choices and considered it properly and seriously, you can vote for my chosen book to win. How fun!

Actually, you can vote for whichever title you would like, and there will be a top three. You'll also be in the running to win a whole bunch of books from Penguin, Allen & Unwin and Hardie Grant Egmont*.

The book I'm championing is one of these ones. It also appears here ... though perhaps not one of the ones pictured *hint hint*.

But what was really hard is that there are so many amazing, brilliant, canonical, damn-tootin' excellent and fab Australian YA books from the past thirty years (which is almost my whole lifetime) that I wished I could have campaigned heartily for more. But I could only stand behind one, so I've gathered my lackies and we're getting behind my title with - err - croquet mallets (?) in hand.

Visit the Killings blog here.

*Disclaimer, or whatever: I work for HGE. 

90s YA classics

Come, gather round, ye young adults of the 1990s! What were the the stories you leafed through during your painful adolescences? These were some of the significant titles of mine:

People Might Hear You (Robin Klein) Frances' aunt and guardian has married a man who belongs to a religious cult and soon Frances is literally locked inside a big house and forced to live - and frightened into living - by their restrictive rules. This is one that's as powerful on my 32nd reading as it was on the first. The powerlessness that she feels, the same feeling that Professer Umbridge evokes in The Order of the Phoenix ... shudder.

Steven Herrick's Love, ghosts and nose hair. Probably the first verse novel I read and still one of my favourites. And its sequel A Place Like This. Guitar Highway Rose, which I've blathered on about in the past. Not to mention After January, by Nick Earls: the best in-between-school-and-the-real-world novel, and which you can read about here and here.

Cried my way through Peeling the Onion, about karate champion Anna and the trauma she goes through following a terrible car accident. Wendy Orr's book is wonderfully written - the descriptions of Anna's pain and the ways she shows how Anna's accident affects the rest of the family, and her friendships. Caused me anguish, but gives us all hope!

And Isobelle Carmody's terrifying The Gathering, which our grade 6 teacher Mrs Chappell read to us and we sneaked in during lunch to read ahead ... and we read ahead to chapter 26 when the terrible, awful, sickening thing happens. The stench of Cheshunt, the frightening Kraken and the group of mysterious misfits that Nathanial meets - it's a story of good and evil, light and dark. It's that brilliant mix of real world and paranormal that grabs you and draws you in, almost against your will.

Before David Levithan and Rachel Cohn paired up to write their dual-narrative books, Gary Crew and Libby Hathorn wrote Dear Venny, Dear Saffron, which tells the story of bogan Vinny and New York City artist Saffy, who begin exchanging letters and we follow their stories over a couple of years and all the amazing highs and devastating lows of their lives.

There were others: Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get A Life (Maureen McCarthy), and Margaret Clark's ridonkulous backlist, Joanne Horniman's Loving Athena, Libby Hathorn's Thunderwith. Letters from the Inside and Tomorrow, When the War Began (all of John Marsden's, actually), Touching Earth Lightly by Margo Lanagan, Phillip Gwynne's Deadly, Unna?, Borrowed Light by Anna Fienberg. I think this is a list to be continued. Watch this space.

When I read books now I try to think of what my teenage self would think. It's harder than it seems. I'm more of a cynic now, and I don't read YA in order to experience things (which i think is one of the greatest strengths of YA). Perhaps there's a sense of nostalgia. How lucky was I to have a bookseller for a Mama Bear?

Memory Lane, The Basics*






*oh Gotye. I'm still "looking over my shoulder" for you to come back to The Basics. *UPDATE* The Basics show at the Empress on 22nd July was the best thing - thank you Wally, for obviously reading this blog and putting the show on for me. Or the Empress's 25th bday, whatever.

review : clara in washington

Clara in Washington, Penny Tangey (UQP)

When Loving Richard Feynman was released in 2009 it was really exciting to discover a new, vibrant YA voice. LRF, shortlisted in the CBC older readers category, is about family, friendship and disillusionment. The protagonist Catherine was smart and set herself apart from the gang - she's aloof, kooky and hilariously, humanly flawed.

Clara in Washington is a fabulous follow-up. Clara has decided to spend the summer holidays after finishing Year 12 in wintery Washington DC with her mum - by way of escaping a certain someone back home and trying to avoid thinking and talking about her exam results and university choices.

Clara is terrified to leave the apartment at first, imagining muggings and terrorist attacks, people not understanding her. But faced with looking like she's not having a good time to friends back home, Clara soon finds herself volunteering with a number of organisations and charities (so she can post "put my name down to volunteer at a homeless women's shelter" on her facebook and feel a little bit superior) and visiting monuments and museums galore, as well as falling in with a group of anarchists. She's not a Rah-Rah-Rah do-gooder, but doing some good might do her good.

Clara is very smart, but she's book smart. Not savvy, not confident and not even very nice sometimes. She cuts herself off from her friends, stops replying to emails and, when results come out, refuses to look up her score. But in spite of her defences the reader can tell she wants to make connections. In discussions with friends about Clara it's been suggested she's "passive", that she just lets things happen to her. She's on the lazy size, with crippling anxiety about getting things wrong (to the extent that it is a little annoying) and a bit of a know-it-all. But! It didn't take me long to feel for Clara, or to sympathise with her and I think she comes across as a very realistic character - and, within her own parametres, pretty brave.

As well as being a personal journey, and something of a romance, Clara in Washington also explores politics, government and social justice. Learning to think for oneself, while also listening to what others have to say - is this the very definition of coming-of-age?

Penny Tangey has peopled her novel with a cast of interesting characters - the slightly crazy ladies at the shelter are just gorgous - and it was great to watch (read?) Clara interact with all the different people she meets and gets to know, and see how they help her settle into Washington, how they help her make the most of this opportunity. If you'd like to, you can imagine the anarchists Campbell and Eric like this:

Clara in Washington is laugh out loud funny. Clara's dry sense of humour and almost manic paranoia amused one greatly.

Read My Girl Friday's review.
Read the Fancy Goods review here.

review : yellowcake

yellowcake, margo lanagan (allen & unwin)

forgive me.

i read this a long time ago and meant to write about it straight away, but the stories cased within this beautiful cover are not simple tales to read and flippantly comment on. they are convoluted and mysterious, beautiful and twistedly grotesque.

heads remains looming in my mind, the story in which a golden haired boy portrays innocence and busyness and a sense of purpose in a horrible world where something awful has happened and he's not sure why.

also ferryman, which broke my heart with its light and loving banter between father and daughter ("scowling sarah") combined with the grief and "the ragged crying all around us in the hole, that is me; these two are silent in their cleaving. i lean and howl against them and at last they take me in, lock me in with them."

a honest day's work is truly a stand-out as well, in which a townful of labourers working to butcher and make use of a beast washed up in their harbour, as told from the perspective of a young boy with a crippled foot participating in his first day of work. watching for the 'sizable' 'incoming' and the careful work they do, slicing here and oh watch out, a nerve has made the arm jolt. no - the beast awakens. when it stands, tries to put its skull back on - at once revolting and most certainly fascinating. and the guilt and the shame is evident, at the way they carry out their work, hardly considering the life form that once was. "it could be mistaken for a person, this one." fracks. i have shivers, and a sinking feeling in my stomach, even now.

and if i may borrow from my friend clare, whose review in bookseller+publisher was just...just so.

she wrote: each piece in this collection is truly elegant, and each possesses a haunting, often unnerving quality that leaves the innards of the story lingering long after the last page is turned...lanagan's masterful use of language continues to astonish, with turns of phrase so perfect that you want to roll them around in your mouth until all the goodness is sucked from them and her ability to create powerful stories that demand serious contemplation is unrivalled. the often dark subject matter varies greatly, as each story is wildly different, but the skill with which it is handled is never compromised. yellowcake should eked out over time, each story to be savoured.

what is truly impressive - and is evident in all of margo's work - is the way she can create a world, a community in her stories, no matter how short. she breathes life into her characters and her settings, using language in such a wonderful and inventive way. she explores the physical in a way not many writers do and every story will just blow you away. mindfuck, yes. comfortable, not always.

inspiring and overwhelming? yes, always.


read this review by raych of books i done read.

go and read margo's other books: white time, black juice, red spikes, tender morsels and the upcoming "selkie novel" now officially named sea hearts.
you can also read her blog: among amid while.
many thanks to margo for sending me a copy.

where's the buzz?

after hardly any bloggery, tweeting buzz (i am very disappointed in everyone. did you not read loving richard feynman??) an advance copy of clara in washington by penny tangey (UQP) arrived at the shop and it is brilliant. very clever, funny and touching as clara (often anxiously) navigates the social and political streets of washington dc, while trying not to think about her year twelve results and wondering what the heck she wants to do when she grows up. and trying not to get mugged or murdered on the subway. and she makes friends with some anarchists.

plus, coffee.

this bit of the book was particularly fun for me. american coffee is really, really bad. this is me drinking it:

clara in washington is released (according to titlepage) on 27 june. that's not far away! i'll review it properly around then.

read about it at penguin books.
go see penny at the melbourne writers festival.

history, herstory, mystory

Nanberry: Black Brother White, Jackie French (Harper Collins)

Shan't say much just yet. Handed in my review to B+P recently and I believe it has to be one of the best books I've read this year and is a top-notch example of excellent historical fiction.

from the HarperCollins website: It′s 1789, and as the new colony in Sydney Cove is established, Surgeon John White defies convention and adopts Nanberry, an Aboriginal boy, to raise as his son. Nanberry is clever and uses his unique gifts as an interpreter to bridge the two worlds he lives in. With his white brother, Andrew, he witnesses the struggles of the colonists to keep their precarious grip on a hostile wilderness. And yet he is haunted by the memories of the Cadigal warriors who will one day come to claim him as one of their own. This true story follows the brothers as they make their way in the world - one as a sailor, serving in the Royal Navy, the other a hero of the Battle of Waterloo. No less incredible is the enduring love between the gentleman surgeon and the convict girl, saved from the death penalty, to become a great lady in her own right.

The Ivory Rose, Belinda Murrell (Random House)

Conversely, I was disappointed with The Ivory Rose. It has a great premise and plot but lacks sophistication in its delivery.

Jemma has just landed her first job, babysitting Sammy. It's in Rosethorne, one of the famous witches' houses near where she lives. Sammy says the house is haunted by a sad little girl, but Jemma doesn't know what to believe.

One day when the two girls are playing hide and seek, Jemma discovers a rose charm made of ivory. As she touches the charm she sees a terrifying flashback. Is it the moment the ghost was murdered? Jemma runs for her life, falling down the stairs and tumbling into unconsciousness.

She wakes up in 1895, unable to get home. Jemma becomes an apprentice maidservant at Rosethorne - but all is not well in the grand house. Young heiress Georgiana is constantly sick. Jemma begins to suspect Georgiana is being poisoned, but who would poison her, and why? Jemma must find the proof in order to rescue her friend - before time runs out.

See? Great, exciting premise. But too much exposition in sometimes-stilted dialogue causes the story to drag. It's also a little bit prescriptive. There are slabs of text that describe the ways of life in 1885 that read as lessons, rather than woven in to enrich the world subtly. When Jemma runs into Henry Parkes at the apothecary shop she fortuitously is able to recollect her school history class and dictate the lesson to the reader and the father of federation himself.

The characters suffer from being cookie-cutter shapes and tending towards the one-dimensional. Particularly, I wasn't convinced by the mother in this tale and object to her being portrayed as a pushy, overbearing, workaholic mother who then when has to turn to baking and wearing 'softer' clothes to show her character reconnecting and starting to understand her child.

I would still recommend The Ivory Rose because a historical fiction timeslip novel is always interesting and it is still great to enter another world and learn more about our history.

review : little sister

Little Sister, Aimee Said (Walker Books)

Aimee Said's second book covers a lot of ground - there's the rampant use of social media and how it impacts on your life during high school, there's sibling rivalry, lusting after the hottest guy in school and a kickin' battle of the bands. When the rumour and the secret about Al's perfect, overachieving big sister Larry are revealed, everyone's prejudices come to the surface and tension runs high.

Little Sister is a very engaging story with a plethora of great characters - as well as multiple scenes in a cheese shop that will certainly get you drooling (if cheese be your thing...mmmm...cheese...). At times Al comes across as unsympathetic and a little bit blind to what her actions are doing to her friends, making her sometimes unlikable...but honestly, quite a true depiction of teenage behaviour. As a teenager it often is as though you're the one the world revolves around.* And in the end, you'll find yourself cheering for her.

I am the big sister in my family. The evil sister had a little bit more rage than I did when we were growing up. Perhaps she just has a lot to say. I hope she never felt overshadowed, because I was definitely not an over-achiever. Never have been, never intend to be. Just pleasantly average.


You can come to a Little Sister party this Saturday if you would like to. Information here.
You can read my review of Aimee's first book, Finding Freia Lockhart, here.
*only sometimes, and not everyone. but, on the other hand, often and lots of teens.

review : surface tension

Surface Tension, Meg McKinlay (Walker)

The day that I was born, they drowned my town.

The town of Old Lower Grange was flooded to become a catchment on the day that Cassie was born (like the old township of Glenmaggie in Gippsland). The town's Mayor pulled a lever, let the water in, and now all their houses are at the bottom of a lake and they all live in New Lower Grange in new houses that look just like the old ones.

Cassie is twelve now and she has to swim laps of the pool every day to help her lungs, which didn't develop properly on account of being born too early. One day, sick of swimming in the town pool (after a particularly disgusting "seven-bandaid swim") she goes down to the lake, to a spot that no one goes to - so she can swim in peace.

Liam, about the same age as Cassie and with a past that also distances him a little from people in their town, joins her at the lake and the two of them form a fast friendship and act as sounding boards for one another's theories when strange truths start to appear from the murky depths.

For the water level is dropping - revealing dead trees, forgotten objects and one humdinger of a mystery. Cassie is smart, she questions things, she has insight and listens to what isn't said - more so than any adult within these pages.


This is an eerie tale, a real page-turner and a wonderful read for anyone about ten and up. Dialogue, excellent. Story, brilliant. Pacing, perfect. The cover is gorgey. Admission? This book scared me a little bit more than I would have expected and I had très troubled sleep the night I tried to read it in bed. That fear of what lies beneath...I was a little bit like Anne that evening she had to run through the woods to Diana's and back.

Photograph of the Cowwarr Weir - there is no town underneath here, as far as I know.

p.s. Very exciting that Meg McKinlay is shortlisted for her book Duck for a Day in the CBCA awards. Visit her website here. And her blog here.