Deadly lizards, delinquent boys, a sinister warden and a whole lot of HOLES feature in Louis Sachar’s acclaimed YA novel

Posted on February 24, 2021 by jenny

The only thing green about the extremely inhospitable Camp Green Lake are the extremely deadly lizards that like to hang out in the holes dug by the campers in Louis Sachar’s great novel.

When Stanley Yelnats gets caught holding a celebrity’s stolen sneakers which have just fallen on him out of the sky, he knows that it’s because of the family curse acquired by his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather. Stanley is sent to Camp Green Lake, a camp for bad boys, where every day each boy is set the task of digging a 5 foot hole in the dry lake bed ‘to build character’. But it seems like that may not be the only reason they are digging holes…

This is a great YA novel with a well-woven plot, great pacing and tone and a likeable main character. An enjoyable read. Good out loud too. Late primary schoolers would be able to to enjoy it as well.

Posted in 10 years and up, 20th Century, 20th Century YA, Adventure, American, Coming of Age/Rites of Passage, Family Drama, Fiction, Light Fiction, Novel, YA Classic, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A powerful book about growing up and making sense of the world that I first read while I was growing up: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Posted on January 24, 2021 by jenny
Mockingbirds do no harm to anyone and so should be left alone. In To Kill a Mockingbird Scout Finch learns that when we fear someone because they are differnt, we often don’t realise when they are just a mockingbird who means us no harm.

I first read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird in year 10 and it was the first really decent book I got to read for high school english (the junior syllabus really wasn’t inspiring – in year 8 we had to read an incredibly dull book about a rock that ate sheep!). Mockingbird is an incredibly nuanced exploration of race and racism, fear and difference, set in mid-20th century Alabama. The heaviness of the subject matter is beautifully handled by exploring it through the eyes of the young Scout Finch, growing up in a town where tensions come to the fore when her lawyer father takes on the legal defense of a black man accused of raping a white woman. Scout’s age, curiosity and directness set the tone of this novel and add helpful layers to the themes. Even if you were forced to read this at school and hated it, it’s worth a revisit in adulthood. I appreciated it at 15 but appreciated it more deeply in my 30s.

Posted in 20th Century, 20th Century Literature, American, Classic, Coming of Age/Rites of Passage, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Uncategorized, YA Classic, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wit and wordplay, parody and playfulness, allusion and appropriation: Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair is to classic literature what Hitchhiker’s Guide is to sci-fi and fantasy

Posted on December 24, 2020 by jenny
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is set in an alternate England where literature is highly valued and dodos are kept as pets…

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde is set in an alternate England, where home-cloned dodos are common house pets and the public’s passion for literature occasionally erupts in street violence. Thursday Next is a literary detective, part of a specialised law enforcement body that protects against and polices crimes against fiction. When a criminal mastermind finds a way to kidnap Jane Eyre from the original manuscript, it is up to Thursday to save both the character and the narrative of Jane Eyre as well as facing some long-avoided troubles from her own past. Full of puns, wordplays and wit, the Thursday Next books are to classics and literature, what the Hitchhiker’s Guide is to Sci-Fi and fantasy.

Posted in British, Comedy, Contemporary, Crime fiction, Fantasy, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Speculative Fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mansfield Park: A mature but, for us, challenging novel by Jane Austen

Posted on November 24, 2020 by jenny
As a poor cousin, Fanny Price of Mansfield Park is often excluded from her cousins fun and freedoms but ultimately also from the disgrace and ruin that their training in self-gratification wins them.

Of all Jane Austen’s heroines, Fanny Price of Mansfield Park is surely the least appealing, the most ‘foreign’ to our age. Unlike Emma’s assertiveness and Lizzy’s humour, Fanny’s combination of self-effacement and moral conviction are at odds with modern core values. Yet Mansfield Park is a beautifully crafted and mature novel and by the second half Fanny is also coming into her own. I love this novel for its exploration of integrity, self-control and character, family relationships and how our upbringings shape us. A beautiful, thoughtful and through-provoking novel that has the potential to stretch us where we are weak and reactive.

Posted in 18th Century, British, Classic, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Novel of Manners, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bucketlists and marriages of convenience: The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery uses a bunch of tropes before they were popular

Posted on October 24, 2020 by jenny
Valancy eventually finds herself a real home or ‘blue castle’ on a Canadian lake in Montgomery’s novel

The Blue Castle was L.M. Montgomery’s only book written for adults and my favourite of her non-Anne books. Really the only difference between it and her young adult novels is that the heroine is 29 and unmarried teen pregnancy is part of a minor character’s backstory.

Valancy Stirling is part of a large and conservative clan and her life so far has been ruled by her mother’s sulks and the opinions and criticisms of her extended family. Her only escapes are reading and daydreams about her imaginary ‘blue castle’. But when Valancy is told that a severe heart condition means she only has a few months to live, Valancy snaps, determined to really live in the short time she has left.

While it’s not too hard to see how the different plot threads will ultimately come together, the journey to get there and the characters along the way make it an enjoyable and ultimately satisfying novel and a pleasant and easy read.

Posted in 20th Century, 20th Century Light Fiction, Canadian, Fiction, General adult audience, Light Fiction, Novel, Romance, Young Adult | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Fables about in groups, the vagaries of fashion, stalemates, dealing with difference and the consequences of carelessness when naming one’s children: The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss

Posted on September 24, 2020 by jenny
Among sneetches, the presence of absence of a belly star is an important marker of status, of the haves and the have-nots…

The Sneetches and Other Stories by Dr. Seuss is one of my favourite Dr. Seuss books. The eponymous story deals with status symbols and in groups. Other stories deal with disagreements and how we think about and treat people who are different to us. My father can still quote most of this book from memory because of all of the times he read it to us while we were children which is evidence that it gets the tick of approval from both adults and kids!!!

Posted in 2 years and up, 20th Century, 20th Century Children's, American, Children's, Children's Classic, Picture Books, Poetry, Short Stories, Under 5 years, Under 7 years | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A nuanced exploration of family dynamics, moral identity and cross-cultural perceptions: Where Angels Fear to Tread by E.M. Forster

Posted on August 24, 2020 by jenny
Watercolour Illustration of the fictitious Italian town of Monteriano, scene of much of the character development and thematic development of Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread

The basic storyline of E.M. Forster’s Where Angels Fear to Tread revolves around the child of a mixed marriage and the various characters’ feelings, motives and actions regarding it. Yet this storyline is the vehicle for exploring the struggle between moral conviction and moral apathy, deliberate action and passivity. All this, against the backdrop of cross-cultural judgements and misunderstandings, social fears and crumbling idealism and romanticism. Snippets of foretelling and a very clear picture of several characters’ cultural arrogance and blindness gives the reader a privileged perspective on the events. Looking back now, I can see how the story’s construction sucked me into making moral judgements and then raised a bunch of questions about moral action (or inaction) and my own cultural blind-spots. Probably my least favourite Forster book of the four I’ve read so far, yet I still loved every minute of it!

Posted in 20th Century, 20th Century Literature, British, Classic, Family Drama, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Sydney Opera House and the murder and narrative of Helga’s Web by Jon Cleary: Equally impressively constructed!

Posted on July 24, 2020 by jenny
A body is found during the construction of the Sydney Opera House and it’s up to detective Scobie Malone to give the woman justice.

Helga’s Web is the second book in the Scobie Malone series (it stands alone but has key characters in common with The High Commissioner). During the building of the Sydney Opera House, a woman’s body is found in one of the lower basements of the building site. The story is beautifully crafted moving back and forth between the events that lead to the woman’s death and the investigation that unfolds after her body is found, until the two threads ultimately converge. The iconic Sydney setting allows Cleary to explore and depict Sydney at that time – its people and places – particularly exploring the effects of class and gender, through both the investigation and Malone’s personal life.

Posted in 20th Century, Australian, Crime fiction, General adult audience, Novel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Multifaceted Australian crime fiction: The High Commissioner by Jon Cleary

Posted on April 28, 2020 by jenny

The High Commissioner by Jon Cleary is the first in the Scobie Malone series. Malone, a police detective, is sent to London to bring back the Australian High Commissioner for the decade-old murder of his wife. Malone finds himself in the middle of Australian and international politics as the High Commissioner attempts to wrap up Vietnam peace talks before he goes home to face his past. While it’s plot definitely has the ingredients of a thriller, what actually gripped me as I read was its interesting and enjoyable characters and the exploration of Malone’s growing sympathy with the perpetrator. Written back in 1966, it captures attitudes and life at that time.

Posted in 20th Century, 20th Century Light Fiction, Australian, Crime fiction, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Poverty and money, men and women, limited-options and Victorian-era spinsterhood: The Odd Women is a thought-provoking, character-driven novel that explores what happens when women lack opportunities for independence

Posted on March 28, 2020 by jenny
At the end of the 1800s there was a much talked of social crisis: a surplus of spinsters. Gissing’s book is an incredibly humanising and nuanced exploration of their state and limited prospects.

The Odd Women by George Gissing is a late Victorian novel that explores the personal and social implications of a surplus of spinsters. It follows the struggles, fortunes and (limited) choices of the three Madden sisters, whose father’s sudden death leaves them in the situation of many financially straightened gentlewomen. Theirs is a steady descent into poverty as age and strain reduce their job opportunities to increasingly poorly paid drudgery, their only possible relief the further chanciness of marriage. Meanwhile, their childhood friend, Rhoda, faces the situation from another perspective, committed to women’s rights, financial independence and life-long singleness.

This was a thought-provoking, nuanced and compassionate exploration of women, power, marriage, money, emotional abuse and singleness in late 1800s England. The character development was excellent. I had to check Gissing wasn’t a pseudonym for a female author because of the level of insight and sympathy for women. Emotionally heavy-going at times (particularly its portrayal of emotional abuse within marriage) but well worth the read.

Posted in 18th Century, British, Classic, Fiction, General adult audience, Novel, Realism, Social Novel, Victorian | Tagged , | Leave a comment