Seven Little Australians
10 best books like Seven Little Australians (Ethel Turner): My Brilliant Career, I Can Jump Puddles, My Brother Jack, The Magic Pudding, The Complete Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, Blinky Bill, The Getting of Wisdom, Wombat Stew, The Nargun and the Stars, Playing Beatie Bow
| Author | Miles Franklin |
| ISBN | 1600963781 |
"My Brilliant Career" is the story of Sybylla, a headstrong young girl growing up in early 20th century Australia. Sybylla rejects the opportunity to marry a wealthy young man in order to maintain her independence. As a consequence she must take a job as a governess to a local family to which her father...
| Author | Alan Marshall |
| ISBN | 0143003046 |
I first read Alan Marshall's autobiography of his childhood - I Can Jump Puddles (1955) as part of the school curriculum in early high school. I loved the bighearted story of overcoming adversity then, but wasn't sure what to expect when I reread it as part of the Popsugar 2016 book challenge (a book your...
| Author | George Johnston |
| ISBN | 0207187320 |
3.5 stars
It was only after I finished reading My Brother Jack by George Johnston that I discovered it had been the winner of the 1964 Miles Franklin award. To win, novels must be of the highest literary merit and present Australian life in any of its phases There is no question in my mind that this was...
| Author | Norman Lindsay |
| ISBN | 0140300988 |
"Gentlemen," said the Judge, "I must remind you that we require a Review!"
"We don't needs no Review," replied Sam rudely, "We just needs to get away from them rascally Puddin'-thieves." And he pointed to the Wombat and the Possum, lurking in the comment thread, who looked up with a guilty start.
"Ignore...
| Author | May Gibbs |
| ISBN | 0207170614 |
Not, you never said that Snugglepot and Cuddlepie was a sex-and-violence-infused philosophically-motivated Scandinavian-themed retelling of Genesis. WHY DID YOU LIE TO ME?
______________________
[Later the same day]
Well, I'm definitely building...
Blinky Bill, the mischievous anthropomorphic koala, is well known around the world through the TV cartoon and movies, but the book version is a little darker. He runs away from home several times and constantly disobeys his mother, who of course beats him when she catches him - this would have been a normal...
| Author | Henry Handel Richardson |
| ISBN | 0702231797 |
The subject of this book is a young woman: an awkward, insecure, restless and 'knowing' child who learns that self-realisation depends on rebellion and escape, but that the latter will first demand at least the semblance of conformity. In telling lies, Laura learns both the astonishing allure of fiction...
| Author | Marcia K. Vaughan |
| ISBN | 0382092112 |
When I was in the book store very recently, I saw this book on the sale table and nostalgia just brimmed out of me. I showed it to my fiance and surprisingly he had never heard of the book. It's fantastic!! I NEED to go back and get it! It's just brilliant!
The story, moral, catchy rhyme and beautiful...
Few books had as profound an impact on me when I was growing up. This haunting tale of a lonely boy discovering an ancient stone Nargun, a creature straight from Aboriginal mythology, on his uncle's rural property had me spellbound. It still does. Wrightson, who died in 2010, was criticised for using...
| Author | Ruth Park |
| ISBN | 1903015111 |
I can't believe how long it took me to get through this book. It's only 200 pages and I *loved* it as a kid. But rereading it as an adult in a world where YA is a thing? This is...odd.
Admittedly, this book is older than I am - it was published in 1980 - and it's essentially a YA book that was written in an...
| Author | Victor Kelleher |
| ISBN | 0140326316 |
Two years after the Last Days, Australia has become a dangerous place, and a battle-ground for survival.Ben, who has a telepathic ability to control animals, leads a hazardous existence in the bush west of the Blue Mountains. Hopeful of a less brutal life, he escapes to Sydney - only to be further disillusioned....
| Author | Colin Thiele |
| ISBN | 1741101875 |
Storm Boy likes to wander alone along the fierce deserted coast among the dunes that face out into the Southern Ocean. After a pelican mother is shot, Storm Boy rescues the three chicks, and nurses them back to health. He names them Mr Proud, Mr Ponder and Mr Percival. After he releases them, his favourite,...
Where the Forest Meets the Sea
| Author | Jeannie Baker |
| ISBN | 0688063632 |
“My father says there has been a forest here for over a hundred million years,” Jeannie Baker's young protagonist tells us, and we follow him on a visit to this tropical rain forest in North Queensland, Australia.
We walk with him among the ancient trees as he pretends it is a time long ago,...
Graham, Wallace, and Harry will have one glorious week of pure freedom in the outback. No teachers, no school, no homework, no parents breathing down their necks! The boys are elated until they accidentally start a fire that quickly gets out of control in the dry underbrush. No one is prepared; no one...
Power Without Glory caused a sensation when it was released, leading to a famous court case. It is a thinly veiled description of the rise to power of real life figure John Wren (in the book 'John West').
Some other people alluded to in the book include Tommy Bent, Sir Samuel Gillott, the gangster...
| Author | Robin Klein |
| ISBN | 0195546490 |
The original and the best! And how fabulous was old Mrs. Bettany? I recall watching Penny Pollard on the ABC as much as reading her, too - can't recall if they were episodes on Kaboodle, or a series all of its own.
(Aha! Google to the rescue, as usual!)
Re-read May 2012 and I swear, I read...
| Author | Libby Hathorn |
| ISBN | 0340739886 |
Lara feels completely alone after the death of her mother. She is an intruder in her father's new family, living far away from all that has been familiar. How can she find acceptance and love in this harsh place? Will the hostile Gladwyn and her kids ever really allow Lara to be part of the family she so longs...
| Author | Katharine Susannah Prichard |
| ISBN | 0207132178 |
Coonardoo is the moving story of a young Aboriginal woman trained form childhood to be the housekeeper at Wytaliba station and, as such, destined to look after its owner, Hugh Watt. The love between Coonardoo and Hugh, which so shocked its readers when the book was first published in 1929, is never acknowledged...
| Author | Thea Astley |
| ISBN | 0140121382 |
Like a deal of Astley's fiction, It's Raining in Mango is set in north Queensland, an inhospitable locale in many ways but one which the Laffey family of Mango find compelling and to which they are drawn back after their half-hearted forays into urban life. The book is written in the saga form, spanning...
| Author | Mary Grant Bruce |
| ISBN | 0706355954 |
Billabong, a large cattle and sheep property in the Australian countryside, is home to twelve-year-old Norah Linton, her widowed father, David, and her older brother, Jim. Norah's prim and proper aunts, who live in the city, consider she is in danger of "growing up wild" - riding all over Billabong...
| Author | D'Arcy Niland |
| ISBN | 0141186135 |
A shiralee is a swag, a burden, a bloody millstone - and that's what four-year-old Buster is to her father, Macauley. He takes the child on the road with him to spite his wife, but months pass and still no word comes to ask for the little girl back. Strangers to each other at first, father and daughter drift...
