Jinx
Crows Nest
:
Allen and Unwin
,
2001
Z916673
2001
single work
novel
young adult
(taught in 2 units)
With the help of her understanding mother and a close friend, Jen eventually outgrows her nickname, Jinx, and deals with the deaths of two boys with whom she had been involved. (Source: Trove)
The Divine Wind
Sydney
:
Hodder Headline
,
1998
Z268319
1998
single work
novel
historical fiction
young adult
(taught in 8 units)
'Friendship is a slippery notion. We lose friends as we change and our friends don't, or as we form other alliances, or as we betray our friends or are ourselves betrayed ...
'Alice, Hartley, Mitsy and Jamie are kids growing up in Broome before the Second World War. Their lives, although very different, are bound by friendship. Hartley and Alice Penrose are the children of an uneducated pearling master and a cultivated, disgruntled mother. Mitsy Sennosuke is Japanese, the daughter of Zeke, a diver working for Hartley and Alice's father, and Sadako, who makes soy sauce in a tin shed factory. Jamie Kilian is the son of a local magistrate, recently moved north from the city. Together, they unconsciously cross the boundaries of class and race, as they swim, joke and watch films in the cinema in Sheba Lane.
'But these happy, untroubled times end when lives are lost in a terrible cyclone, Alice falls for a wealthy cattleman pilot, a young woman is assaulted, and Hartley and Jamie compete for the love of Mitsy. The Second World War brings further strain into their lives. The four friends are no longer children but old enough to fight for their country. As Japanese bombs begin to fall like silver rain on northern Australia, loyalties are divided and friendships take on an altogether different form …
'This thrilling and beautifully written new novel from Garry Disher evokes an era of Australia caught up in the events of war and its effects on people torn apart from all they know and hold dear in childhood.' (Source: Publisher's website)
Deadly, Unna?
Ringwood
:
Penguin
,
1998
Z517608
1998
single work
novel
young adult
(taught in 20 units)
'"Deadly, unna?" He was always saying that. All the Nungas did, but Dumby more than any of them. Dumby Red and Blacky don't have a lot in common. Dumby's the star of the footy team, he's got a killer smile and the knack with girls, and he's a Nunga. Blacky's a gutless wonder, needs braces, never knows what to say, and he's white. But they're friends... and it could be deadly, unna? This gutsy novel, set in a small coastal town in South Australia is a rites-of-passage story about two boys confronting the depth of racism that exists all around them.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Looking for Alibrandi
Camberwell
:
Puffin
,
1992
Z88038
1992
single work
novel
young adult
(taught in 4 units)
'Josephine Alibrandi is seventeen, illegitimate, and in her final year at a wealthy Catholic school. This is the year her father comes back into her life, the year she falls in love, the year she discovers the secrets of her family's past and the year she sets herself free.' (Source: Back Cover)
The Midnight Zoo
Camberwell
:
Viking
,
2010
Z1713414
2010
single work
children's fiction
children's
(taught in 1 units)
'Under cover of darkness, two brothers cross a war-ravaged countryside carrying a secret bundle. One night they stumble across a deserted town reduced to smouldering ruins. But at the end of a blackened street they find a small green miracle: a zoo filled with animals in need of hope.
'A moving and ageless fable about war, and freedom.' (From the publisher's website.)
