image of person or book cover 5900294097621577271.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon Killing Aurora single work   novel   young adult   satire  
Issue Details: First known date: 1999... 1999 Killing Aurora
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Web is nine parts flesh, one part sulphur. And she's on a mission to save Aurora. But Aurora, the incredible shrinking girl, is already Death's best friend, and slips through Web's fingers like water. It's a bizarre love triangle, where there really are monsters under the bed. And not only can imaginary things hurt you, they can kill you.

'Volatile, original and blackly funny - Killing Aurora asks the question: does violence ever get you anywhere? The answer: well, sometimes ....'

Source: Publisher's blurb (audio version).

Exhibitions

26987568
19567105

Affiliation Notes

  • Writing Disability in Australia

    Type of disability Anorexia nervosa.
    Type of character Primary.
    Point of view Third person.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 1999 .
      image of person or book cover 5900294097621577271.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 230p.
      ISBN: 0140287744

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

y separately published work icon "Surviving" Adolescence : Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Transformations In Young Adult Fiction Anna Whateley , Kelvin Grove : 2010 Z1761971 2010 single work thesis

'This study, entitled "Surviving" Adolescence: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic transformations in young adult fiction", analyses how discourses surrounding the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic are represented in selected young adult fiction published between 1997 and 2009. The term ―apocalypse‖ is used by current theorists to refer to an uncovering or disclosure (most often a truth), and post-apocalypse means to be after a disclosure, after a revelation, or after catastrophe.

'This study offers a double reading of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic discourses, and the dialectical tensions that are inherent in, and arise from, these discourses. Drawing on the current scholarship of children‘s and young adult literature this thesis uses post-structural theoretical perspectives to develop a framework and methodology for conducting a close textual analysis of exclusion, un-differentiation, prophecy, and simulacra of death. The combined theoretical perspectives and methodology offer new contributions to young adult fiction scholarship.

'This thesis finds that rather than conceiving adolescence as the endurance of a passing phase of a young person‘s life, there is a new trend emerging in young adult fiction that treats adolescence as a space of transformation essential to the survival of the young adult, and his/her community.'

Source: QUT ePrints.

y separately published work icon Gender Dilemmas in Children's Fiction Kerry Mallan , Houndmills : Palgrave Macmillan , 2009 Z1939201 2009 single work criticism Gender Dilemmas in Children's Fiction examines how fictional texts – picture books, novels, and films – produced for children and young adults are responding to the tensions and dilemmas that arise from new gender relations and sexual differences. The book discusses a diverse range of international children's fiction published between 1990 and 2008. Some of the key dilemmas that emerge are around the texts' treatment of romance, beauty, cyberbodies, queer, and comedy.
Starving Desire : New (Deleuzean) Readings of Anorexia in Australian Young Adult Fiction Kate McInally , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , December vol. 16 no. 2 2006; (p. 168-172)

McInally is concerned with fictional representations of eating disorders and uncovering any intersections between anorexia and girl-girl desire. McInally 'investigates this interface' in Killing Aurora (Barnes) and Leaving Jetty Road, (Burton) by drawing on the post-structuralist concepts of Deleuze and Guattari as a way of thinking beyond the binarised terms that shape and structure our lives and identities (168). For Deleuze and Guattari, 'desire is an affirmative mobile force that propels living things towards each other' (168) and it is this proposition that McInally utilises to critique hetero-normative cultural systems. She argues that anorexia is 'interrelated to the cultural insistence that girls move beyond intense, passionate and desirous relationships with each other, into normative heterosexuality', a sexuality that upholds western patriarchal capitalist paradigms that 'privilege lack over connection'(168). For McInally, Burton's novel follows this paradigm in its 'reductive and limiting ideologies regarding subjectivity, femininity and desire', while Barnes' novel offers a new and/or different way of reading desire which 'affirms its intense and connective potential outside binarised codifications' (172).

y separately published work icon Voracious Children : Who Eats Whom in Children's Literature Carolyn Daniel , London New York (City) : Routledge , 2006 16055228 2006 multi chapter work criticism

'Voracious Children explores food and the way it is used to seduce, to pleasure, and coerce not only the characters within children's literature but also its readers. There are a number of gripping questions concerning the quantity and quality of the food featured in children's fiction that immediately arise: why are feasting fantasies so prevalent, especially in the British classics? What exactly is their appeal to historical and contemporary readers? What do literary food events do to readers? Is food the sex of children's literature? The subject of children eating is compelling but, why is it that stories about children being eaten are not only horrifying but also so incredibly alluring? This book reveals that food in fiction does far, far more that just create verisimilitude or merely address greedy readers' desires. The author argues that the food trope in children's literature actually teaches children how to be human through the imperative to eat "good" food in a "proper" controlled manner. Examining timely topics such as childhood obesity and anorexia, the author demonstrates how children's literature routinely attempts to regulate childhood eating practices and only award subjectivity and agency to those characters who demonstrate "normal" appetites.

'Examining a wide range of children's literature classics from Little Red Riding Hood to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, this book is an outstanding and unique enquiry into the function of food in children's literature, and it will make a significant contribution to the fields of both children's literature and the growing interdisciplinary domain of food, culture and society.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Editor's Introduction: Always Facing the Issues - Preoccupations in Australian Children's Literature John Stephens , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Lion and the Unicorn , April vol. 27 no. 2 2003; (p. v-xvii)
[Review] Killing Aurora Margot Nelmes , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , August vol. 43 no. 3 1999; (p. 29)

— Review of Killing Aurora Helen Barnes , 1999 single work novel
[Review] Killing Aurora Helen Purdie , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , July vol. 14 no. 3 1999; (p. 37)

— Review of Killing Aurora Helen Barnes , 1999 single work novel
[Review] Killing Aurora Gillian Swan , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 13 no. 3 1999; (p. 12-13)

— Review of Killing Aurora Helen Barnes , 1999 single work novel
A Coming-of-Age Comedy Laurie Copping , 2000 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 19 August 2000; (p. 18)

— Review of Borrowed Light Anna Fienberg , 1999 single work novel ; 48 Shades of Brown Nick Earls , 1999 single work novel ; Killing Aurora Helen Barnes , 1999 single work novel
Isobel's Unabsorbing Tale of Self-Absorption Michael Thomas , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 25 July 1999; (p. 18)

— Review of Prowler : A Novel Marion Campbell , 1999 single work novel ; Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop Amy Witting , 1999 single work novel ; Killing Aurora Helen Barnes , 1999 single work novel ; The Burnt City Marshall Browne , 1999 single work novel
Starving Desire : New (Deleuzean) Readings of Anorexia in Australian Young Adult Fiction Kate McInally , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , December vol. 16 no. 2 2006; (p. 168-172)

McInally is concerned with fictional representations of eating disorders and uncovering any intersections between anorexia and girl-girl desire. McInally 'investigates this interface' in Killing Aurora (Barnes) and Leaving Jetty Road, (Burton) by drawing on the post-structuralist concepts of Deleuze and Guattari as a way of thinking beyond the binarised terms that shape and structure our lives and identities (168). For Deleuze and Guattari, 'desire is an affirmative mobile force that propels living things towards each other' (168) and it is this proposition that McInally utilises to critique hetero-normative cultural systems. She argues that anorexia is 'interrelated to the cultural insistence that girls move beyond intense, passionate and desirous relationships with each other, into normative heterosexuality', a sexuality that upholds western patriarchal capitalist paradigms that 'privilege lack over connection'(168). For McInally, Burton's novel follows this paradigm in its 'reductive and limiting ideologies regarding subjectivity, femininity and desire', while Barnes' novel offers a new and/or different way of reading desire which 'affirms its intense and connective potential outside binarised codifications' (172).

Editor's Introduction: Always Facing the Issues - Preoccupations in Australian Children's Literature John Stephens , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Lion and the Unicorn , April vol. 27 no. 2 2003; (p. v-xvii)
y separately published work icon "Surviving" Adolescence : Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Transformations In Young Adult Fiction Anna Whateley , Kelvin Grove : 2010 Z1761971 2010 single work thesis

'This study, entitled "Surviving" Adolescence: Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic transformations in young adult fiction", analyses how discourses surrounding the apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic are represented in selected young adult fiction published between 1997 and 2009. The term ―apocalypse‖ is used by current theorists to refer to an uncovering or disclosure (most often a truth), and post-apocalypse means to be after a disclosure, after a revelation, or after catastrophe.

'This study offers a double reading of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic discourses, and the dialectical tensions that are inherent in, and arise from, these discourses. Drawing on the current scholarship of children‘s and young adult literature this thesis uses post-structural theoretical perspectives to develop a framework and methodology for conducting a close textual analysis of exclusion, un-differentiation, prophecy, and simulacra of death. The combined theoretical perspectives and methodology offer new contributions to young adult fiction scholarship.

'This thesis finds that rather than conceiving adolescence as the endurance of a passing phase of a young person‘s life, there is a new trend emerging in young adult fiction that treats adolescence as a space of transformation essential to the survival of the young adult, and his/her community.'

Source: QUT ePrints.

y separately published work icon Gender Dilemmas in Children's Fiction Kerry Mallan , Houndmills : Palgrave Macmillan , 2009 Z1939201 2009 single work criticism Gender Dilemmas in Children's Fiction examines how fictional texts – picture books, novels, and films – produced for children and young adults are responding to the tensions and dilemmas that arise from new gender relations and sexual differences. The book discusses a diverse range of international children's fiction published between 1990 and 2008. Some of the key dilemmas that emerge are around the texts' treatment of romance, beauty, cyberbodies, queer, and comedy.
Perpetrators and Princesses: Transgression and Subject Formation in 'Killing Aurora' and 'Queen Kat, Carmel and St. Jude Get a Life' Michelle de Villiers , 2000 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , December vol. 10 no. 3 2000; (p. 5-11)
In this article, de Villiers looks at textual representations of transgression within the context of contemporary adolescent fiction in two Australian novels, Killing Aurora and Queen Kat, Carmel and St. Jude Get a Life. De Villiers points out that in the majority of adolescent fiction, 'transgression is still primarily used to reinscribe charatcers within the dominant ideological framework' of Westernized cultures, however, literary acts of transgression can be used to undermine and subvert dominant ideologies and their 'asscociated discursive practices' (5). The ensuing comparative reading concludes that Killing Aurora 'makes a far more radical use of transgression which questions the dominant social and cultural paradigms of identity formation' as opposed to Queen Kat, Carmel and St. Jude..., which is 'conservative and traditional' in its underlying enforcement of the 'dominant patriarchal framework which aligns women with the sterotypically 'feminine' and 'natural' role of caring and nurturing for children' (6,10).
Last amended 11 Apr 2019 11:04:29
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