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y separately published work icon The House That Was Eureka single work   novel   young adult  
Issue Details: First known date: 1984... 1984 The House That Was Eureka
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'It’s 1981 and Evie is sixteen. She has left school but can’t find work, and her family has just moved into the run-down inner Sydney suburb of Newtown. Noel lives in the adjoining terrace house. He’s fifteen, not taking school seriously and fed up with looking after his ancient bed-ridden grandmother.

'As a friendship grows between Evie and Noel, the past is set back in motion, and the events of the 1930s Depression era begin to play out in the high-unemployment times of the early 1980s, and the house again is the centre of the Sydney anti-eviction campaign of 1931.

'Based on historical fact, meticulously researched, The House that Was Eureka is a critically acclaimed novel about a history we all share.' (Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Viking Kestrel , 1984 .
      image of person or book cover 1804790656730472582.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Description: xiii, 197p.
      ISBN: 0670800821
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Viking Kestrel , 1985 .
      Extent: xiii, 197p.p.
      ISBN: 0722659717
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Puffin , 1987 .
      Extent: xiii, 197p.p.
      ISBN: 0140322523 (pbk.)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2013 .
      image of person or book cover 2271656645563440202.jpg
      Image courtesy of Text Publishing
      Extent: 288p.
      Note/s:

      • Publication date: 25 September 2013

        Introduction by Toni Jordan

      ISBN: 9781922147189
      Series: y separately published work icon Text Classics Text Publishing (publisher), Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2012- Z1851461 2012 series - publisher novel 'Great books by great Australian storytellers.' (Text website.)
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2001 .
      image of person or book cover 3299953839192241952.jpeg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 410p.
      Edition info: rev. ed.
      ISBN: 0141004126
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

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  • Sound recording.
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Works about this Work

y separately published work icon Re-Visiting Historical Fiction for Young Readers : The Past through Modern Eyes Kim Wilson , New York (City) : Routledge Taylor & Francis Group , 2011 Z1886683 2011 single work criticism 'This study is concerned with how readers are positioned to interpret the past in historical fiction for children and young adults. Looking at literature published within the last thirty to forty years, Wilson identifies and explores a prevalent trend for re-visioning and rewriting the past according to modern social and political ideological assumptions. Fiction within this genre, while concerned with the past at the level of content, is additionally concerned with present views of that historical past because of the future to which it is moving. Specific areas of discussion include the identification of a new sub-genre: Living history fiction, stories of Joan of Arc, historical fiction featuring agentic females, the very popular Scholastic Press historical journal series, fictions of war, and historical fiction featuring multicultural discourses.

Wilson observes specific traits in historical fiction written for children — most notably how the notion of positive progress into the future is nuanced differently in this literature in which the concept of progress from the past is inextricably linked to the protagonist's potential for agency and the realization of subjectivity. The genre consistently manifests a concern with identity construction that in turn informs and influences how a metanarrative of positive progress is played out. This book engages in a discussion of the functionality of the past within the genre and offers an interpretative frame for the sifting out of the present from the past in historical fiction for young readers.' (Publisher's blurb)
Living History Fiction Kim Wilson , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 20 no. 1 2010; (p. 77-86) 'During my research into historical fiction for children and young adult readers I came across a range of texts that relied on a living or lived experience of history to frame the historical story. These novels were similar to the time-slip narrative; however, not all examples used the traditional convention of time-slippage. I wanted to bundle these novels together - 'time-slip' novels included - as examples of 'living history' narratives because they appeared from the outset as a distinct literary form requiring particular reading strategies.
These texts, which I will refer to as Living history novels, require readers to align uncritically with modern perception. Readers are persuasively invited to assume that the modern characters' perception of the past is authentic because it has been formed by a lived experience of history. In Living history novels, readers are positioned to perceive both the strengths and weaknesses of past and present times, ultimately reconciling the two in a present that faces chronologically forwards. Modern focalising characters in Living history fiction place modern perception in a superior relationship to that of the past.
This sub-genre of historical novels is distinctive in its strong and consistent modern character focalisation and point of view. The Living history novel creates a confluence of past and present, be it physically or psychically. Characters are variously conveyed from a generalised present, or past, to an explicit historical period or event. The Living history novel is distinctive in its intense character introversion, quest journey and self-discovery. The most important outcome of the living history experience is that characters learn something significant about themselves. Because the story is about the modern character's quest and self realisation, the past is consistently perceived from their point of view. Modern characters are transported in time and readers are only rarely invited to see the past from a past point of view' (Author's abstract).
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)
Untitled H. M. Saxby , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , August vol. 45 no. 3 2001; (p. 46)
— Review of The House That Was Eureka Nadia Wheatley , 1984 single work novel
Untitled Matthew Wood , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 15 no. 2 2001; (p. 70)
— Review of The House That Was Eureka Nadia Wheatley , 1984 single work novel
Untitled H. M. Saxby , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , August vol. 45 no. 3 2001; (p. 46)
— Review of The House That Was Eureka Nadia Wheatley , 1984 single work novel
CoverNotes Mike Shuttleworth , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 8 April 2001; (p. 11)
— Review of Hot Buns and Ophelia Get Shipwrecked Gretel Killeen , 2001 single work novel ; The House That Was Eureka Nadia Wheatley , 1984 single work novel
Great Story Pity About Ages Nadia Wheatley , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 5 May 2001; (p. 16)
— Review of The House That Was Eureka Nadia Wheatley , 1984 single work novel
In Short Debra Adelaide , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 26-27 May 2001; (p. 14)
— Review of Agapanthus Tango David Francis , 2001 single work novel ; The House That Was Eureka Nadia Wheatley , 1984 single work novel
Untitled 1985 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 71 1985; (p. 30)
— Review of The House That Was Eureka Nadia Wheatley , 1984 single work novel
Eating Bananas Underwater Nadia Wheatley , 1989 single work criticism
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , July vol. 4 no. 3 1989; (p. 5-10)
The Stare's Empty Nest : Some Views on Four Writers Sophie Masson , 1993 single work column
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , September vol. 8 no. 4 1993; (p. 20-22)
Changing Perspectives : The Implied Reader in Australian Children's Literature 1841-1994 H. M. Saxby , 1995 single work criticism
— Appears in: Children's Literature in Education , March vol. 26 no. 1 1995; (p. 25-38)
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)
Living History Fiction Kim Wilson , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 20 no. 1 2010; (p. 77-86) 'During my research into historical fiction for children and young adult readers I came across a range of texts that relied on a living or lived experience of history to frame the historical story. These novels were similar to the time-slip narrative; however, not all examples used the traditional convention of time-slippage. I wanted to bundle these novels together - 'time-slip' novels included - as examples of 'living history' narratives because they appeared from the outset as a distinct literary form requiring particular reading strategies.
These texts, which I will refer to as Living history novels, require readers to align uncritically with modern perception. Readers are persuasively invited to assume that the modern characters' perception of the past is authentic because it has been formed by a lived experience of history. In Living history novels, readers are positioned to perceive both the strengths and weaknesses of past and present times, ultimately reconciling the two in a present that faces chronologically forwards. Modern focalising characters in Living history fiction place modern perception in a superior relationship to that of the past.
This sub-genre of historical novels is distinctive in its strong and consistent modern character focalisation and point of view. The Living history novel creates a confluence of past and present, be it physically or psychically. Characters are variously conveyed from a generalised present, or past, to an explicit historical period or event. The Living history novel is distinctive in its intense character introversion, quest journey and self-discovery. The most important outcome of the living history experience is that characters learn something significant about themselves. Because the story is about the modern character's quest and self realisation, the past is consistently perceived from their point of view. Modern characters are transported in time and readers are only rarely invited to see the past from a past point of view' (Author's abstract).
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Awards

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Last amended 28 Apr 2020 15:33:08
Subjects:
Settings:
  • Sydney, New South Wales,
  • 1930s
  • 1980s
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