Cirrus@Austlit

In this essay, Anthony Ross searches for an Australian novel comparable in structure, plot and characterisation to Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Ross canvasses a range of works which depict a mainstream Australian boyhood, naming Don Charlwood's novel All The Green Year as 'the ranking contender for an Aussie Tom Sawyer' (63). The basis for this claim rests upon a perceived need for child readers to identify with a text by saying 'that is how I am now' (66) an element Ross finds in Charlwood's novel which he describes as 'episodic, adventurous and fun' (67).

Bradford documents the life of Chinese-Australian writer Sylvia Chew and highlights what she sees as 'a significant comparison... between the Chinese characters and settings of the book and the predominantly Anglo-Celtic charatcers and settings of picture books of this period' (80). She discusses the series of Little Chiu picture books and the collaboration with Jean Elder in the first book of the series, as well as the frustrations experienced in attempting to have the remainder of the series published. Bradford argues that Chew 'was ahead of her time as a writer representing cultural diversity' however despite the existence of multicultural picture books, Bradford says 'Australia still has a long way to go before it adequately represents children of cultural backgrounds other than Anglo-Celtic' (82).

Bates examines the structure of James Aldridge's The True Story of Lilli Stubeck using a Marxist lens to analyse the the historical and social view presented in the narrative. Paying close attention to Jonathan Culler's discussion of literary discourse and reader-response theory, Bates looks at how 'the text is structured so that it will be read in a particular way and with a particular effect' and as an example of the authors 'attempted manipulation of reader response' argues that Aldridge's use of the Great Depression as a time context is a deliberate technique which is 'intended to produce a response in the reader' (83). Marxism posits that 'the rules of dominance and subordination govern the social and economic order of periods in human history' and Bates argues that the historical context in Aldridge's novel positions the reader to 'accept the background and accumulation of colonial wealth' in a way that both manipulates and satisfies the reader; artistically and intellectually (85).

Mayers looks at two non-Australian novels Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson and Dear Nobody by Berlie Doherty, however she also makes a brief reference to The Gathering by Isobelle Carmody. Mayers examines 'the construction of adult empowerment and child powerlessness' by drawing attention to the way the texts construct and delineate the power relationship between parent and child (109). Discussing The Gathering, Bates reveals how Carmody perpetuates 'adult knowledge and adolescent ignorance by perpetuating a unitary meaning of truth' which position the readers to 'identify totally with the youths as the principle focalisers in the novel' (112). This technique ultimately works to reinforce the discursive practices which support and maintain the privileging of certain groups and the inferioroty of others, in this case the binary opposition of dominant-subordinate which structures adult/child relationship (112).

Minchinton examines the stereotyped portrayals of women (particularly mothers) and girls in Rubinstein's novels and questions if perhaps her representations stem from Rubinstein's own childhood experiences of abandonment, grief and loss. In particular, Minchinton addresses Rubinstein's idealised 'earth Mother' as a counterpoint to the harshly portrayed 'working' and 'absent' mothers and asks a pertinent question: ' where does the story end and the personal pain begin?' (113). Minchinton observes a slight progression in Rubinstein's body of work towards a more rounded representation of womanhood and female sexuality, however overall, she argues that Rubinstein's characters '...may as well be heroes [as] they are not specifically female at all' (122).