NEWSFLASH: NSW PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS

How EXCITING is this? The prestigious New South Wales Premiers Literary Awards shortlists have been announced. My friend Dianne Bates is on for the Ethel Turner Prize for Young Adult Fiction list with Crossing the Line. Read my review here. Di was kind enough to be my first OZ LIT PROFILE (some would say first victim). Also on the list is another book I've been recommending, Michelle Cooper's A Brief History of Montmaray. Read my review here. And one I bought but have yet to read - the Monster Blood Tattoo series.

and the complete YA list for 2009... drum roll...

• Dianne Bates - Crossing the Line
• Michelle Cooper - A Brief History of Montmaray
• D.M.Cornish - Monster Blood Tattoo Book two: Lamplighter
• Alison Goodman - The Two Pearls of Wisdom
• Nette Hilton - Sprite Downberry
• Joanne Horniman - My Candlelight Novel

and The Patricia Wrightson Award for Junior Literature shortlist... another drum roll...

• Ursula Dubursarsky & Tohby Riddle (Illustrator) - The Word Spy
• Bob Graham - How to Heal a Broken Wing
• Sonya Hartnett and Ann James (Illustrator) - Sadie and Ratz
• Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King (Illustrator) - Perry Angel's Suitcase
• Tohby Riddle - Nobody Owns the Moon
• Shaun Tan - Tales from Outer Suburbia

Two of these I haven't read. More reading to do! And more info here on the official website.

IN MY MAILBOX

I'm new to blogging and new to memes. I'd never heard the word before. Answers.com told me it was an idea that spreads, in this case, across the Internet. Answers.com is one of my favourite websites - all those great words and neat facts. But memes are my new favourite game.

I love this one. In My Mailbox. For other newbies like me - it's hosted by The Story Siren where you can post links to your blog entry and inspired by Alea of Pop Culture Junkie. It's a list of books or bookish things that arrived in your mailbox during the week.

So here is what I found in my mailbox:

Guantanamo Boy is the story of 15-year-old Khalid who goes with his parents to visit family in Pakistan and wakes into a nightmare. All real.

Khalid is kidnapped and forced to go to a place no teenager should ever see. A place where torture and terror are the normal things. Somewhere he doesn't know if he will ever escape from. A place called Guantanamo Bay.

I've been hanging to read this YA ever since I read about Anna Perera's inspiration - while researching other things she discovered the horrific plight of children imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. And so the story began...


Aussie Kid Heroes is the latest offering by prolofic Australian author Dianne Bates, the inspiration behind my own writing career. My son has already spirited this one away to his bedroom so I will have to bribe him to get it back for review.






Extreme Animals looks like great fun. It's a real boy book so my parent ears are pricking up while my reviewer eyes admiring the front cover. Wierd and wonderful. Fast and furious. That's the blurb's promise.


Monsters in the Sand is a junior fiction book just for me! It's a story based around the discovery of ancient Ninevah - archaeology and action, ancient cultures and adventure! I've already read the first book in David Harris' Time Raiders series, Blood of the Incas, about the dicovery of Macchu Picchu by Hiram Bingham. Loved that. Sure to love this.




And finally, this beautiful, beautiful picture book. My Baby Love by Meredith Costain. It has an overlay dustjacket - like thick rice paper. I'm not sure what you call it - but it's at the same time sturdy but delicate. By the time I review it I will have it sussed out...


I look at at the contents of my mailbox and feel very lucky!!

OZ LIT PROFILE #1 - REVIEW - Crossing the Line

I am reprinting this review courtesy of The Reading Stack where I am a volunteer editor. Sometimes. Anyway this review says it all and for another excellent review check out Persnickety Snark.

Crossing the Line by Dianne Bates - Ford Street Publishing. Paperback rrp $16.95

Neglected and abandoned by her mother and then rejected by her aunt and uncle, Sophie has finally put the foster family merry-go-round behind her and moved into a share house with Amy and Matt. But as hard as she tries to put her demons to rest, they just won’t stay quiet. When her chaotic emotions become too much to bear, she cuts herself. Physical pain is the only thing that keeps her from tumbling into the abyss.

When Sophie slips into depression, her psychiatrist orders her into hospital where she meets a new doctor, Helen Marshall. Desperate for a mother’s love, Sophie becomes obsessed with Helen and on leaving hospital, is in a worse state than when she entered.

Not since reading Joanne Greenberg’s, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden as a teenager have I so completely empathised with a character. Sophie will break your heart, but so, too, she will fill you with hope, for no matter how barbed life is, there are always roses to be found. Sophie’s roses are Amy and Matt, whose friendship is offered freely and without conditions. With their help, Sophie is finally able to pull herself back from the brink.

Bates understands well the key to keeping readers turning pages is creating characters the world cares about. Sophie’s story, delivered in first person present tense, is potent and immediate. Through Sophie’s mind Bates shows readers how it feels to live with mental illness – how utterly souldestroying it is. But more importantly, she shows us how it is possible to work through such seemingly insurmountable problems and find a semblance of peace.

Crossing The Line is a thoughtprovoking read that is certain to be an invaluable resource in the classroom. This is a story that stays with the reader long after the last line is read. Highly recommended.

OZ LIT PROFILE #1 - DIANNE BATES

Everyone knows Australians are mad about their sports. They like to 'show the club colours' every weekend, waving their banners and wearing their jerseys. We love our books too. So every weekend I am going to wear 'the red, white and blue' and profile an Aussie author or illustrator.

My first profile is Dianne Bates, author of over 100 books for children and young adults including non-fiction, picture books, chapter books and young adult fiction. She has won critical and Children's Choice awards and is the current recipient of the prestigious Lady Cutler Award for Services to Children's Literature (2008). Di is active in every aspect of children's literature - at the grass roots level she runs a regular kids book club and at the national organisational level she is a branch president of The Children's Book Council of Australia. She runs courses, distributes an on-line magazine for children's writers Buzz Words and is mentor to many aspiring writers. As well as continuing to write...

It gives me great pleasure to have Di as my first profile as she is my writing mentor (and hero!) - she taught me so much I wouldn't know where to begin. But it gives me even greater pleasure to have Di as my friend. So without further ado [grin] here are Di's answers to eight quick questions and tomorrow I will post my review of her latest YA novel Crossing the Line (soon to be released in the US).

1. The last children's/YA book you read (fiction or non-fiction) Something More by Mo Johnson (Allen & Unwin) Actually I am still reading it.


2. If it wasn't an Oz title, then the last Oz title NA
   
3. Name one favourite book from your childhood The Swiss Family Robinson
   
4. Name one picture book that you love for the illustrations I’ll Take You to Mrs Cole by Nigel Gray, illustrated by Michael Foreman
   
5. What is your personal favourite among the books you have authored/illustrated The Belligrumble Bigfoot
   
6. What book do you wish you had written - for love or money Where the Lilies Bloom by Bill and Vera Cleaver
   
7. If you could be a character in a book, who (or what) would you be Dicey Tillerman from Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voigt
   
8. Do you have a favourite quote - from a book or life in general! Anything. Consider bonsai: there but for restricting bowl would be a giant