Verse
Written by Sarah Crossan
Verse, Contemporary, Realistic Fiction
Published June 17th 2019
400 Pages
Thank you to Bloomsbury Australia
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★★★★☆
I am not who I say I am.
Marla isn't who she thinks she is.
I am a girl trying to forget.
Marla is a woman trying to remember.
Allison has run away from home and with nowhere to live finds herself hiding out in the shed of what she thinks is an abandoned house. But the house isn't empty. An elderly woman named Marla, with dementia, lives there and she mistakes Allison for an old friend from her past called Toffee.
Allison is used to hiding who she really is, and trying to be what other people want her to be. And so, Toffee is who she becomes. After all, it means she has a place to stay. There are worse places she could be.
But as their bond grows, and Allison discovers how much Marla needs a real friend, she begins to ask herself, where is home? What is a family? And most importantly, who am I, really?
Allison Daniels is searching for a place to stay, discovering what she believes is a vacant outbuilding on an abandoned property to rest her weary body. Compelled to find her former stepmother and the only person who understands the abusive and adverse environment inflicted upon Allison, her meagre possessions are stolen and determined not to return to her abusive father, seeks shelter on the dilapidated property.
Allison is a family violence survivor, her father a neglectful and abusive man since the passing of his wife moments after delivering Allison. As a child, Allison learnt to become independent from a young age and through parental neglect, begun caring for her father and the household. In a series of revolving partners, it was Kelly Anne who befriended Allison while dating her father, soon becoming a companion and confidant for Allison. Unable to withstand the abuse and manipulation, Kelly Anne abandons the family home and Allison, who now endures the constant anger of her father. Her experience is profoundly resonating and I empathised with Allison and the anguish family violence inflicts upon victims.
Marla is an elderly woman with dementia and owns the neglected property. Lonely and confused, she mistakes Allison for her childhood friend Toffee and despite Allison insisting otherwise, she understands the fragility of Marla's condition and allows her to believe she's the childhood companion Marla desperately needs. Marla is representative of our elderly communities, the forgotten and often neglected members of society. Marla is a dementia patient and although she experiences moments of clarity, she regresses to a simpler time, reminiscent of her years as a sprightly young woman. I can imagine Marla as a confident and flirtatious young woman and in her moments of clarity, she's incredibly joyous and endearing. As the narrative progresses, we're introduced to her carer who is seemingly only interested in performing a elemental service, her son is abusive, degrading Marla and creating an environment where Marla is agitated and frightened.
Throughout the narrative, Allison and Marla become friends and although at times Marla is bewildered at the new living arrangements, they begin to care and cherish one another's company. My heart ached for Marla and I could sympathise with Allison's decision to allow Marla to believe she was her once childhood friend. Marla seemingly felt more at ease and it allowed her to become the spirited and adventurous young woman she once was. Toffee also encourages the discussion of themes rarely referenced in young adult literature, dementia, the negligent attitude towards the senior members of our communities, abuse, abandonment and impoverishment.
Throughout the narrative, Allison and Marla become friends and although at times Marla is bewildered at the new living arrangements, they begin to care and cherish one another's company. My heart ached for Marla and I could sympathise with Allison's decision to allow Marla to believe she was her once childhood friend. Marla seemingly felt more at ease and it allowed her to become the spirited and adventurous young woman she once was. Toffee also encourages the discussion of themes rarely referenced in young adult literature, dementia, the negligent attitude towards the senior members of our communities, abuse, abandonment and impoverishment.
Poignant, compelling and achingly beautiful, Toffee is a delicate and tender verse narrative of compassion and companionship. Essential reading.
Written by Pip Harry
Middle Grade, Contemporary, Verse, #LoveOZMG
30th April 2019
234 Pages
Thank you to UQP
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★★★★★
When a Manly school sets out to bring a country class to the city for a beach visit, three very different kids find each other and themselves.
Noah is fearless in the surf. Being at the beach makes him feel free. So where does his courage go when his best mate pushes him around?
Lottie loves collecting facts about bugs, but she wishes her dad would stop filling their lonely house with junk. She doesn’t know what to do about it.
Jack wants to be a cricket star, but first he has to get to school and look after his little sister. Especially if he wants to go on the class trip and see the ocean for the first time.
The students of the Sydney beachside suburb of Manly are fundraising for an excursion to Manly Beach for the students in the rural town of Mullin New South Wales. The children of Mullin haven't been afforded the opportunity to visit the city of Sydney, the warm sandy beaches and crashing waves only seen on television or in photos including student Jack, amateur cricketer and Mullin resident. Noah and Lottie are given the responsibility of organising the fundraiser and the three children become unlikely friends.
Lottie lives with her single father after losing her mother, immersing herself within her entomology studies, passionate about insects and the local native flora. At home, Lottie's father continues to grieve the loss of his wife through his hoarding disorder. His collections of items spilling out of the house into the garden and causing the neighbours to complain to the local council. Noah is an enthusiastic surfer, under the vigilant watch of his parents since he was rescued from drowning. His best friend Harley is becoming increasingly aggressive towards Noah and with support from new friend Lottie and Jack's letters, gains the confidence to stand up for himself against his bully.
Jack and sister Kirra live with their mother in Mullin and although his mother words endlessly, he and Kirra have cousin Alby for company. The fridge and pantry and typically empty and their mother unaware of the absences Jack has from school, pressured by Alby who has finished school. When Jack's mother decides to seek support for her alcoholism, Kirra and Jack are sent to live with their aunt. Sleeping on the floor until a teacher intervenes.
Children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, exposed to neglect, alcoholism and depression, expected to care for younger siblings and themselves. The expectations placed upon children and the mental anguish they endure, Jack in particular feeling a sense of isolation. His mother was consistently working or tired, which likely may have been hungover. Lottie grieving for her mother while her father becomes depressive and her only support is the solace she finds in her tentative friendship with Noah, her insects and her letters from Mullin teacher Miss Waites.
Pip Harry has created a beautiful narrative. Told in verse, The Little Wave is a wonderfully gentle story that will resonate with children and early adolescents, the feeling of wanting to belong. Simply lovely.
Written by Elizabeth Acevedo
Poetry, Contemporary, Social Issues
320 Pages
Publishing April 1st 2018
Thank you to Hardie Grant Egmont
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★★★★
Xiomara Batista feels unheard and unable to hide in her Harlem neighborhood. Ever since her body grew into curves, she has learned to let her fists and her fierceness do the talking.
But Xiomara has plenty she wants to say, and she pours all her frustration and passion onto the pages of a leather notebook, reciting the words to herself like prayers, especially after she catches feelings for a boy in her bio class named Aman, who her family can never know about. With Mami’s determination to force her daughter to obey the laws of the church, Xiomara understands that her thoughts are best kept to herself.
So when she is invited to join her school’s slam poetry club, she doesn’t know how she could ever attend without her mami finding out, much less speak her words out loud. But still, she can’t stop thinking about performing her poems.
Because in the face of a world that may not want to hear her, Xiomara refuses to be silent.
Sixteen year old Xiomara Batista is a beautiful young woman, intelligent and compassionate, whispering words between the pages of her worn leather journal of a life never her own. Altagracia and her husband migrated to America from the Dominican Republic, surrendering her celibacy to a womaniser and embracing her Catholicism, residing in the community of East Harlem.
My parents probably wanted a girl who would sit in the pewswearing pretty florals and a soft smile.They got combat boots and a mouth silent until it's sharp as an island machete.
Brother Xavier was birthed as a whisper moments before Xiomara, wailing, entering the world. Xavier attends a prestigious private school, incapable of confronting his tormentors, incapable of confronting the men who sexualise Xiomara, now conscientious of her physique.
Her mother is antagonistic woman, disapproving, abusing and degrading Xiomara and the young woman her daughter represents. An independent feminist young lady. Emotionally absent, her father is a complacent bystander, creating a turbulent and oppressive environment.
We're wild women, flinging verses at each other
like grenades in a battlefield, a cacophony of violent poems
and then we're both gasping, wordless.
Xiomara's exploration of the world as a young woman is analytical, faith, femininity, relationships and the expectancy of young women and women of colour. Inspired by the poetry of women of colour, creative writing encourages Xiomara to articulate her thoughts. A formidable young woman who will confront, inspire and empower her captive audience throughout her verse narration.
To grab my notebook,
and write, and write and write
all the things I wish I could have said.
Make poems from the sharp feelings inside,
that feel like they could
carve me wide
open.
Written by Steven Herrick
Contemporary, Verse
128 Pages
Special Edition Published January 3rd 2017
Thank you to UQP
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★★★
Jack is an everyday sixteen year old boy. He’s obsessed with Annabel, sport and nose hair. He’s also obsessed with a ghost...Sixteen year old Jack muses about his life, the compulsion to become an author, living with his father who works long hours as a print journalist and his nineteen year old sister Desiree and her hint of lip hair. Since their mother passed away from breast cancer, Desiree self examines her breasts each night, while Jack watches his father in the back garden, playing cricket at midnight. All fundamentally flawed and impacted by death of their wife and mother.
There’s a ghost in our house
in a red evening dress,
black stockings
and Mum’s slingback shoes.
Her hair whispers
over white shoulders
as she dances through the rooms.
A Place Like This
Written by Steven Herrick
Contemporary, Road Trip, Verse
144 Pages
Special Edition Published January 3rd 2017
Thank you to UQP
★★★★
Jack and Annabel have been dating for two years. With high school over they’re about to start university, until Jack decides to chuck it all in.
I think you and Annabel should get out of here
as fast as possible. Have a year doing anything
you want. My going away present is enough money
to buy a car. A cheap old one, okay? You’ll have to
work somewhere to buy the petrol, and to keep going.
But go.
No destination in mind, Jack and Annabel leave town and discover themselves in a place they never knew existed.
The freedom of the open road beckons Jack and Annabel, leaving behind their families and art degrees in favour for adventure wherever the wind will blow, their bank manager brown seventies vehicle having reached the unexpected destination of an apple orchard. With meager wages and a barnyard bed of hay, working the orchard during daylight and making love all night. Pregnant after a sexual assault she cannot remember, sixteen year old Emma is waiting for her unborn child, wanting to leave the orchard and her father behind. George, mourning the loss of his wife while providing for his children. Intersecting and inspiring, life blossoms through a series of journeys, rather than the destination.
My Thoughts
Love, Ghosts & Nose Hair and A Place Like This are a lovely exploration of family, free spirit and the love that unites us. Jack is a quiet and thoughtful young man, still grieving the loss of his mother while struggling to find his place in the world. Throughout the poetic narrative, the reader experiences aspects of the lives of others as glimpses of Australia through our communities. While I felt disconnected to Jack initially, I adored A Place Like This and the varying aspects and stages of our lives. The freedom of being young with no obligations, to a teenage mother struggling with the identity of her unborn child's father.
I found George and Emma's narratives honest and enchanting. Emma is only sixteen years old with the weight of motherhood baring down on her slight shoulders, the pregnancy a result of an assault at a party she has no recollection of. Surprisingly, her father George wants to support his young daughter while providing for her siblings, his wife and the mother of his children walking out of their lives years prior.
Steven Herrick is a masterful storyteller, sharing snippets of our Australian communities through verse.
Gap
Written by Rebecca JessenFiction, Verse
Published July 23rd 2014
232 Pages
Thank you to UQP
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★★★★
Winner of the 2013 Queensland Literary Award, Best Emerging Author.When you’re at the end of the line with nowhere to turn, how far would you go to protect the one you love?A man is found dead in an inner-city suburb, a police officer walks the blurry line between duty and loyalty, and a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks is on the run. Ana soon becomes a suspect in the murder investigation, and as sole carer for her younger sister is desperately trying to stay ahead of the law. In a surprising twist, the detective in charge of the case is no stranger and Ana is forced to face her past and the things she has left behind. Unsure of who she can trust and isolated by her crime, Ana is drawn into a passionate affair that breaks all the rules.From the winner of the 2013 Queensland Literary Awards, Best Emerging Author category, Gap combines a gripping crime thriller with a style evocative of Dorothy Porter’s cult classic, The Monkey’s Mask.
Ana's life has never been carefree, she's never truly lived, only merely survived. Now as the sole carer for her sister Indie, she works to allow Indie to live the life that was never offered to Ana after her father walked out of their lives, while their neglectful mother consistently chose her string of boyfriends at the expense of her daughters. But now it seems Ana will be forced to pay for her past.
After an altercation, the police come looking for Ana, but she never expected her former partner and high school sweetheart Sawyer to come knocking on her door again. With Indie to look out for, Ana begins to worry what will happen to her underage sister and the urge to flee town seems to be Ana's only option. Until her mother hears of her alleged crime.
Never having cared for Indie's welfare, her mother now demands that the teen return home, providing the police with further ammunition to suspect Ana. The fierce need to protect her sister, the unresolved feelings between her and Sawyer and on the verge of facing incarceration, who can Ana turn to?
Kelly's Thoughts
Told in verse, Gap follows the sorrowful storyline of Ana, who had just reached the lowest point in her life thus far. After being kicked out of her mother's home at only sixteen, Ana has struggled to survive, but after taking in her underage sister Indie, it's given Ana a reason to pick herself and provide a life that their mother couldn't and Ana will do anything to keep Indie safe.
What I found so striking about Ana was her realism. Her emotions, willingness to admit her past mistakes and give everything she has to protect and provide for Indie. Her emotions, her genuine fear and her unconditional love for the girl who also rescued her in turn is honest, raw and readers will not only find themselves drawn to Ana, but can relate to her downfall. But being a prime suspect in a murder case will unravel the girl who is just barely keeping her life together.
Although she's made many questionable life decisions, Ana isn't a hardened criminal, she's merely a girl who finds herself in a situation now where she'll need to fight for her innocence, regardless of the legitimacy. As the storyline reveals itself, we see Ana's internal struggle against her only option, to admit defeat or fight to the bitter end. But hope comes in the form of her former partner, who Ana admits she can no longer trust. I loved Gap, the short, punchy style of verse not only had an enormous impact, but was incredibly engaging and left my heart aching for Ana and her situation.
My only complaint is that it felt unresolved, but rather it's left to the reader to interpret how Ana's story will end. But an incredibly worthy winner of the 2013 Queensland Literary Award for the Best Emerging Author.
Silver People: A Tale from the Panama Canal
Written by Margarita Engle
Published March 26th 2014
224 Pages
Thank you to University of Queensland Press
How can such a narrow
bridge of land
be so important?
One hundred years ago, the world celebrated the opening of the Panama Canal. It was a miracle. Where a mountain once stood was now a path of water connecting the world’s two largest oceans. But creating a miracle is no easy task.
For only a few coins a day, teenagers Mateo and Henry endure homesickness, backbreaking labour, ferocious heat, landslides, and disease to dig through the mountain with little more than a shovel. Thousands around them lose their lives, while displaced souls like local herb girl Anita, and the endangered rainforest itself, do what they can to survive.
This novel in verse tells the story of one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken.
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