AUSSIE YA MONTH: Guest Post - Adele from Persnickety Snark

Adele is quite possibly one of my favourite things about the blogging world.  Her blog was and still is, one of those that I look to for guidance, a blog that has spirit and integrity and most importantly? knows how to mock it hot! (link right here!!) and most recently she started working as the Program Coordinator for the Centre for Youth Literature for Victoria Library.  I'm bigging her up now, but you guys probably know her already and the ever fab SnarkyWench on Twitter.  She is a fab friend and I am EXTREMELY chuffed to introduce her to all you lucky people!!!

Growing up in regional Australia I read The Babysitter’s Club, Sweet Valley High and all the Nancy Drew’s I could get my ten year old hands on. I didn’t realise there was a problem until my teacher circled three words in one of my adventures stories in a summer camp. Firstly Australia doesn’t have summer camps, and secondly we don’t use words like – faucet or closet. Sadly it hadn’t occurred to me that I should be using tap or wardrobe until my teacher brandished his red pen with the abandon of a power drunk pixie on a sugar rush. After graduating from some fantastic Australian picture books I had fallen into the Americanised series carousel of family cruises, twin swaps and annoying bland boyfriend’s called Ned.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved them all but they didn’t reflect a reality that I knew. That was part of the attraction. It wasn’t until the next year when I read John Marsden’s Tomorrow, When the War Began and Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi that I truly realised the beauty and strength of stories about my homeland. For the first time I had seen my country in ways that weren’t intrinsically related to our flora or fauna (though May Gibbs and Mem Fox have nothing to apologise for). 

The new, grown up version of me loved Ellie the farm girl who stood up and fought against the foreign enemy. Ellie was from the same kind of Australian country town I was raised. Show day is the biggest day of the year and the thought that her friends deliberately skipped it was amazing to me. Crunchy brown grass, one minute mainies (driving back and forth along the town’s main road) and looking up wistfully at the grain solos was my life, and Ellie’s.

Josie was a completely different kettle of fish. I am not Italian, I didn’t attend a Catholic school and at that point in time, I had yet to see Sydney. But in Looking for Alibrandi I was represented on the page, everything youthful and Australian was there. It’s a powerful feeling that feeling of connectedness. And while I still remember Kirsty and her babysitting hijinks with fondness, it didn’t elicit the pride that Marsden, Marchetta and many others work does for me.

The strength of Australian youth literature is becoming increasingly apparent. In the past four years along Sonya Hartnett (Astrid Lingren Memorial Award 2008), Melina Marchetta (Michael L Prinz Medal 2010) and Shaun Tan (Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award 2011) have won some of the most prestigious awards available. But there is the second wave of Australian authors currently hitting internationally, authors like Kirsty Eager (Raw Blue), Laura Buzo (Good Oil), Cath Crowley (Graffiti Moon), Fiona Wood (Six Impossible Things)…and the list could go on.

 What I failed to realise as a child is the sheer volume of talent that runs through every publishing house in Australia. I am not such a fool now. Now, my job is to promote reading for youth and the young adult literature of our country and beyond. As the Program Coordinator for the Centre for Youth Literature we are devising events in the youth literature realm as well as different online mediums (insideadog – youth reading website - and the Read Alert blog).

I have been very fortunate to meet many Australian authors this year. They are lovely, grounded and humble beings. I’ve driven through dusty regional Australia to the sounds of Melina Marchetta and Elizabeth Honey energetically discussing their process and future projects, witness reactions to John Flanagan news of a forthcoming girl Ranger and sat in a tram being struck by the realisation that I was whizzing through a Graffiti Moon-mentioned setting.

I am extremely lucky in the lucky country.

If you are looking for newish Aussie treats, here are some recommendations:

Paranormal:
Rhiannon Hart’s Blood Song

Contemporary:
Vikki Wakefield’s All I Ever Wanted

Action/Adventure:
John Flanagan’s Brotherband: The Outcasts

Fantasy:
Isobelle Carmody’s The Sending

Historical:
Kelly Gardiner’s Act of Faith

We post booklists covering many assorted themes on Read Alert every Friday with international (and more importantly) Australian titles and review Australian titles each Wednesday. It might be worth you while subscribing.

Thanks to Carla for allowing me this opportunity to brag about my lovely literary country.

A MASSIVE THANKS! to Adele for being her usual amaze self :)