Lol ([info]boojumlol) wrote,
@ 2009-10-04 14:03:00
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historical fiction
Can anyone think of children's historical fiction set in Australia or, ideally, Sydney?The only ones I've come up with for Sydney are Playing Beattie Bow, The House that was Eureka and My Place. I know I know more than that, but my mind's gone blank. It doesn't matter what the age range for the book is.

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[info]bathmat
2009-10-04 03:14 am UTC (link)
Seven Little Australians

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[info]bathmat
2009-10-04 03:18 am UTC (link)
Somewhere Around the Corner
Longtime Passing and Longtime Dreaming

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[info]boojumlol
2009-10-04 03:25 am UTC (link)
Sometime Around the Corner is brilliant, thanks! The more recent the better.

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[info]aunty_del
2009-10-04 03:19 am UTC (link)
The Harp In The South

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[info]aunty_del
2009-10-04 03:20 am UTC (link)
oops, you said children's fiction...

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[info]aunty_del
2009-10-04 03:22 am UTC (link)
How about The Magic Pudding? More fantasy than historical, but it's set in a vaguely 19th century fantasy...

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[info]boojumlol
2009-10-04 03:25 am UTC (link)
No, that's not quite right. The more recent the book, the more relevant. I have to write a pitch to a publisher (for an assignment, not for read), and I need to mention some books that are similar. I would like some more recent than those I mentioned, which I think are all from the 80s. Maybe I should have been a bit more specific, sorry.

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[info]agsilver
2009-10-04 04:40 am UTC (link)
Lol, did you write a book?

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[info]agsilver
2009-10-04 04:40 am UTC (link)
Or when you said "for read", did you mean "for real"?


I got all excited there for a moment.

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[info]boojumlol
2009-10-04 05:00 am UTC (link)
Arrrgh, stupid typo. I haven't writen a book, but I will be writing part of the one I'm pitching as my main assignment for this course. The pitch is worth 20%, the main assignment 65%. The pitch is difficult because I've only written a tiny bit of the book and it will probably change as I write more.

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[info]rigel_7
2009-10-04 03:41 am UTC (link)
The Billabong series by Mary Grant Bruce
These were written from 1910 onwards, so are more an actual historical fiction now :P All about Norah and her family growing up on their station in rural Victoria

Jackie French has a heap of books where children from the present day go back in time, and also books aimed at teaching kids about how life was back in the past.

"The Devil's Own" by Deborah Lisson was one of my all time favorites about a young girl who goes back in time to the wreck of the Batavia and is marooned with the survivors in the Abrolhos Islands (set in WA)

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[info]boojumlol
2009-10-04 05:02 am UTC (link)
Billabong isn't popular or recent enough to be a powerful comparison, but the others are good - thanks!

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[info]katiefoolery
2009-10-04 06:49 am UTC (link)
Oh yes, Jackie French's Somewhere Around the Corner is quite good. I had no idea those little settlement things existed during the Depression. And I was going to suggest the Billabong books, even though I couldn't remember what they were called.

I loved The Devil's Own as well! Awesome book.

What about Colin Thiele's books? Sun on the Stubble or something like that?

I don't really have any more to offer - everyone's already suggested the ones I was thinking of. Historical fiction isn't really popular in the libraries I work in so I'm not really aware of the more recent books written in that genre.

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[info]bathmat
2009-10-04 11:41 am UTC (link)
Yes, didn't Colin Thiele write one about bushfires... I remember the kid going to the beach and the sky being red.

There was the Silver Brumby series too... though I don't know how historical that was.

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[info]nitedula
2009-10-04 08:25 am UTC (link)
Eleanor, Elizabeth? It's time-jumping rather than completely historical, though. Frank Dalby Davidson did some novels, but I don't know if they were specifically aimed at children. Some of Alan Marshall's short stories might qualify.

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[info]saralonde24
2009-10-05 11:02 am UTC (link)
Strange Objects by Gary Crew (set in both the past and the present, about the wreck of the Batavia)

Robin Klein's trilogy about the Melling sisters set in the 1940s - All in the Blue Unclouded Weather, Dresses of Red and Gold, The Sky in Silver Lace

Wish I could think of more...

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[info]foxe
2009-10-07 01:23 am UTC (link)
Historical? errr, apart from the already-mentioned Ruth Park (as much as I love her books) not much. More contemporary -- Looking for Alibrandi springs directly to mind...

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