Diana Kidd - Onion Tears and 2 Hands together

These are books for primary school kids, but better written than a lot of adult crap.
2 hands together is about a nice close suburban aussie family & their interactions with the new indigenous kids next door. the kids are great, the adults are complex & there's one especially tense scene. v. good.
****


i've decided to do my literacy block assignment on onion tears. it's about a vietnamese girl who's parents sent her off to australia to avoid the war. again, very nice, understandable characters. if anyone has any memories of studying this in school, i'd be interested to here.


***1/2

Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen

After reading Carrie Bebris - I wanted to go back to the inspiration. Lovely. Lizzie's a more independent heroine than I remember - she keeps a lot to herself & doesn't confide in Jane as much as in the mini-series. Great story, great characters, lovely romance.
****

3 more from Carrie Bebris

I've finished the others in the Mr & Mrs Darcy series.
I still love them, but I think the author's getting a bit lazy. Rather than getting Lizzie & Darcy to figure out who the baddies are through detective work, they bad guy just confesses the whole plan to them (before it's carried out). sigh.
Still enjoyable reading, but some eye-rolling moments.
***

Playing with the grown-ups - Sophie Dahl

I was really curious to see how Sohpie's writing would compare with her g'dad - and she didn't disappoint. Very different style. Obviously was exposed to a lot of arty people & therefore experienced high fashion & travel & drugs & alcohol a bit early.
I liked it:) The protagonist's mum obviously had a mental illness, but i think she's written quite realistically (sorry if that spelling's crap).
Very foreign to my own experience of growing up in beautiful qld, but interesting, nonetheless.
***

More than love letters - Rosy Thornton

next up is more chick lit from the brits. it's written in the form of emails, letters, newsletters and minutes from meetings. pretty interesting. the author obviously loves harry potter as well as north and south, so i liked the main character well enough. a few little twists (that were unfortunately predictable)...but nice, easy reading.
***

more cecilia ahern

hi gang - quite a bit to catch up on today:)i've been super busy, but still had time for reading (just no blogging). I probably read this book over a month ago....but I still remember liking it - so that's something:)i wouldn't really classify it as chick lit at all...it's about a girl (can't remember her name). Another girl from her neighbourhood went missing when she was little, so she's spent the rest of her life a bit ocd about finding missing things.
won't give away anthing, but a little sad & crosses over into fantasy a little.
worthwhile - ***1/2