Great Australian YA Books That Are Also Great Australian Films (II)

One of my all time favourite Australian films has to Australian Rules which in my opinion is seriously under appreciated. It's adapted from Phillip Gwynne's YA book Deadly, Unna? and is set and filmed in country South Australia. The main character, Blacky, is played by one of my favourite Aussie actors Nathan Phillips who was fortunate enough to play the guy who was the reason all those snakes were on that plane in Snakes On A Plane. This film was made in 2002 so yeah, it was before he was famous haha. Definitely try and find this movie if you can, I'm not sure how easy it is to come by, though I'd be interested to see if you felt you needed subtitles though if you're not Australian, there's some great slang in here.

In Prospect Bay, a remote outpost on the South Australian coast, two communities, the Goonyas (whites) and the Nungas (blacks), come together on the one field they have in common, the football field. But the underlying racism and class warfare threatens to make the team's greatest victories irrelevant. This holds particularly true for Blacky, a white teen who is more interested in books than sport, and his best friend, Dumby, the Aboriginal star of the team.



(Actually both book and film are available on amazon, you'll just have to ignore the film's sole review... it got one star haha - book | film)

Great Australian YA Books That Are Also Great Australian Films (I)

Looking For Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta is an Australian YA book first published in 1992 and made into a film, released in 2000. It's probably close to ten years since I've read Looking For Alibrandi but I watched the film again recently. The film's is a bit girly but well worth trying to get your hands on a copy to watch. The beginning and the end of the film are a bit slow but the middle is amazing! Definitely an example of a good Australian film. It stars Pia Miranda as Josie Alibrandi as well as Anthony LaPaglia and Matthew Newton.

A teenage Australian girl deals with the traumas of everyday life. These include her difficult relationship with her single mother, the unexpected return of her long-lost father, the disapproving nuns at her strict Catholic school, the acceptance of her schoolmates,and romantic dilemmas over two very different boys...



(Both the book are and the film are on amazon - book | film)

No Time Wasters + Beatle Meets Destiny

No Time Wasters is a collection of all the fake ads that some friends from Melbourne put in their local paper each week. Some of them are pretty funny so it's well worth a read.. the one above is an ad for a stalker. Which is funny because it's a joke but what happens when you reply as a joke and it turns out it's not a joke? This exact scenario happens in Beatle Meets Destiny by Gabrielle Williams (Penguin Australia, August 3 2009). Which should give you an indication of it's slightly quirky nature. It's a really adorable book... so more on that soon!

Imagine your name is John Lennon, only everyone calls you Beatle.

And then you meet your Dream girl and her name is Destiny McCartney.

But what if you're already with the perfect girl?

A novel about change, chance and everybody doing the wrong thing.

Friday Fun ANSWERS (2)

These are the answers to this weeks Friday Fun, First Lines Game. If you haven't had a chance to check out the game yet it's never too late! Just go here! :)

So these are the titles of the books which the first lines come from, just highlight the text (ctrl + a) to see the answers, that way there's no spoilers if you don't want them!

1. Peter Pan, J M Barrie
   
2. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
   
3. The Dawn Treader, C.S Lewis
   
4. The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
   
5. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
   
6. Book of a Thousand Days, Shannon Hale
   
7. The Field Guide, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Holly Black
   
8. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Princes, J K Rowling
   
9. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
   
10. Memoirs of a Geisha, Arthur Golden
    
11. The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
    
12. Uglies, Scott Westerfeld
    
13. The Wide Window, Lemony Snicket
    
14. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins
    
15. Looking for Alaska, John Green

How did you go? :)

Does anyone have any suggestions for next week's game?

Friday Fun, First Line Games (2)

Every Friday I'm going to post a bit of a book related game, maybe some trivia or a quiz or something entertaining. I'll give you the weekend to ponder it over and then I'll put the answers up on a Sunday :) Sound like fun?

First Lines Game - Can you work out what books these first lines come from?

1. All children, except one, grow up.
2. In a hole in the ground lived a hobbit.
3. There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.
4. There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.
5. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
6. My lady and I are being shut up in a tower for seven years.
7. If someone had asked Jared Grace what jobs his brother and sister would have when they grew up, he would have had no trouble replying.
8. It was nearing midnight and the Prime Minister was sitting alone in his office, reading a long memo that was slipping through his brain without leaving the slightest trace of meaning behind.
   
9. Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life.
10. Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, "That afternoon when I met so-and-so...was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon."
11. First the colors.
12. The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.
13. If you didn't know much about the Baudelaire orphans, and you saw them sitting on their suitcases at Damocles Dock, you might think that they were bound for an exciting adventure.
14. When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.
15. The week before I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party.

Think it over! You can post your guesses here if you like, and then on Sunday I'll put the answers up so you can see how you went :)

[Future suggestions appreciated!]

First Lines Game!

I thought I'd make a bit of a game as something fun for everyone :) So I scooped out a pile of books from my bookshelf and wrote out the first lines. Your task is to try and figure out what book the first line is from! (The answers are revealed in the comments)

None of them are too obscure, don't worry! It's actually quite interesting how the first line can set the tone for the entire book...

First Lines Game!

1. Once there were four children whose name's were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.
2. Coraline discovered the door a little while after they moved into the house.
3. If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book.
4. Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening Hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.
5. I'd never given much thought to how I would die - though I'd had reason enough in the last few months - but even if I had, I would not have imagined it like this.
6. The reason Weetzie Bat hated high school was because no one understood.
7. Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
8. Once upon a time there was a pair of pants.
9. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake.
10. Dad had Uncle Eddie around so naturally they had to come and nose around and see what I was up to.
11. It's only half an hour since someone - Robyn, I think - said we should write everything down, and it's only twenty-nine minutes since I got chosen, and for those twenty-nine minutes I've had everyone crowded around me gazing at the blank page and yelling ideas and advice.
12. In life, Elizabeth Adora Holland was known not only for her loveliness but also for her moral character, so it was fair to assume in the afterlife she would occupy a lofty seat with an especially good view.
13. This book is largely concerned with Hobbits, and from its pages a reader may discover much of their character and a little of their history.
14. Rain fell that night, a fine, whispering rain.
15. I felt her fear before I heard her screams.
    

Have a go! The book titles are in the first comment in the comments section, have a look then tell me how you did :)