17th Sept 2008
Can you imagine not having the right to vote? One hundred years ago, in Victoria, women over the age of 21 gained the right to vote in State elections, the last State in Australia to legislate for this. It was the culmination of many womens' struggle for acknowledgment, and a slow and grudging response from those in power. Along with the suffrage struggle went the demands for equal wages, property rights, equality in education and rights of children. We can sometimes forget, while contemplating what we would like to change for the better, the social changes which have improved life for us.
One of the focal points of the celebration is a petition of 30,000 signatures collected in 1891, of women across Victoria who supported the call for the vote, nicknamed 'The Monster Petition'. It was pasted onto a huge roll of calico and apparently took four men to lift. Kathy Smalley and staff at Croydon and Ringwood libraries have organised an event to commemorate this petition. Signature Stories of Ringwood & Croydon Suffragettes, is an opportunity to sign a new petition which will become part of the history of womens' suffrage in the future, a performance by Wilma Farrow as Vida Goldstein, a prominent suffragette, and a look at the stories of local women who signed the original petition. It will take place on Friday 17th of October from 7.15pm, and you can book at any ERL branch or by ringing Ringwood Library on 9870 0177. Kathy is also interested in tracing the histories of several women from the local area who signed the original 1891 petition. If your family has links back to that period, or you know of others who do, Kathy would like to hear from you on the Ringwood phone number.
24th Sept 2008
As parents and grandparents we are often keen to introduce our young family members to classic stories we have loved. Pia and I agreed that often we find that the younger folk are less than enthusiastic about our beloved favourites. For every generation, it is important to read books in contemporary language, about people and situations that they recognise. This is important for their literacy and for their emotional development. So well written books aimed at teenagers are especially welcome. Lili Wilkinson is a Melbourne writer who knows what will interest teenage girls, and her latest, The not quite perfect boyfriend is a great read. It tells the story of 16 year old Midge who has never had a boyfriend, whose friends talk about boyfriends so much, she makes one up; only to find a boy just like the one she described turning up at her school at the start of the year. The story becomes very tangled before Midge sorts out her priorites.
A book which has been around for a while, but has sparked some new borrowing because it was made into a film in the last year is Nim's island by Wendy Orr. This is a lovely story to read to children between the ages of 6 and 10, about a young girl who lives on a Pacific island with her dad. One day her dad disappears at sea, Nim writes to tell her favourite adventure writer Alex Rover of the mystery. Will Alex come to the rescue?
Pia also had some lovely picture books with her today, including Donkeys Adelheid Dahimene-Heide Stollinger which tells of a couple of donkey friends who quarrel, but discover that no other creature fits in quite so well with them as the other donkey. Sunday Chutney is by Aaron Blabey who won the Early Childhood category of the Children's Book of the Year awards this year with Pearl Barley and Charlie Parsley. His latest book is equally quirky and warmly affectionate, about a little girl who is different, but full of charm.
Finally, Molly and her Dad by Jan Ormerod describes the challenge to a little girl whose mum and dad live a plane flight apart, and whose dad comes to look after her while her mum has to go away. Molly discovers that while her dad may not be like the other kids' dads, he has many endearing qualities which she comes to love.
1st Oct 2008
8th Oct 2008
The girl with the cardboard port by Judith McNeil is a harrowing true story of a young girl's life from the age of fourteen to twenty four; her search for love and belonging, and the failings and outright rejection of her birth family and the family she married into. There is a resolute honesty and freshness of recall that means this story leaps off the page.
It was a privilege to talk to Judith on the radio program today about the experiences of that period of her life, and of what it meant to write it down. The cardboard port of the title accompanied Judith from the small north Queensland town which her mother and five syblings had to leave when her father, a railway fettler, was killed. It accompanied her to Brisbane and frightening period with a homicidal step father; to Sydney to which she escaped at sixteen and met a student from Singapore to whom she became pregnant, then married; to Singapore to live with her husband's family which she had believed to be wealthy, but discovered living in poverty; to Kuala Lumpur where she lived a fractured life between high society parties and poor rural kampong; and finally back to Australia, when she knew she would have to leave or go mad.
Through ordeals of sexual violence, extreme poverty, fear for her children's and her own life, she managed to maintain a curiosity about the worlds she found herself in, and recalls scenes, dialogue and customs which make this a compellingly sensual book in many ways. As simple as her determination to find a Christmas tree in the jungle, and as complex as the exploration of new towns and cities, their sights, smells and complex relationships of class and culture, all is fascinating. This is a story which will resonate for some time after you have finished it.
Finally, Molly and her Dad by Jan Ormerod describes the challenge to a little girl whose mum and dad live a plane flight apart, and whose dad comes to look after her while her mum has to go away. Molly discovers that while her dad may not be like the other kids' dads, he has many endearing qualities which she comes to love.
1st Oct 2008
P.D. James began her detective writing career in 1962, and has written fourteen novels featuring the very English Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. According to Lyn Baines, Adam should be about 80 by now, but in the parallel universe of detective fiction, our favourites never age dramatically. There is a good chance this will be the last of James' very popular character as she is 88 years old, and has earnt the right to put her feet up on the couch and do some reading herself. Adam Dalgliesh has resolved his love life and become engaged in this novel, and offered promotion, so many of the loose ends of previous novels have been tied. In this latest novel The Private Patient, you have to wait a hundred pages for the crime (Lyn's dad would have given up after page fifty), and a lot of character building and scene setting prepares you for a puzzling murder in an isolated old house in Devon, with an ancient stone cirle somehow involved. If you are interested in knowing more about P.D. James, you can check out the official P.D. James website.
Lyn's second book review today was on her other passion, history. The fears of Henry IV : the life of England's self made king by Ian Mortimer introduces us to an English king who is comparatively unknown, his short reign of fifteen years troubled by insurrection and assassination attempts. He is primarily known as the king who ousted his cousin Richard II from the throne, and as the father of Henry V, the successful soldier whose victory at Agincourt led to his success in combining the crowns of England and France. Mortimer has written a compelling story of the power struggles and conflicts, with a rich background of what medieval life in England was like.8th Oct 2008
The girl with the cardboard port by Judith McNeil is a harrowing true story of a young girl's life from the age of fourteen to twenty four; her search for love and belonging, and the failings and outright rejection of her birth family and the family she married into. There is a resolute honesty and freshness of recall that means this story leaps off the page.
It was a privilege to talk to Judith on the radio program today about the experiences of that period of her life, and of what it meant to write it down. The cardboard port of the title accompanied Judith from the small north Queensland town which her mother and five syblings had to leave when her father, a railway fettler, was killed. It accompanied her to Brisbane and frightening period with a homicidal step father; to Sydney to which she escaped at sixteen and met a student from Singapore to whom she became pregnant, then married; to Singapore to live with her husband's family which she had believed to be wealthy, but discovered living in poverty; to Kuala Lumpur where she lived a fractured life between high society parties and poor rural kampong; and finally back to Australia, when she knew she would have to leave or go mad.
Through ordeals of sexual violence, extreme poverty, fear for her children's and her own life, she managed to maintain a curiosity about the worlds she found herself in, and recalls scenes, dialogue and customs which make this a compellingly sensual book in many ways. As simple as her determination to find a Christmas tree in the jungle, and as complex as the exploration of new towns and cities, their sights, smells and complex relationships of class and culture, all is fascinating. This is a story which will resonate for some time after you have finished it.
---- Lesley
