Mama's Trippin'

title: Mama's Trippin'
author: Katy Watson-Kell
first: 2006 by Fremantle Press published

Von leaves the life he knows in fremantle and travels to New Zealand to meet the mother who left when he was 6 and his new baby sister. he feels at a lost end in WA, fighting with her girlfriend, isn't doing so well at school, not sure what he cares about or what he wants anymore and isn't feeling right with his mates. his dad's heading off to the station with his mates for a week, so when Von's mum rings out of the blue and invites him to come stay he jumps on the chance. when he gets to Wellington he realises in an instant things aren't as magical as his mum, Charlene, made out. her boyfriend's running from the cops, she's working all might as a dancer at a nightclub and then their is Stella, his silent sister. it isn't long until things so from slightly hectic to crazy. soon people are turning up dead. Von travels to the place of his Moriori ancestors and they reach out to help him. at this point is he able to trust a culture he's felt no connection to before now. does Von have any choice?

i quite enjoyed this book, it's easy to read and flows really well. their have been other books about sons who find their mothers and have their lives turned upside down, but this one was different. i think the main difference was that it was told from lots of different perspectives. even though this book is written entirely in third person it's always easy to tell who's point of view it is from and if you can't tell you can look at the symbol at the start of the chapter. it was very int resting to get the mother's view of her long, lost son as well as his of her.

i also liked how realistic the relationships in Mama's Trippin are. instead of hating or suddenly loving each other, Von and his mother slowly and clumsily get to know each other. how stella, the 2 year old sister, and Von get along is also right on the mark, at first Von hasn't a clue what to do, but it isn't long before they are inseparable. how henry, the neighbour from down stairs, weaves his way into their lives was quite funny. it's nice to find an authour who remembers that young guys tend to think with what's in their pants not what makes sense.

this book also had a very good ending. not everything was resolved, but we had a feeling things would work themselves out over the next few months.

i felt this book left a few things unexplaned. Von is a diabetic and we get the feeling right from the beggining that he isn't comfortable with it, but that is never explored. we also hear nothing about his mates except his girlfriend Juice. all we know about his guy friends is that they play footy. i think that if i read Katy Watson-Kell's other book, Juice, that both of these things would be in that story.

a bit of background knowledge about the Moriori people could help understand this book a bit better becuase this book really shines when it comes to spiritual and cultural ideas. i plan on finding out more becuase it was the connection with Von's ancestors that made the ending so special.

sorry for the long review. it's a good book and i will deffinetly be trying to get my hands of Juice, which is also about Von.

New Aussie Book Blog

i thought I'd let you in on an awesome, little secret.
i have found an awesome new blog (well actually she commented on a review but still) it's called The Book Sooth it's run by a girl called Isme. we have a lot in common, we're both 14 year old girls from western Australia who love books.

check out her blog and leave her a lovely comment please. and you can leave one here before you head over to the book slooth.
xxx
by the way, we might be having a competition, but only people who have commented on our blog will be considered.

With Lots of Love from Georgia

Georgia is a 15 year old girl who would die to get to the natural affinity concert and meet Jakob. to do this she has to save up 500 dollars. Georgia is very mixed up, she loves her best friend, but it isn't quite right. she loves her mum but why does she always think she's right. she loves food, but why does it have to make you fat.

things are changing fast in Georgia's life and she's caught up in a whirlwind she can't control and is left feeling lost and lonely. but in the end, everything leads to something good. sometimes we just have to wait and see what comes next.

like always Brigid Lowry has written a beautiful book, not in the collage style of Guitar Highway Rose, but it is scattered with lists written by Georgia herself. I didn't like this novel as much as Guitar Highway Rose or Tomorrow All Will be Beautiful, but it was still a great read, once again Brigid Lowry has captured the confusion of being a teenager. suddenly your diving into an adult world, your parents no longer holding you up. you're realising that maybe you're a better swimmer anyway, but still you might not be ready to let go.

a beautiful book, read it.

The Night They Stormed Eureka

Title:The Night They Stormed Eureka
Aurthur: Jackie French
First Published:2009 by harpercollins

Sam has lots of family troubles and decides the only thing she can do is to run away. she ends up on the Ballarat gold fields in 1854, not long before the Eureka Stockade. she is picked up by a couple who run the 'best little cook shop on the diggins' and gets everything she's ever wanted, a family that loves her and friends who help her. life in the diggings is very different to life in the 21st century, to Sam seems so simple. the longer she spends there, she realises it is just a hard. she has to make some incredibly hard choices that could effect Australian history and culture from then on. she knows about the bloodshed and death, should she warn them that they will be attacked at dawn on Sunday so they save lives? would Australia be better off as a republic? with the help off her friend the professor she learns that all she can do is ask her self weather this bit is good or bad. Sam's trip back in time teaches her so much. it showed me how far we have come in 150 years, things people thought were impossible, like education for women, are now standard. my favourite lesson, and the most predominate, is that people can achieve things when they stand together that they could never get near alone.

i really enjoyed this book, but i found not a lot really happened. it was not boring in the least, but they're was really only one exciting or major event. this is mainly because even though their are no battles or fights Sam is the characters are constantly fighting themselves. Mrs Puddleham, Sam's adoptive mother, is battling with the memory of the baby she lost on the ship to Australia and her friend George is pushing the strains of being a half aboriginal who wants an education.

this is very easy to read and understand compared to other historical novels because Sam knows as little as we do. there are also appendices at the back including recipes from Mrs Puddleham and an explanation of things that you might not understand, including terms like "redcoats" and some extra information of the stockade which was useful and interesting.

i am very happy that this novel wasn't ruined with an "it was a dream" ending. towards the end i was worried that Jackie Frech would cop out have her wake up and say she was dreaming, but instead she gave us a propper believe ending, which left me wondering what happened to Sam but sure that she would get the help she needed and be happy.

Dodger

title: Dodger
Aurthur: Libby Gleeson
First Published: 1990 by Turton & Chambers

Mick is cast as the artful dodger in the school musical, Oliver. on the edge of the popular crowd he isn't sure what they'll think but after a couple of mishaps he is convinced to take the risk. but being in the musical doesn't always go smoothly. what mick doesn't know is that his history teacher Penny has stuck out her neck to have him in the musical because she wants to give him a hand. after a run in during the first lesson mick penny's special project, for reason she can't explain she is drawn to him. in a letter to her friend she writes "i see him as one of those immature kids who's got to prove himself to kids who are a bit older and a bit more established in groups or friendships. the responsibility of being in the play could be really good for him, make him grow up a bit". this is exactly what mick does, it also gives him a change to make some friends who aren't footballers who don't give a stuff. with all these changes stuff gets mixed up for mick and lots of old issues come to head, unfortunately in the middle of the play. mick had kept a lid on how he felt about his mother's death and his father working as a long distance truck driver for 3 years.

i really enjoyed this book and found it over all very realistic and easy to understand and relate to. the letters from history teacher penny to a friend help us get a very different view of mick and life as a teacher. for someone like me who is considering being a teacher she is exactly the type i want to be, interesting, nice, but still in control. it shows teachers in a much more human light which i think is a nice change, it's something i forget while I'm at school. the book flows very well but i found the ending a little sudden, i would have liked to know more about what happened after the musical. even though the ending was quite sudden it was a good ending. some novels about grieving over a death have very dramatic endings, with Dodger the ending was much closer to life. though this is a very good, and over all very realistic book i found how quickly and easily Mick turned his life around a bit fake. in my opinion at least, you don't just stop being friends with 2 popular and quite mean guys. especially because at the beginning he was very concerned of what they thought and what they would do. i also felt that time wise it was strange, at the start it was first term and suddenly it was third term. once you are caught in the story neither of those things things matter much. it was only when i got to the end and went WHAT!? that i noticed these faults.

this book was very good and a had subtlety i've never seen before in a book about a child losing their mother.

Fill Out This Application and Wait Over There

Title: Fill Out This Application and Wait Over There
Author: Ruth Starke
First Published: 2009 Omnibus Books

Thousands of teenagers are employed in today's job market, but who is writing their story? I, Hailee Moxie, am the writer and this is my employment diary.

Hailee just fnished high school and is ready to fullfill her life goal: to go go on a one year backpacking journey to Thailand.

But as her mother points out, she has no job and therefore no money. And so begins her search for the right job. She starts working at her local supermarket SpendUp, and during the time is looking everywhere for a second job.

But working, as she also realises, is awful. Spending hours listening to whiney customers and crabby managers is the worst. And is it really worth the money?

This is a pretty good book, I haven't read anything with this idea before. You kind of dislike Hailee for being a bit selfish and lazy, but she changes as she makes so many new friends. But as a warning, this book does contain a bit of rude stuff, so it's not for everyone.

I liked the way it was written, in a diary form. though sometimes it was a little hard to tell which job she was talking about, and also a bit hard to remember who was who and all. But still, a pretty good story.

Sorry, this was a pretty wacky review, it's just kind of hard to review this book. Ah well, I tried :-)

Requiem for a Beast

Title:Requiem for a Beast
Authur: Matt Ottley
pages:96
First Published: July 2007

this is a story told from many points of view, but we are mainly told the story of a young stock man trying to capture a bull. at the beginning we are introduced to lots of the aspects of Requiem for a Beast through the young stock man's dream. over the course of this book we unravel what this dream means and what mysteries all these stories and memories hold. this book shows how many stories often are linked together and how it can take many people to get a complete picture. for the about the first 40 pages we are show many different ideas, people and events and it isn't until the end we understand how they fit together.

i love the way the book is put together. it is not just a picture book it is an experience. Matt Ottley did not only write a story, he painted all the incredible pictures and composed the CD that comes with the book. it is all these parts that make this book as amazing as it is. the way the book is written varies, some pages have just an image some have many cells like a graphic novel. some of the text is poetic while some is very colloquial. some times we barely have a sentence per page but others are completely text.

i found this book to be very worth reading and would encourage anyone who tries it not to be put off but it complexity. to really understand and appreciate Requiem for a Beast you need to understand a little Australian history about the relationship between the aboriginals and white Australian and about the stolen generation. part of the beauty of this book was the undertones about that travesty and what is now happening. we see this in not only the aboriginal elders memories, but also in metaphors we are shown throughout. this is a book you have to be dedicated to reading because you need to Analise the images to get the most out of it.

I'm sorry this is such a confusing review, it is not at all like your normal book so it is hard to know what to say. it is definitely worth reading.