August: An Australian Month

When I say Australia, what do you think?

Apart from spiders, koalas, kangaroos, and that thing they eat like butter? Marmite?

Well, I don’t know about you, but when I think Australia, I think freaking good Australian children’s literature. We have already feature many on the blog but to jog your memory, Australian authors include: Jaclyn Moriarty, Alison Goodman, Alison Croggon, Garth Nix, Melina Marchetta, and so many more that I am missing.

So this month, we at The Book Wars, thanks to my heavy handed bulldozing, are going to discuss Australian Children’s Lit. Now, we are not going to read books about Australia per se (though indeed that may be an inevitable aspect of reading Australian lit) but books written by Australian authors. We will not limit ourselves to any particular genre. In fact, we’re going to probably search out genre fiction because almost all of us here really like fantasy.

It’s a good thing Australian fantasy is brilliant. (Sonya Hartnett and Kate Forsyth.)

We also have a blog tour post that is currently being organized. We’ll have some articles and maybe guest posts from some Australian authors if I can wrangle them to it. *shifty eyes* And we are also running #ShareYourShelfie this month so SEND IN YOUR SHELFIES, gosh.

What are the book warriors doing? I don’t quite know. I mean, I know what Jane is doing because she very kindly told me but I somehow lost it in the deluge of emails that my inbox is currently buckling under. But suffice it to say, she’s reading very interesting (and very Australian) picturebooks.

I think Stephie is going to make an appearance though toddlers are very demanding so she might not.

Janet and Yash…I don’t know. I didn’t ask them but I figure they’ll be doing some Australian lit for the most part. I hope. I think. I wonder. I need sleep.

And me? I LOVE Australian YA fic. I will be reading and reviewing Cath Crowley’s excellent Graffiti Moon, Melina Marchetta’s Finnikin of the Rock, Alison Croggon’s Bone Queen, Kirsty McDermott’s Madigan Mine, Ambelin Kwaymullina’s The Disappearance of Ember Crow and Fiona Wood’s Cloudwish. 

It’s going to be grand, folks.

Stick around?