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Courtesy the publisher
y separately published work icon Looking for Alibrandi single work   novel   young adult  
Issue Details: First known date: 1992... 1992 Looking for Alibrandi
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Josephine Alibrandi is seventeen, illegitimate, and in her final year at a wealthy Catholic school. This is the year her father comes back into her life, the year she falls in love, the year she discovers the secrets of her family's past and the year she sets herself free.' (Source: Back Cover)

Exhibitions

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Looking for Alibrandi Melina Marchetta , ( dir. Kate Woods ) Australia : Robyn Kershaw Productions , 2000 Z1795269 2000 single work film/TV young adult (taught in 2 units)

'Nonna Katia, Christina and Josie are three generations of Italian-Australian women living together in a hothouse atmosphere of love, support...and drama on an operatic scale.'

Source: Screen Australia. (Sighted: 23/10/2012)

Looking for Alibrandi Vidya Rajan , 2022 single work drama

'The beloved novel of migration, growing up, and Sydney – now a play!

'Three generations of women. The Italian-Australian experience. A tale of Sydney. A much-loved modern classic novel, a ground-breaking film, and now at Belvoir, a simply great night out.

'It’s the last year of school, and 17-year- old Josephine Alibrandi can’t wait for her future to begin. If only she can get past the world of her Nonna, holding on to the values of the old country; and the world of her Mum, full of care and secrets. It’s time to take her place in the real world, beyond her family, beyond being an Alibrandi.

'But this is the year Josie gets to know her father. This is the year she falls in love. And this is the year she uncovers the truth – and finds the Alibrandi she has been searching for.'

Source: Belvoir St Theatre.

Reading Australia

Reading Australia

This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.

Unit Suitable For

AC: Year 9 (NSW Stage 5)

Themes

belonging, coming of age, death, family, family secrets, friendship, generation gap, identity, multiculturalism, purpose, relationships

General Capabilities

Critical and creative thinking, Ethical understanding, Information and communication technology, Intercultural understanding, Literacy, Numeracy, Personal and social

Teaching Resources

Teaching Resources

This work has teaching resources.

Teachers' notes via publisher's website.

Notes

  • Selected in December 2004 by the Australian public in an ABC poll as Australia's 88th favourite book.

Affiliation Notes

  • This work is affiliated with the AustLit subset Asian-Australian Children's Literature and Publishing because it has been translated into Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Chinese.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Camberwell, Camberwell - Kew area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,: Puffin , 1992 .
      image of person or book cover 5573435306770761891.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 260p.
      ISBN: 9780140360462
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 1993 .
      image of person or book cover 3167778107916038492.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 260p.
      ISBN: 0140236139
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Orchard Books ,
      1999 .
      image of person or book cover 5224250960947657330.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 250p.
      Edition info: 1st American edition.
      ISBN: 0531301427 (trade : alk. paper), 0531331423 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2000 .
      image of person or book cover 2027822924196809463.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 261p.
      ISBN: 0140293507
    • Camberwell, Camberwell - Kew area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,: Claremont , 2002 .
      image of person or book cover 3369684557151432347.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 260p.
      ISBN: 0734304889
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Knopf ,
      2006 .
      image of person or book cover 7363152217962209786.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 313p.
      ISBN: 0375836942 (pbk. : alk. paper), 0375936947 (alk. : lib. bdg.)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 2015 .
      image of person or book cover 4670758016342911712.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: 344p.
      Note/s:
      • Published: 22/04/2015
      ISBN: 9780734312389
      Series: y separately published work icon Pink Popular Penguin Special McGrath Foundation Pink Edition Melbourne : Penguin , 2013-2015 5970429 2013 series - publisher novel
Alternative title: Hvem er Alibrandi?
Language: Danish

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Large print.
  • Sound recording.

Works about this Work

Looking For Alibrandi at 30 : ‘There’s a White-hot Shame about Sticking Out’ Walter Marsh , 2022 single work column
— Appears in: The Guardian Australia , 7 July 2022;
'A new stage adaptation of Melina Marchetta’s classic spins the Italian Australian experience into a universal story of otherness, family and freedom'
Looking for Alibrandi : The Forgotten Archived Stories 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 81 no. 1 2022; Meanjin Online 2022;
Australia in Three Books Madeline Gray , 2022 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 81 no. 1 2022; Meanjin Online 2022;

— Review of Looking for Alibrandi Melina Marchetta , 1992 single work novel ; Blueberries Ellena Savage , 2020 selected work prose ; Talkin' Up to the White Woman : Aboriginal Women and Feminism Aileen Moreton-Robinson , 2000 single work criticism
Australia in Three Books Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 80 no. 1 2021;

— Review of Looking for Alibrandi Melina Marchetta , 1992 single work novel ; Room for a Stranger Melanie Cheng , 2019 single work novel ; Stranger Country Monica Tan , 2019 single work autobiography

'I was a bookish child with a voracious hunger for stories. At the age of four, I would hold a tiny torch under my blanket at preschool during nap time so I could keep reading. I devoured all the books and demanded more. In those early days, the books that captured my imagination were about magical, impossible things: fairies, pixies, kindly moon folk. I pored over Australian kids’ books such as Animalia, Possum Magic and Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, losing myself in colourful illustrations of strange creatures, rather than anything rooted in the real.' (Introduction)

Multicultural Identity and Matters of Gender in Melina Marchetta's Looking for Alibrandi H. N. Prakrithi , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 30 no. 1 2016; (p. 35-46)
'The term multiculturalism originated in the 1970s in Canadian politics, where it was found convenient to replace ambiguous set of ideas, with the intention being to promote the cultural and economic concerns and interests of certain non-Anglophone categories, basically to counter the emerging weight of French Canadians. Instances in Looking for Alibrandi (1992) give an idea of the insecurity of a migrant teenager, Josie, who has to live with the bias of both the dominant and the marginalized community, suffering innately because she does not belong to either of the communities but has to learn to cope with such realities.' (Publication abstract)
Untitled Halina Nowicka , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , February vol. 37 no. 1 1993; (p. 29)

— Review of Looking for Alibrandi Melina Marchetta , 1992 single work novel
Untitled Jo Goodman , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , May vol. 8 no. 2 1993; (p. 32-33)

— Review of Looking for Alibrandi Melina Marchetta , 1992 single work novel
Untitled Vanessa Rankin-Hume , 2000 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 14 no. 2 2000; (p. 62-63)

— Review of Looking for Alibrandi Melina Marchetta , 1992 single work novel
Untitled Esmé Kidd , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: Fiction Focus : New Titles for Teenagers , vol. 7 no. 1 1993; (p. 20)

— Review of Looking for Alibrandi Melina Marchetta , 1992 single work novel
Kicking Goals Cathryn Crowe , 1993 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 21 August 1993; (p. 6)

— Review of The Bamboo Flute Garry Disher , 1992 single work children's fiction ; A Long Way to Tipperary Sue Gough , 1992 single work novel ; Looking for Alibrandi Melina Marchetta , 1992 single work novel ; Galax-Arena Gillian Rubinstein , 1992 single work novel ; Belinda Pamela Allen , 1992 single work picture book ; Blabber Mouth Morris Gleitzman , 1992 single work children's fiction ; The Web Nette Hilton , 1992 single work children's fiction ; Where's Mum? Libby Gleeson , 1992 single work picture book ; Rose Meets Mr Wintergarten Bob Graham , 1992 single work picture book
The Girl Most Unlikely To... Keith Austin , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 5-6 April 2003; (p. 4-5)
An Interview with Melina Marchetta Sophie Masson , 1993 single work column
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , February vol. 37 no. 1 1993; (p. 6-7)
The Children's Book Council of Australia Annual Awards 1993 1993 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , August vol. 37 no. 3 1993; (p. 2-8)
Judge's report for the 1993 Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award.
Melina Marchetta Melina Marchetta , 1993 single work column
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , November vol. 37 no. 4 1993; (p. 3)
Student Refused to Read 'Muck' John Camplin , 1995 single work column
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 22 June 1995; (p. 3)
A Queensland year 12 student claims to have failed his English exam because he refused to read Marchetta's Looking for Alibrandi. The reason for the refusal was that the book contained a description of a girl learning to use a tampon.
Last amended 14 May 2020 07:51:25
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