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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Didi (actually named Eurydice) is miserable and unsettled because her father's work has forced her to leave her friends and school in Sydney. Jamie, older sister Kate's boyfriend, is also unsettled because of his parents' divorce and his recent move to Melbourne. Kate resents Jamie's absorption in music and his need to earn money.
'While Didi and Jamie happen to be watching an old film, On our Selection, they are inexplicably transported back to 1933. Though initially terrified, Jamie and Didi are quickly befriended by the lively argumentative Sam and his fiancee Selma and taken into the Finkelsteins' welcoming boarding house.
'Once the shock of finding themselves in a totally strange environment wears off, Didi and Jamie decide to make the most of their unusual circumstances. They don't even like each other, and now they must learn to live together. Against a backdrop of Depression Melbourne, early European migration and the excitement of Wirth's Circus on the site of the present Victorian Arts Centre, they must find a way home or stay in 1933 forever.
'Why does all this happen? Important clues are the trunkful of old clothes Didi finds in the cellar and Jamie's harmonica'. Source: author's website.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
y
Re-Visiting Historical Fiction for Young Readers : The Past through Modern Eyes
New York (City)
:
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
,
2011
Z1886683
2011
single work
criticism
'This study is concerned with how readers are positioned to interpret the past in historical fiction for children and young adults. Looking at literature published within the last thirty to forty years, Wilson identifies and explores a prevalent trend for re-visioning and rewriting the past according to modern social and political ideological assumptions. Fiction within this genre, while concerned with the past at the level of content, is additionally concerned with present views of that historical past because of the future to which it is moving. Specific areas of discussion include the identification of a new sub-genre: Living history fiction, stories of Joan of Arc, historical fiction featuring agentic females, the very popular Scholastic Press historical journal series, fictions of war, and historical fiction featuring multicultural discourses.
Wilson observes specific traits in historical fiction written for children — most notably how the notion of positive progress into the future is nuanced differently in this literature in which the concept of progress from the past is inextricably linked to the protagonist's potential for agency and the realization of subjectivity. The genre consistently manifests a concern with identity construction that in turn informs and influences how a metanarrative of positive progress is played out. This book engages in a discussion of the functionality of the past within the genre and offers an interpretative frame for the sifting out of the present from the past in historical fiction for young readers.' (Publisher's blurb)
-
Fictionalising History for Young Readers
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Childrens' Book Council of Australia , August vol. 55 no. 3 2011; (p. 15-16) -
Living History Fiction
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 20 no. 1 2010; (p. 77-86) 'During my research into historical fiction for children and young adult readers I came across a range of texts that relied on a living or lived experience of history to frame the historical story. These novels were similar to the time-slip narrative; however, not all examples used the traditional convention of time-slippage. I wanted to bundle these novels together - 'time-slip' novels included - as examples of 'living history' narratives because they appeared from the outset as a distinct literary form requiring particular reading strategies.
These texts, which I will refer to as Living history novels, require readers to align uncritically with modern perception. Readers are persuasively invited to assume that the modern characters' perception of the past is authentic because it has been formed by a lived experience of history. In Living history novels, readers are positioned to perceive both the strengths and weaknesses of past and present times, ultimately reconciling the two in a present that faces chronologically forwards. Modern focalising characters in Living history fiction place modern perception in a superior relationship to that of the past.
This sub-genre of historical novels is distinctive in its strong and consistent modern character focalisation and point of view. The Living history novel creates a confluence of past and present, be it physically or psychically. Characters are variously conveyed from a generalised present, or past, to an explicit historical period or event. The Living history novel is distinctive in its intense character introversion, quest journey and self-discovery. The most important outcome of the living history experience is that characters learn something significant about themselves. Because the story is about the modern character's quest and self realisation, the past is consistently perceived from their point of view. Modern characters are transported in time and readers are only rarely invited to see the past from a past point of view' (Author's abstract). -
Historical-Based Fiction : Recreating Past Lives
2007
single work
column
— Appears in: Sunday Canberra Times , 28 October 2007; (p. 31) -
Editor's Introduction: Always Facing the Issues - Preoccupations in Australian Children's Literature
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Lion and the Unicorn , April vol. 27 no. 2 2003; (p. v-xvii)
-
Untitled
1991
single work
review
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Children's Book Council of Australia , vol. 35 no. 3 1991; (p. 27)
— Review of Mavis Road Medley 1991 single work novel -
Untitled
1991
single work
review
— Appears in: Magpies : Talking About Books for Children , November vol. 6 no. 5 1991; (p. 32)
— Review of Mavis Road Medley 1991 single work novel -
Historical-Based Fiction : Recreating Past Lives
2007
single work
column
— Appears in: Sunday Canberra Times , 28 October 2007; (p. 31) -
Editor's Introduction: Always Facing the Issues - Preoccupations in Australian Children's Literature
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Lion and the Unicorn , April vol. 27 no. 2 2003; (p. v-xvii) -
Living History Fiction
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Papers : Explorations into Children's Literature , vol. 20 no. 1 2010; (p. 77-86) 'During my research into historical fiction for children and young adult readers I came across a range of texts that relied on a living or lived experience of history to frame the historical story. These novels were similar to the time-slip narrative; however, not all examples used the traditional convention of time-slippage. I wanted to bundle these novels together - 'time-slip' novels included - as examples of 'living history' narratives because they appeared from the outset as a distinct literary form requiring particular reading strategies.
These texts, which I will refer to as Living history novels, require readers to align uncritically with modern perception. Readers are persuasively invited to assume that the modern characters' perception of the past is authentic because it has been formed by a lived experience of history. In Living history novels, readers are positioned to perceive both the strengths and weaknesses of past and present times, ultimately reconciling the two in a present that faces chronologically forwards. Modern focalising characters in Living history fiction place modern perception in a superior relationship to that of the past.
This sub-genre of historical novels is distinctive in its strong and consistent modern character focalisation and point of view. The Living history novel creates a confluence of past and present, be it physically or psychically. Characters are variously conveyed from a generalised present, or past, to an explicit historical period or event. The Living history novel is distinctive in its intense character introversion, quest journey and self-discovery. The most important outcome of the living history experience is that characters learn something significant about themselves. Because the story is about the modern character's quest and self realisation, the past is consistently perceived from their point of view. Modern characters are transported in time and readers are only rarely invited to see the past from a past point of view' (Author's abstract). -
Fictionalising History for Young Readers
2011
single work
column
— Appears in: Reading Time : The Journal of the Childrens' Book Council of Australia , August vol. 55 no. 3 2011; (p. 15-16) -
Multiculturalism in Recent Australian Children's Fiction : (Re)Constructing Selves Through Personal and National Histories
1996
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Other Worlds, Other Lives : Children's Literature Experiences : Volume 3 1996; (p. 1-19) Stephens examines the dissemination of ideologies of multiculturalism in Australian children's texts.
Last amended 14 Sep 2021 13:19:38
Settings:
- Carlton, Parkville - Carlton area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,
- 1933
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