AustLit
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'If characters make a story, this book has a deluge of them. The stories are deliberately brief so as not to stretch the time-keeping skills of busy, modern society. However, readers will find, within most stories, characters they identify with, either in vexed or, more usually, pleasant ways. Human characters include chefs, grans, gossips, siblings, entrepreneurs; possibly a queen makes a dubious appearance. Children feature in naïve yet wise ways, and deservedly bookend the collection. Animals (characters also, as we know) invite you into their worlds, including a ladybird, a pelican, an anti-hero bee, and eccentric turkeys. Objects, too, such as a Buddhist statue and a gnome are, in a twinkle, brought to life. Delicately, rather than by blows to skulls, themes of abuse, abortion and ageing weave through some of the stories. The desolation of broken families and the devastation of war are implicitly exposed. Ultimately, sizeable serving spoons of humour, brazen or subtle, are the keys to many tales. This, too, is deliberate: readers need to be cheered, mostly, by the unsuspecting characters who inhabit our world.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 4 Aug 2020 07:50:07