AustLit logo
image of person or book cover 6872058454818082397.jpg
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
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

VIEW ALL ISSUES (C39144)

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

6644158

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)

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 Melbourne : Penguin , 2013 5970429 2013 series - publisher novel
Alternative title: Hvem er Alibrandi?
Language: Danish
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Other Formats

  • Braille.
  • Large print.
  • Sound recording.
Find library holdings on Trove

Related Works

Multiple Choice Melina Marchetta , 1997 extract novel young adult (Looking for Alibrandi)
— Appears in: The Oxford Book of Australian Schooldays 1997; (p. 348-351)
VIEW ALL RELATED WORKS (1)

Works about this Work

Australia in Three Books Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen , 2021 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Autumn vol. 80 no. 1 2021; Meanjin Online 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)
Looking for Alibrandi Author Melina Marchetta Takes to Literary Crime Linda Morris , 2016 single work review
— Appears in: Brisbane Times , 30 September 2016;
— Review of Tell The Truth, Shame The Devil Melina Marchetta , 2016 single work novel

'There was a time when Melina Marchetta resented the success of her first novel, Looking for Alibrandi, a beloved Australian book for young adults.'

'Marchetta followed up 11 years later with Saving Francesca, also set in Sydney's inner west, and for a while she felt typecast as a writer of "good stories about Italian girls in the suburbs". ...'
Saint Amelie Mauresmo i "It was 1995 and Pearl Jam was poetry", Belinda Raposo , 2015 single work poetry
— Appears in: N-Scribe , October no. 19 2015;
The Emotion of Truth and the Racial Uncanny : Aborigines and Sicilians in Australia Francesco Ricatti , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , vol. 19 no. 2 2013;
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.
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (54)

Awards

VIEW ALL AWARDS (9)
Last amended 14 May 2020 07:51:25
Subjects:
Settings:
  • Sydney, New South Wales,
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X