Alumni book reviews

Your own kind of girl

a memoir 

 Clare Bowditch 

 Allen and Unwin 2019

Clare tells her story with the trademark warmth, love, graciousness and raw honesty which we hear in her songs and music, a tale of resilience, of naming, facing and overcoming demons, of breaking down and breaking through.

‘This is the work of a woman who has found her true power- and wants to pass it on. Happiness, we discover, is only possible when we take charge of the stories we tell ourselves.’  She won an Australian Book Industry Award for her memoir and is currently working on a second book.

Clare had 3 very happy years at Preshil in Years 10, 11 and 12  (1991- 1993).  She is an ARIA award winning singer, actress, storyteller, partner and mother of three.

 Now in the Library at Blackhall.

Lost Letters from Vienna   

Sue Course

 Wild Dingo Press 2019

With her parents, 5 year old Sue Course (née Langer) fled a life in Vienna ‘plump with privilege’ in 1938 at the time of the Nazi Anschluss, landed in Melbourne and a life demanding resilience and huge adjustments in terms of language, customs, weather and diminished financial resources.  The wider family was scattered all over the world, many killed by the Nazis, their lives gathered in letters later discovered. This is a fascinating family story played out in the years during and after WW2 and up to the present day, a story raw with experiences. 

Sue was a pupil at Preshil 1939-1943. Margaret Lyttle asked Sue’s mother to teach her German, during the war! Sue’s memories of Preshil and its enlightened approach are memorable. ‘..children were treated respectfully,.. happiness was considered as important as intellect and boys and girls were encouraged to mingle and learn together.’ Sue disliked maths but loved climbing trees.

Sue attended a number of schools after Preshil, trained to be a nurse, married, had 4 children and in 1973 was instrumental in saving the now beautiful Darebin Parklands. 

A highly recommended memoir. 

Available from Readings, many bookshops, Wild Dingo Press. Now in the Preshil Library.