Library

New Books

Growing up African in Australia edited by Maxine Beneba Clarke and contributions from Gaustina Agolley, Santilla Chingaipe, Carly Findlay, Khalid Warsame, Nyadol Nyuon and many more.  This book helps us all understand the challenges of growing up in a foreign country.  Learning to kick a football in a suburban schoolyard.  Finding your feet as a young black dancer; meeting Nelson Mandela at your local church.  Facing and withstanding racism from those who should protect you.  All these true experiences are chosen to help us learn what it feels like.

The boy who steals houses  The girl who steals his heart by C G Drews.  Betrayed and abused by everyone who should have taken care of them, Sam and his brother are lost souls.  Their wildest dream is to make a home for themselves.  Then Sam meets a girl whose laugh is a burst of stardust – but boys like him don’t get the girl – they go to jail … 

URSA by Tina Shaw.  There are two peoples living in the city of Ursa: the Cerels, whose men are kept in wild camps and women are no longer allowed to have children and the Travesters, who move about freely and enjoy a fine quality of life.  Leho, who is just 15 cannot remember a time when Cerels lived without fear in Ursa, but revolution is coming.  People will die.  Will Leho be able to save his blind mother and the rest of his family?

The Honeyman and the Hunter by Neil Grant.  Rudra Solace will be leaving Australia behind, bound for India on a journey of discovery and danger.  At 16 he has dredged up a long-hidden secret in his father’s trawl net and life for him must now change.  This story is about belonging and loss, of salt water, mangroves and migration.  Of accepting change and making decisions that, once made, break through family histories like a cyclone swell.