Novels- Immigration
Nips XI
This is the very amusing story of Lan, who loves cricket and of his determination in getting together a cricket team of kids of many ethnic backgrounds. Very interesting in its crosscultural interactions between kids and adults.
Austral Ed
Nips Go National
Sequel to Nips XI
Winning the World Cup
Marco and his friends live in Australia but their families come from many different countries. When they play soccer the friends have worked out a special way of scoring so that when each player scores it is a score for their own country. It is great fun and leads to many exuberant celebrations. This is a lively positive story showing how children can care both about the country where they live and also the country they come from. (5 – 8 years)
Austral Ed
Afghanistan
Boy Overboard
Gleitzman has succeeded in writing a comic/tragic account of a refugee family from Afghanistan. Jamal and Bibi are ordinary kids who love soccer and kids will relate to their plight as they are forced to flee Afghanistan, because their mother has been running a school for girls, which was of course forbidden. Their lives are often in great danger but amazingly enough it is often very funny. There is much that can be discussed.
Austral Ed
Girl Underground
is the sequel to Boy Overboard where Bibi and Jamal are now in a detention centre in Australia.
Austral Ed
Mahtab’s Story
The story of a young girl and whose family of mother, father, and younger brother and sister, are forced to flee Heart in Afghanistan during the time of the Taliban. They travel for many days by truck over rugged mountains into Pakistan where they wait while their father makes his way first to Australia. When they don’t hear, they finally decide to leave making their way to Indonesia and then across to Darwin in a perilous journey with any others in a small fishing boat. Their joy at arriving turns to grief when they are kept in a desolate detention camp in the centre of Australia. Finally they manage to contact heir father and are finally rejoined. This is an amazing story based on true stories of courage and determination. (11 – 15 years)
Austral Ed
Just One Wish
Penny has just moved to Australia from China. She can hardly speak English. She doesn't know anyone. And horrible Cousin Betty is determined to make life at her new school totally miserable.
But then her grandmother gives her a magic Chinese pouch. Penny has just one wish to make things right . . .
Penguin Books
Vietnam
The Happiest Refugee
Anh Do nearly didn't make it to Australia. His entire family came close to losing their lives on the sea as they escaped from war-torn Vietnam in an overcrowded boat. But nothing - not murderous pirates, nor the imminent threat of death by hunger, disease or dehydration as they drifted for days - could quench their desire to make a better life in a country where freedom existed.
Life in Australia was hard, an endless succession of back-breaking work, crowded rooms, ruthless landlords and make-do everything. But there was a loving extended family, and always friends and play and something to laugh about for Anh, his brother Khoa and their sister Tram. Things got harder when their father left home when Anh was thirteen - they felt his loss very deeply and their mother struggled to support the family on her own. His mother's sacrifice was an inspiration to Anh and he worked hard during his teenage years to help her make ends meet, also managing to graduate high school and then university.
Another inspiration was the comedian Anh met when he was about to sign on for a 60-hour a week corporate job. Anh asked how many hours he worked. 'Four,' the answer came back, and that was it. He was going to be a comedian!
The Happiest Refugee tells the incredible, uplifting and inspiring life story of one of our favourite personalities. Tragedy, humour, heartache and unswerving determination - a big life with big dreams. Anh's story will move and amuse all who read it.
Allen and Unwin
Noodle Pie
When Andy and his father make a trip to Vietnam to visit relatives, it is for Andy’s father his first trip back since he escaped from the country in a rusty fishing boat when he was just 15 years old. For Andy who is 11 years old and was born in Australia, it is his first visit to Hanoi and the first time he has met any of his many relatives in Vietnam. The book is written mainly from Andy’s point of view and at first much seems very strange to him. Gradually as Andy comes to understand more about this family, we also understand so much more about Vietnam, its recent history and its people. A marvellous book written with humour and insight. (9 – 12 years)
Austral Ed
Onion Tears
The moving story of a Vietnamese boat girl in Australia and how she is finally able to cry real tears, not just the tears that come when she is peeling onions. (7 - 14)
Austral Ed
Yerong Creek PS
Email: yerongck-p.school@det.nsw.edu.au
Location: Cole St, Yerong Creek, New South Wales, Australia
Phone: 02 69203521