Meet
Marly – 1983
By Alice Pung
This is the first of four stories about Marly,
a girl living in Australia in 1983.
Marly and her family came to Australia as refugees and now her cousins
are coming from a refugee camp to live with them too. Marly is a very engaging
main character because she is an interesting and lively girl. She made us laugh
and enjoy this book very much.
This book informed us about the lives and
experiences of new Australians during the 1980s. It is interesting to see how
Marly navigates between two worlds – her home life with her Vietnamese family,
and her school life in the wider Australian community. It made us realise that
girls today aren’t so different to little girls in the 1980s and that although
our cultures might be different, all people are actually quite alike. It also
made us realise that we should take pleasure in life and not worry about what
other people think. This is a great book and we think all girls our age should
read it.
Marly’s
Business – 1983
By Alice Pung
This story is fantastic! It was interesting
and captivating and it gave you a look into a typical girl’s life from the
1980s. It was heartwarming but at the same time adventurous and bewildering. We
were hooked from the beginning and did not want to stop until we finished it!
This is the second of four stories which is
part of the Our Australian Girl series.
It’s about Marly, a girl from a Vietnamese refugee family living in Australia
in 1983. Marly wants, more than anything, to buy Donkey Kong
cards and collect them like the other kids at school, but her Mum and Dad don’t
see the value in them. She sets about
raising the money for them herself and makes some great new friends along the
way and has exciting adventures on the bus. We think most kids can relate to
wanting to collect things that your Mum and Dad don’t see as valuable, and also
to their first experiences catching the bus on their own. We haven’t done it
yet, but we hope our first bus trip is less nerve-wracking than Marly’s!
We would definitely recommend this book to
our friends!
The Kidz Review Krew really appreciate Penguin Group (Australia) sending us copies of these two amazing books which are part of the Our Australian Girl series.
For more information on the books go to http://www.penguin.com.au/products/9780143308492/our-australian-girl-meet-marly-book-1 and http://www.ouraustraliangirl.com.au
For more information on the author go to alicepung.com
About The Author
Alice Pung is a writer, editor, teacher and lawyer based in Melbourne.
Born a month after her Chinese parents fled from Cambodia to Australia as
asylum seekers from Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge Regime, Alice has used her shared
family's experiences to write stories that captivate all readers.
She has won numerous awards including the 2007 Newcomer of the Year
Award in the Australia Book Industry Awards for her first book Unpolished
Gem. Her next book Her Father's Daughter won the Western Australia
Premier's Book Award for Non Fiction, and it was also shortlisted for the
Premier's Literary Awards in Victoria and New South Wales, and nominated also
in the Queensland Literary Awards. Laurinda, Alice's first novel, was published
in 2014 and was one of Readings' Top 100 bestselling books for the year. She is
writing four books around the character Marly for Penguin's Our Australian
Girl series.
Alice's writing has appeared in many notable publications including the Monthly,
the Age, Meanjin, Best Australian Stories and Best
Australian Essays. Alice edited Growing Up Asian in Australia, a
collection of personal accounts, essays, short stories and poetry which is
currently a set text for the VCE English context on Identity and Belonging.
Alice lives with her husband at Janet Clarke Hall at the University of
Melbourne, where she is currently the Artist in Residence.
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