Wednesday, February 23, 2011

You Might Have Missed - It's Not All About You, Calma

by Barry Jonsberg. This book is one of my all-time favourites. The story is narrated by Calma, a Year 11 student who tells us fairly early on that she is unreliable narrator. She is also a very believable one, and she relates her tale in a clever voice full of wit and humour.

This is a story about family, friends and jumping to conclusions. It's funny, relatable and very, very readable, and manages to combine realism with a good dash of romance. As an added bonus, the reader learns quite a lot about English (in which Calma excels) along the way.

Published by Allen & Unwin in 2004, It's Not All About You, Calma was shortlisted in the CBCA Awards, Older Readers, in 2005. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend you do.

4 comments:

  1. Oh ~ I so adore this book as well ~ I enjoy all of Barry Jonsbergs, although I don't know how well read he is? I am most definitely looking forward to Being Here ~ which is out very soon.

    Have you read dreamrider? It was very different and quite powerful. i really enjoyed it (although it wasn't as fun and snarky as calma! :D

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  2. Yes, I have read Dreamrider. I thought it was interesting, and yes, powerful too, and very well written. As you say, very, very different from this one.

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  3. I'm glad you recommend all these books, because I haven't heard of them. This one sounds really good. I'll have to check it out. Thanks!

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  4. I guess you haven't heard of them 'cause they're mostly by Australian authors (like this one is), though they're books that have done well here and I'm guessing they've also been published in the US.

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