Posts by Judith
Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
This review was published in Viewpoint: On Books for Young Adults in 2003. When I told friends and colleagues that I was to review Saving Francesca, the new novel by Melina Marchetta, the reaction from each person was almost identical. First, there was delight that there was a new Marchetta novel. Then a pause. Then…
Read MoreDeadly, Unna? by Phillip Gwynne
Deadly, Unna? by Phillip Gwynne Deadly, Unna? was the first novel by Phillip Gwynne and was an immediate critical and commercial success. It won the Book of the Year Award: Older Readers in the 1999 Children’s Book Council of Australia awards. The following review first appeared in Viewpoint: On Books for Young Adults, Volume 6…
Read MoreThe Gathering by Isobelle Carmody
This review was first published in Viewpoint: On Books for Young Adults Volume 1 Number 3 (Spring 1993) “Do you believe in good and evil, Mum?” I asked… “…I mean evil as a sort of force that you could fight.” She frowned. “Evil and good are potentials in all of us. You have a…
Read MoreMaurice Sendak on The Colbert Report Part 1
It’s taken me a couple of days to be able to see this video, but here it is, available outside the US at last! Part 1 here, Part 2 to come. What a joy to make this the first embedded video on the new WordPress Misrule! The Colbert Report Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political…
Read MoreLaunch speech for John Larkin’s Bite Me!
This was the speech I made to launch Bite Me! , a collection of short stories by John Larkin, somewhere around 1999/2000. Before tonight, I had never met John Larkin. Now this may come as something of a surprise to you, for a number of reasons. If you know John, I guess that you would…
Read MoreBoys of Blood and Bone by David Metzenthen
[I don’t seem to have a record of where this was first published!] David Metzenthen’s Boys of Blood and Bone is an ambitious novel linking the stories of Henry Lyon, in the summer before he starts his first year of Law at university, and Andy Lansell, Australian digger killed in the Somme in 1918. Andy…
Read MoreWelcome to Misrule on WordPress
Hello and welcome to the brand new platform for the Misrule blog. If you have travelled over from the old site at misrule.com.au/s9y , thanks for making the move. If you’ve come across this as a new site, well, thanks for dropping by. The history is, this is the third incarnation of the Misrule blog,…
Read MoreMarkus Zusak Interview
I believe this interview was written in 2006. It was done for the US Bookseller and Publisher, although the published version underwent a very heavy copyedit and actually bore very little relationship to what I wrote (or what Markus said!). Anyway, water under the bridge, this is the original draft as submitted. When I first…
Read MoreMargaret Mahy Interview 2004
This is the second interview I have done with Margaret Mahy; the first was in 1994. This interview first appeared in Good Reading Magazine in October 2004. In a bedroom-cum-office in a house over-looking New Zealand’s Lyttelton Harbour lives and works children’s author Margaret Mahy. Surrounded by photographs of her children and grandchildren—My family keep…
Read MoreGeraldine McCaughrean Interview
Late in 2003, I interviewed Geraldine McCaughrean via email. The interview was done for Good Reading magazine. I sent Ms McCaughrean a series of questions, to which she responded in one long email, so what you will read below is, first of all, my questions, and then her response. __________________ Questions for Geraldine McCaughrean I’ve…
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