Kathryn's Inbox

Like many kids in Australia who grew up in the 1980s and early 1990s I was familiar with an Australian sitcom titled Hey Dad...!  and would tune in every week--in fact to this day I can tell you that in Adelaide new episodes of  Hey Dad...! used air on SAS 7 at 7.30pm on Wednesdays, and remember the distinctive opening credits that used real photos of each of the actors. And just like the rest of the Australian public, I had no idea of the horrific abuse that took place on the set, until the story became public.  In fact, it was the first time in Australian history that a former child actor had come public with such a story--and, more shockingly, one that had been known on the set of Hey Dad...! for almost the whole of its eight year run, though no one would do anything about it. Sarah Monahan played Jenny Kelly, the youngest member of the Kelly family. She was abused by Robert Hughes, the actor who played Martin Kelly, her on screen dad and the star of the ...

On select Sundays I will be reviewing some of the old Apple Paperback titles from my childhood. These titles were published, or republished by Scholastic during the 1980s & 1990s and were written and set in the United States. In Australia, these books were typically only available from libraries or could be ordered through catalogues that were distributed through primary schools. Most of these titles are now long out of print or have been updated and republished for later generations ... Katie and Those Boys is one of the Apple Paperbacks that I can remember very clearly from my childhood. It was bought in the usual way--ordered from the Arrow Book Club catalogue that was distributed to my school, and arrived what felt like weeks later (in reality, about a fortnight). I remember, I was very, very excited to read this title. It was about a girl who, like me, only had brothers and some of the problems and situations that arose from that. Anyway, the book arrived at school f...

Joy Ride is a charming YA short story about two girls, Maji and Bubbles, who are trying to be good ... or at least trying not to get caught when they go on their adventures stealing cars and trying to return them to the spot where they found them. I picked it up because I was in the mood for something different and it did not disappoint. Joy Ride is the first instalment in a series that features Maji and is available free at Smashwords. Recommended.

It's comforting to know that ten, almost eleven years after Stephenie Meyer published Twilight that we still have these memes to remind us that real vampires do not sparkle ...

Prayers for the Stolen is a vivid and gut-wrenching tale of a reality that is all too real for many women who live in Mexico--the fear of being stolen. For these women, and especially girls and young women, the threat of being stolen and then trafficked and sold is all too real. They come up with innovative ways to keep safe--dressing their girls as boys, altering their appearance so that they may be considered too ugly to be stolen, and digging holes where the girls may hide when they hear the SUVs coming.  Set in the mountains of Mexico, the novel beings with a truly haunting sentence, Now we make you ugly, my mother said.  From there, the story focuses on the protagonist Ladydi, mother and their friends and neighbours as they suffer all kinds of hardships that the authorities care nothing about. There is Paula, who is stolen but eventually escapes, Ruth who was found in a garbage bin and grows up to become a beautician, Maria who is born with a hare lip and Estafa...

The Reluctant Jillaroo is fun story about a young woman persuaded to swap places with her identical twin sister. Heidi Gage is a surfer girl from Sydney who loves the beach and the water. Her identical twin sister Harper loves the land and dreams of getting a scholarship to an exclusive agricultural school. To get the scholarship, she must spend a week at a Jillaroo/Jackroo camp for teens in outback New South Wales, but on the night before she is due to go, Harper breaks her leg, and persuades Heidi that she must go in her place. Feeling guilty for causing Harper's accident in the first place, Heidi agrees and finds herself on an unpredictable adventure at a camp she is completely unprepared for. She is, quite literally, a surfer girl out of water. As I said at the beginning of the review, this one is a fun story. There are some funny bits and a touch of romance--I really enjoyed the love triangle between Heidi, Chaz and Trent ... and the outcome. The plot about the thief ...

No Hiding Place is a well-written short story about Francis and Estefani, new parents who are holding their child for the first time and wondering at the life he will lead. As they stare at their new son, each recount their lives--being born in a place where poverty and political turmoil are the norm, and only just managing to escape to the United States with their lives. The United States, supposedly politically stable, initially offers their son a better life until the family finds that here they will suffer all kinds of prejudices--those of race, and that of wealth. I found this story to be quite an interesting, in-depth look at the problems that real people face when moving--essentially against their will--to a different and supposedly safe country. The author has a real gift with his observations of humanity and human nature. The story felt unflinchingly real to me. Highly recommended.