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Our Australian Girl - Marly #1
Meet Marly
It's 1983 . . . and Marly is just trying to fit in at Sunshine Primary School. But being a refugee from Vietnam doesn't make things easy, and when Marly's cousins come to stay and end up at the same school, her friends make fun of them. How can Marly stay loyal to her cousins and keep her school friends as well?
Meet Marly and join in her adventure in the first of four exciting stories about a daring girl torn between two worlds.
Meet Marly and join in her adventure in the first of four exciting stories about a daring girl torn between two worlds.
144 pages, Paperback
First published January 28, 2015
5 people are currently reading
94 people want to read
About the author
Alice Pung
38 books371 followersAlice was born in Footscray, Victoria, a month after her parents Kuan and Kien arrived in Australia. Alice’s father, Kuan - a survivor of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime - named her after Lewis Carroll’s character because after surviving the Killing Fields, he thought Australia was a Wonderland. Alice is the oldest of four - she has a brother, Alexander, and two sisters, Alison and Alina.
Alice grew up in Footscray and Braybrook, and changed high schools five times - almost once every year! These experiences have shaped her as a writer because they taught her how to pay attention to the quiet young adults that others might overlook or miss.
Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem, is an Australian bestseller which won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer of the Year Award and was shortlisted in the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards. It was published in the UK and USA in separate editions and has been translated into several languages including Italian, German and Indonesian.
Alice’s next book, Her Father’s Daughter, won the Western Australia Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards and the Queensland Literary Awards.
Alice also edited the collection Growing Up Asian in Australia and her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, and The Best Australian Stories and The Best Australian Essays.
Alice is a qualified lawyer and still works as a legal researcher in the area of minimum wages and pay equity. She lives with her husband Nick at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne, where she is the Artist in Residence.
Alice grew up in Footscray and Braybrook, and changed high schools five times - almost once every year! These experiences have shaped her as a writer because they taught her how to pay attention to the quiet young adults that others might overlook or miss.
Alice Pung’s first book, Unpolished Gem, is an Australian bestseller which won the Australian Book Industry Newcomer of the Year Award and was shortlisted in the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards. It was published in the UK and USA in separate editions and has been translated into several languages including Italian, German and Indonesian.
Alice’s next book, Her Father’s Daughter, won the Western Australia Premier’s Award for Non-Fiction and was shortlisted for the Victorian and NSW Premiers’ Literary awards and the Queensland Literary Awards.
Alice also edited the collection Growing Up Asian in Australia and her writing has appeared in the Monthly, the Age, and The Best Australian Stories and The Best Australian Essays.
Alice is a qualified lawyer and still works as a legal researcher in the area of minimum wages and pay equity. She lives with her husband Nick at Janet Clarke Hall, the University of Melbourne, where she is the Artist in Residence.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
June 18, 2017
Marly likes inventing games and adventures, likes Coco-Pops, and likes having friends and feeling like she fits in. Marly is from Vietnam, and the only child from Asia in her school. We see Marly's desperation to be accepted, and to belong, even as we see through her eyes the taunts and overt racism she is exposed to.
These issues are amplified when Marly's parents sponsor her uncle, his wife, and their two children. We see Marly try to distance herself from her cousins at school, to show she is different, but ultimately she learns the value of family.
This is a good book for younger readers to learn about asylum seekers and the conditions they can live in in refugee camps, about tolerance and respect, and about the shameful 'White Australia' policy. The concepts are explored in a simple, age appropriate ways for younger readers
These issues are amplified when Marly's parents sponsor her uncle, his wife, and their two children. We see Marly try to distance herself from her cousins at school, to show she is different, but ultimately she learns the value of family.
This is a good book for younger readers to learn about asylum seekers and the conditions they can live in in refugee camps, about tolerance and respect, and about the shameful 'White Australia' policy. The concepts are explored in a simple, age appropriate ways for younger readers
June 15, 2015
I liked it because it showed friendship between Marly and her cousins. Even though she had a hard choice to make she still chose to stand up for her cousins instead of taking no notice.
January 22, 2015
It can be said, that Alice Pung is a writer for all ages. This extremely readable book from the "Our Australian Girl" series introduces young readers to Marly, a young Vietnamese girl from Melbourne's Western Suburbs circa 1983, who realises that no matter what happens in and out of school, in the end family and a sense of belonging is indeed everything. Pung's deft usage of cultural references from this period makes the story all that more realistic, something that she has also done with her most recent Young Adult novel, the unputdownable, "Laurinda."
July 22, 2021
n this four part series we meet and get to know Marly, an eleven-year-old girl living in Melbourne's western suburbs in the 1980s. In the first book Marly's cousins and aunt and uncle arrive in Australia as refugees from Vietnam and come and stay with her and her family. Marly and her family came by boat from Vietnam to Australia when Marly was two. Alice Pung grew up in the same suburbs as Marly and her parents came as refugees from Cambodia in the early 90s. Both Marly and Alice have ethnic Chinese parents and Marly speaks Cantonese at home and with her cousins. The first book tells the story of Marly's cousins making a new home in Australia and starting at school there. Themes of friendship and family are central to the story along with themes specific to Marly's family and experience. Marly is easy to like and it's easy to relate to her eleven-year-old feelings about fitting in and finding her way in the world. At the end of the first book Marly's cousins move to their own house so there is more room again for Marly but she will miss them. In the second book Marly wants to buy some Donkey Kong cards so she can join in games at school so she earns money ironing collars for her mum. She is then tricked into buying an umbrella with the money and looks for another way to make some money. She makes a new friend at school and this leads to an opportunity to make some money but Marly takes a bus trip in the wrong direction and ends up in a suburb a long way from her home. There are two more in the series that I haven't read yet but I enjoy being in Marly's world. I appreciate that this is an own voices story and I grew up around the same time as Marly but in a different part of town, one that is (still) overwhelmingly white. I'm looking forward to passing these on to my friends' children so they can get some insight into Marly's world as well as into the historical context.
November 12, 2017
Wonderful children's historical fiction series that I am reading to my 9yo daughter. This is the most modern that we have read in this OAG series so far being set in 1983 in Melbourne. Marly is 10yo, born in Vietnam and arrived in Australia after the war with her parents as a 2yo. This story gives insight into what it is like as "boat people"- refugees arriving into Australia aboard boats- and having to deal with racism and cultural differences.
These stories are so well written that both my daughter and I are enjoying them and looking forward to what happens next for Marly. What is particularly fun about this story is that Marly is about the same age as what I was in 1983 so the references are all what I remember from my childhood. Some of them, thanks to the magic of YouTube I have been able to share with my daughter, which in one case led to her attempting to moonwalk. Elastics games will come later I am sure.
I have found these books are great to open conversations with my daughter about various important topics like kindness, courage, optimism and in this case racism and behaviour.
These stories are so well written that both my daughter and I are enjoying them and looking forward to what happens next for Marly. What is particularly fun about this story is that Marly is about the same age as what I was in 1983 so the references are all what I remember from my childhood. Some of them, thanks to the magic of YouTube I have been able to share with my daughter, which in one case led to her attempting to moonwalk. Elastics games will come later I am sure.
I have found these books are great to open conversations with my daughter about various important topics like kindness, courage, optimism and in this case racism and behaviour.
August 2, 2018
This book was full of surprisingly deep and realistic themes of racism in Australia, and it made it a real contender for my new favourite Our Australian Girl series. There was discussion of refugees, refugee camps, racism, ignorance, there was even a comment from the main character about all the Asian characters on tv being "kung fu masters, villains or criminals." I really hope my sisters library gets the rest of these so I can read the next book!
February 4, 2017
I loved finding that there's yet another quartet in this series. Designed for primary school kids but still super fun to read, and this one is the most modern by far - set in the 1980s in Sunshine. Marly has been in Australia since her parents came by boat from Vietnam when she was two, but now her cousins have joined them as well and boy is there a ton of racism going on at her primary school. Which is difficult for her as on the one hand they're her cousins, the same as her, but on the other hand they're a bit embarrassing at first ;)
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April 9, 2015It is definitely a read for the junior readers. Perhaps a year 7 group at the most.
It would be interesting to them to read about a time that would be considered foreign to them because it is a long time before they were actually born. It is interesting to someone of my generation because it is set in a time that I was also a very young child.
It would be interesting to them to read about a time that would be considered foreign to them because it is a long time before they were actually born. It is interesting to someone of my generation because it is set in a time that I was also a very young child.
May 10, 2015
NB: Junior fiction. A fantastic book about being a Vietnamese boat person (Marly is 10 years old, so at primary school) trying to assimilate into 1980s Australian society. Really insightful with great themes about what's really important, being yourself, and caring for your family.
January 23, 2016
Struggles of assimilation
November 16, 2022
Just started reading this last "chapter" of the Our Australian Girl books with my youngest boy. The big joke is that these books take place when I was alive!!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews