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Growing Up ... in Australia
Growing Up in Australia
The ultimate book about growing up in Australia - a choice selection of wonderful stories and recollections.
This special collection is the perfect addition to Black Inc's definitive 'Growing Up' series. Featuring pieces from 'Growing up Asian', 'Growing Up Aboriginal', 'Growing Up Queer' and 'Growing Up Disabled in Australia', it captures the diversity of our nation in moving and revelatory ways.
'Growing Up in Australia' also features gems from essential Australian memoirs such as Rick Morton's 'One Hundred Years of Dirt' and Magda Szubanski's 'Reckoning'.
Contributors include Tim Winton, Benjamin Law, Nyadol Nyuon, Tara June Winch, Miranda Tapsell, Carly Findlay, and many more.
With foreword by Alice Pung, this anthology is a wonderful gift for adult and adolescent alike.
This special collection is the perfect addition to Black Inc's definitive 'Growing Up' series. Featuring pieces from 'Growing up Asian', 'Growing Up Aboriginal', 'Growing Up Queer' and 'Growing Up Disabled in Australia', it captures the diversity of our nation in moving and revelatory ways.
'Growing Up in Australia' also features gems from essential Australian memoirs such as Rick Morton's 'One Hundred Years of Dirt' and Magda Szubanski's 'Reckoning'.
Contributors include Tim Winton, Benjamin Law, Nyadol Nyuon, Tara June Winch, Miranda Tapsell, Carly Findlay, and many more.
With foreword by Alice Pung, this anthology is a wonderful gift for adult and adolescent alike.
279 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2021
40 people are currently reading
374 people want to read
About the author
Tim Winton
76 books2,398 followersTim Winton was born in Perth, Western Australia, but moved at a young age to the small country town of Albany.
While a student at Curtin University of Technology, Winton wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer. It went on to win The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1981, and launched his writing career. In fact, he wrote "the best part of three books while at university". His second book, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984. It wasn't until Cloudstreet was published in 1991, however, that his career and economic future were cemented.
In 1995 Winton’s novel, The Riders, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was his 2002 book, Dirt Music. Both are currently being adapted for film. He has won many other prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award three times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992) and Dirt Music (2002). Cloudstreet is arguably his best-known work, regularly appearing in lists of Australia’s best-loved novels. His latest novel, released in 2013, is called Eyrie.
He is now one of Australia's most esteemed novelists, writing for both adults and children. All his books are still in print and have been published in eighteen different languages. His work has also been successfully adapted for stage, screen and radio. On the publication of his novel, Dirt Music, he collaborated with broadcaster, Lucky Oceans, to produce a compilation CD, Dirt Music – Music for a Novel.
He has lived in Italy, France, Ireland and Greece but currently lives in Western Australia with his wife and three children.
While a student at Curtin University of Technology, Winton wrote his first novel, An Open Swimmer. It went on to win The Australian/Vogel Literary Award in 1981, and launched his writing career. In fact, he wrote "the best part of three books while at university". His second book, Shallows, won the Miles Franklin Award in 1984. It wasn't until Cloudstreet was published in 1991, however, that his career and economic future were cemented.
In 1995 Winton’s novel, The Riders, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, as was his 2002 book, Dirt Music. Both are currently being adapted for film. He has won many other prizes, including the Miles Franklin Award three times: for Shallows (1984), Cloudstreet (1992) and Dirt Music (2002). Cloudstreet is arguably his best-known work, regularly appearing in lists of Australia’s best-loved novels. His latest novel, released in 2013, is called Eyrie.
He is now one of Australia's most esteemed novelists, writing for both adults and children. All his books are still in print and have been published in eighteen different languages. His work has also been successfully adapted for stage, screen and radio. On the publication of his novel, Dirt Music, he collaborated with broadcaster, Lucky Oceans, to produce a compilation CD, Dirt Music – Music for a Novel.
He has lived in Italy, France, Ireland and Greece but currently lives in Western Australia with his wife and three children.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
January 27, 2022
The exploration of the experience of coming-of-age through varied lenses made for a really authentic account of what it means for each individual to grow up in Australia. So necessary for me to read as a pre-service teacher in understanding the positive impact that we can have on our students lives as they navigate their way through adolescence. It was extremely distressing to read so many memoirs where teachers neglected this responsibility (2 quotes from a memoir that resonated with me -“what I remember from high school is loneliness” and “the teachers did nothing”). I will definitely be taking this knowledge with me into the classroom when I start teaching, and cannot wait to read other collections from the “growing up” series.
November 29, 2023
a wide-ranging, intriguing anthology, at times they were clipped or ended sententiously, but a large majority were resonant and funny!
January 25, 2026
I enjoyed this collection of reflections from a wide variety of people and their experiences growing up in Australia. I found it profoundly helpful as an exercise in empathy for others.
October 5, 2025
Talking to my country, Tourism, Her mother’s daughter, Wei-lei and me, Sam, I was born this way, Bully for them
December 20, 2022
While I prefer full length stories over short, I did find this compilation allowed me a glimpse of the 'world' through others' eyes, and for that I'm most grateful. May I be more understanding as a result.
February 6, 2022
The “brutal and varied” accounts of the childhoods remembered by the contributing writers in this new collection share the similar sense of being on the “outside”, of trying to fit in to the expectations of their families, of their communities, and of Australia. For many of them, their migrant experience proved difficult in their attempts to exist in two worlds, two cultures, two mindsets. The openness with which writers shared their intimate struggles of sexuality, of cultural adaptation, of disability, reflected not only their grief, sadness, and loneliness, but also their resilience and a desire for their readers to find something of themselves in the stories told.
The actual writing, however, was uneven, resulting in my critical rating despite the value of the writers’ sharing often traumatic reflections. Especially strong were recollections from Stan Grant and Tara June Winch on their Aboriginality; Carla Findlay and Andy Jackson on their disabilities; Thinash Thillainadarjah and Christos Tsoilkas on being both a “wog and gay”. I was thrilled to find Uyen Loewold’s masterful poem in the collection, “Be Good Little Migrants”, its sarcasm so effective in communicating its resentment to Australian society for the expectations it forces onto its migrant population.
I appreciated hearing new perspectives because the contributors were of generations younger than mine, particularly the experiences of newer waves of migrants like those of Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, rather than the Eastern European refugees with whom I have had more contact. In all of the childhood memories, what emerged was the personal struggle for identity in a world in which these writers felt marginalised and often devalued.
The actual writing, however, was uneven, resulting in my critical rating despite the value of the writers’ sharing often traumatic reflections. Especially strong were recollections from Stan Grant and Tara June Winch on their Aboriginality; Carla Findlay and Andy Jackson on their disabilities; Thinash Thillainadarjah and Christos Tsoilkas on being both a “wog and gay”. I was thrilled to find Uyen Loewold’s masterful poem in the collection, “Be Good Little Migrants”, its sarcasm so effective in communicating its resentment to Australian society for the expectations it forces onto its migrant population.
I appreciated hearing new perspectives because the contributors were of generations younger than mine, particularly the experiences of newer waves of migrants like those of Sudan, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam, rather than the Eastern European refugees with whom I have had more contact. In all of the childhood memories, what emerged was the personal struggle for identity in a world in which these writers felt marginalised and often devalued.
June 2, 2022
📚REVIEW📖
Disappointing. And hear me out. But the resounding feel for this one was one of disappointment.
Because these are brilliant anthologies, in a brilliant series- please DO read ‘Growing up Disabled in Australia’ or ‘Growing up Aboriginal in Australia’ or ‘Growing up Queer in Australia’ and so on.
But then don’t bother reading this because for the most part - they just re-used stories from the other books in the series!!?!
I really do not understand this editorial decision. It felt a bit insulting, ‘flesh it out, the reader won’t notice’. 🙋♀️ functional hippocampus, I do not forget.
One would assume they’d have a similar audience reading the books- so why do this? Perhaps they should have marketed this as a ‘Best Of’.
The introduction starts with ‘we spend our whole lives trying to work out what happened in the first fourteen years’ and yet hardly any of the stories actually speak to this as a brief. So many chapters felt repurposed to fit.
Growing up in Australia was ice frozen ovals on school mornings, 5c milk bar lollies, frozen oranges at school sports, Ranger Stacey, driveway cricket and slip, slop, slap, Women’s weekly birthday cakes, sprinkler runs, scabby knees, Cottees cordial, the chemical stench of impulse and lynx in school hallways. Surely Australia wasn’t completely devoid of any joy or love or respite.
Stand out contributions from Stan Grant, Nyadol Nyuon and Aditi Gouvernel.
2/5 ⭐️⭐️
Disappointing. And hear me out. But the resounding feel for this one was one of disappointment.
Because these are brilliant anthologies, in a brilliant series- please DO read ‘Growing up Disabled in Australia’ or ‘Growing up Aboriginal in Australia’ or ‘Growing up Queer in Australia’ and so on.
But then don’t bother reading this because for the most part - they just re-used stories from the other books in the series!!?!
I really do not understand this editorial decision. It felt a bit insulting, ‘flesh it out, the reader won’t notice’. 🙋♀️ functional hippocampus, I do not forget.
One would assume they’d have a similar audience reading the books- so why do this? Perhaps they should have marketed this as a ‘Best Of’.
The introduction starts with ‘we spend our whole lives trying to work out what happened in the first fourteen years’ and yet hardly any of the stories actually speak to this as a brief. So many chapters felt repurposed to fit.
Growing up in Australia was ice frozen ovals on school mornings, 5c milk bar lollies, frozen oranges at school sports, Ranger Stacey, driveway cricket and slip, slop, slap, Women’s weekly birthday cakes, sprinkler runs, scabby knees, Cottees cordial, the chemical stench of impulse and lynx in school hallways. Surely Australia wasn’t completely devoid of any joy or love or respite.
Stand out contributions from Stan Grant, Nyadol Nyuon and Aditi Gouvernel.
2/5 ⭐️⭐️
January 5, 2023
It took me a while to read this book as I’d get a tad bored (I’ve read several of the “Growing up in Australia” books now) but over the recent Christmas / New Year break, I was determined to finish it; and I’m very glad I did. Only a few of the contributors have supplied already published stories or snippets from their books), most are bespoke snap shots of core childhood memories.
I really connected with many of the stories, one could have even been my own childhood (!!). As a child growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, I thoroughly enjoy realistic memories of the time period.
Well worth a read, even if like me, it takes you 7months to do it!
I really connected with many of the stories, one could have even been my own childhood (!!). As a child growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, I thoroughly enjoy realistic memories of the time period.
Well worth a read, even if like me, it takes you 7months to do it!
October 25, 2023
This book contains a selection of stories from some of the other 'Growing up...in Australia' books. It is good as a taster of them, and probably better as the first book of the series that you read. Or if you are only going to read one, then read this one as it covers different walks of life rather than being on one theme.
I would like if at the start of each story, it would tell you which anthology this story is from, as it would set the context a bit, which would be helpful.
The stories were interesting and helpful for gaining perspective on other people's experiences of growing up in Australia.
I would like if at the start of each story, it would tell you which anthology this story is from, as it would set the context a bit, which would be helpful.
The stories were interesting and helpful for gaining perspective on other people's experiences of growing up in Australia.
May 20, 2022
This is probably the first of the Growing Up series from Black Inc that I haven't rated five stars and the only reason for that is, having read nearly every other book in this series, I've read nearly all of the included stories before.
As always, a wide and diverse selection. Fascinating stories. Well put together. Love these collections.
As always, a wide and diverse selection. Fascinating stories. Well put together. Love these collections.
January 5, 2022
This book shared many stories of actual childhood and teenage memories of a variety of people. These included stories of family relationships and neighbourhood, community and school memories in peoples lives.
January 6, 2023
Loved it. Such varied and authentic accounts of growing up in Australia. Of note, Ben’s story of his family holiday had be laughing out loud till I cried and Stan Grant’s account was incredibly moving.
October 12, 2023
My only criticism of this book is that some of the stories are repeated from the other 'growing up' books. But if you haven't read the others, this is a good collection/range of stories from disabled, queer, Aboriginal and Asian authors.
June 1, 2022
A sobering record of formative childhood experiences in Australia...much to learn from here...
July 1, 2023
3.5/5 ⭐️
February 3, 2024
Really lovely collection of short stories about growing up in Australia.
Humorous,, poignant and well written.
Humorous,, poignant and well written.
March 24, 2024
I wasn't born and did not grow up in Australia either, I found interesting stories giving me some nuances for my perception of this country.
December 28, 2025
Thoughtful reflections of the coming of age experience in Australia. Through multiple perspectives in this anthology, you’re really able to examine multiple stories in one.
July 22, 2023
Books that schools make you read are either really boring or amazing. I would say that this book leans more toward the amazing side. It is informative and discusses a profuse amount of important topics like sexuality, racism and disability. Reading this book is like looking through the eyes of several other people. The activities we did in class helped me so much with understanding the book. The symbolism is insane and I would recommend everyone read it at least once in their life. My favourite is probably 'Perfect Chinese Children', not only because we went into depth with it in class but also because I can see it being relatable to a broad community of people.
The audience sees different time periods too. Some stories at set in the 80s and 90s and that proved absolutely beguiling to me. It was such a convenient book too. If I had only a little time then I could finish a whole story within that short time. Although it was titled 'Growing Up in Australia', I wished it contained moments that weren't devoid of joy or happiness. After all, people consider their childhood the most enjoyable parts of their lives.
The audience sees different time periods too. Some stories at set in the 80s and 90s and that proved absolutely beguiling to me. It was such a convenient book too. If I had only a little time then I could finish a whole story within that short time. Although it was titled 'Growing Up in Australia', I wished it contained moments that weren't devoid of joy or happiness. After all, people consider their childhood the most enjoyable parts of their lives.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews