Sonya Bright > Recent Status Updates

I'm very glad to see Canberra's 2003 firestorm mentioned at the beginning of this. Having lived through it - Australia's capital city burning - I'm constantly frustrated it's never mentioned when bushfire disasters are discussed.

Switching to the paper version.

This in ebook form - on my phone, because I need to fix my tablet - is impossible. A nightmare!

Divergent starts with her describing her reflection in the mirror??!?

Wow, Scholastic has been bad with the grammar recently.

If you're referring to a family group, it's THE MORGANS', not THE MORGAN'S. Correct apostrophe placement is something I think I should expect from a publisher in the children's/educational section of the market.

Couldn't even make it ten pages in before the author hurled the first insult at Canberra. Why are Australians like this?

"The housing is on cruise ships … Who wouldn't want to live on a cruise ship?"

Worst-timed read ever with the virus taking over cruise ships everywhere at the moment!

Uh oh. Sexist blonde girl stereotype :(

I was just thinking how the ballet world is shown fairly well in this book - and then the teacher hands the main character a brand new pair of pointe shoes to compete in. Shoes she's never seen before, let alone tried on, broken in, or danced in.

This is not how pointe shoes work. They take hours of preparation before you can dance in them. And because they're all handmade, you have to pick and try your own!

An ostrich egg from Australia?? Uh … that's 100% inaccurate. The author and editors and everyone else involved might want to educate themselves on what animals come from here.

I've read half a dozen middle grade books for girls in the past 1.5 weeks. Every single book had rampant misogyny running through it (why does an eleven-year-old protagonist have to call grown women "nasty cows"?).
No wonder girls grow up hating women …

"She was a bit of a cow in Lacey's opinion." - What's with the (adult-style) misogyny in this book? Disappointing that a woman wrote it.

Not bad, but I'm not sure why the Kiwi author spends so much time insulting Australians. And not all dancers are tall - that's a weird myth!

For a Big Five publisher, I have to say I'm surprised by some of the poorly-worded sentences.

E.g. (on this page): 'When you said she was small on the phone.'

Is the pig only "small on the phone", or is she small in general? I'm surprised an editor didn't work harder on this ...

Seeing all these pictures of the Northern Hemisphere covered in snow, and we're having record-breaking hot day after record-breaking hot day, and the house is full of smoke, and it feels like we're on a different planet.