Sally Rippin

One of my daughters loved the four-book volume of one set of Our Australian Girl stories that I was able to get her, so I was excited when I found four more of those four-book hardcovers. However, I told her I needed to read them before I did. I was disappointed with the first three of them, and wondered if I had made a big mistake in buying them. What a relief, then, to read The Lina Stories and find good attitudes. Lina is an Australian-born Italian girl; as an Italian, she is looked down show more on by the English Australian girls. She loves her family and cares for them as well as she can. At times, she tells lies to get out of trouble—but she learns that dishonesty doesn’t pay. She struggles to have friends, until she realizes that she can seek out girls who like her for who she is, and that she doesn’t have to put up with friends who only want her for what they can get out of her.
Because Lina loves writing, there is a lot of discussion about journalism in this book (with one scene showing the importance of integrity). These stories are set in 1956, when the Olympics were held in Melbourne, so they are quite important to the storyline.
These books seem to be aimed at 8-10-year-olds. The font is fairly large, and sentences are somewhat simple. They are great for girls who want an easy book to read. show less

I have mixed feelings about this. I think the story has good bones — a privileged Australian teenager spends some time in Shanghai to study art during the lead up to the Tiananmen Square protests — but ultimately fell flat. It was hard for me to connect with Anna, who is self-absorbed and rather blind to the plight of others. She also lacks any sort of respect for her father, who just flits in and out of the story tossing money at her at every opportunity. You get some sense of the show more political climate in Shanghai during this time, but I think that could have been taken further. I wanted to know more about how the city looked, smelled, tasted. I’m not sure the twist in Anna’s story, the repercussions of her brief affair with Chenxi, were really needed. It showed some interesting thing about healthcare in China at that time, but ultimately made little difference in Chenxi’s story. Maybe I expected too much. show less

This is a well-constructed book with interesting family dynamics. I felt I wanted a bit more information and bit more resolution of the various plot items - the bike boys, Zio Mario, the reason they moved house, the tidal wave in the creek, Gino's struggles - so I actually wanted this book to be longer! Which I guess is a good thing :-) An enjoyable and quick read. Sally Rippin is excellent at creating individuals and getting them to speak and act consistently and distinctly.

I think this book is a great way to show children that not every sport is boy or girl. For example, in the story, Billie wants to stomp around and be a troll and Jack wants to be a graceful butterfly. At the end of the story, Jack admits that he loves ballet and Billie loves soccer. What this book is trying to accomplish is saying that girls can do boys things, just like boys can do girl things.