A warm and engaging story of a boy who is drawn to commit a theft to impress an older, alluringly rebellious kid. Aaron’s guilt, regret and attempts to put the situation right take him on a journey that’s unexpected, at times humorous and ultimately tragic.
RAINFISH
by Andrew Paterson
Text Publishing, July 2021 (voir catalogue)
Aaron lives with his single mother and his bookish older brother Connor in a small town with a ramshackle chook shed and an old bath full of rainfish in the backyard. Feeling left out as the younger brother, he commits a theft to impress an older rebellious kid. RAINFISH is a middle-grade novel that lets its readers explore how to cope with big feelings and emotions, with joy, happiness, regret and remorse. It subtly teaches about truth telling and the importance of knowing when to own up to things. The writing is sophisticated while remaining accessible.
Winner for the 2020 Text Prize for Young Adult and Children’s Writing
Andrew Paterson is a medical doctor who was brought up and currently lives and works in tropical Far North Queensland, where RAINFISH is set. He has completed a graduate diploma in Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne. This is his debut novel.
For Damon Young, existing while Black is an extreme sport. The act of possessing black skin while searching for space to breathe in America is enough to induce a ceaseless state of angst where questions such as “How should I react here, as a professional black person?” and “Will this white person’s potato salad kill me?” are forever relevant. WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU BLACKER chronicles Young’s efforts to survive while battling and making sense of the various neuroses his country has given him. It’s a condition that’s sometimes stretched to absurd limits, provoking the angst that made him question if he was any good at the “being straight” thing, as if his sexual orientation was something he could practice and get better at, like a crossover dribble move or knitting; creating the farce where, as a teen, he wished for a white person to call him a racial slur just so he could fight him and have a great story about it; and generating the surreality of watching gentrification transform his Pittsburgh neighborhood from predominantly Black to “Portlandia . . . but with Pierogies.” And, at its most devastating, it provides him reason to believe that his mother would be alive today if she were white. From one of our most respected cultural observers, WHAT DOESN’T KILL YOU MAKES YOU BLACKER is a hilarious and honest debut that is both a celebration of the idiosyncrasies and distinctions of Blackness and a critique of white supremacy and how we define masculinity.
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Gina Filomena has been told she has an overactive imagination. With her bright clothing and artistic spirit, she’s always felt different from the other kids in her class. That is, until she meets her new neighbor, a mysterious boy named Antonio with a wide, welcoming smile. Add in a creative new teacher, Miss Lightstone, and a world of possibilities opens up for Gina, Antonio, and their classmates. With the help of Antonio and Miss Lightstone, will Gina find the answers to the questions Who am I? and Who do I want to be?