by John Marsden
For example, I’ve learned not to stand between new patients and the doors of their rooms—even that makes them nervous.
The most common question here has always been ‘what are you in for?’ but I never ask it too soon. I figure you’ve got to get to know people a bit first. Not like Daniel: he loved asking. He couldn’t wait to find out. Half the time he just got stupid answers though. Cindy used to say she was allergic to pumpkin.
Some people say they’ve got the ‘s’ word: that’s schizophrenia. Some people say they’ve got the ‘a’ word: that’s anorexia. Some people just say ‘Depression’. Some people just show you the scars on their wrists.
But gradually, no matter what they say, you figure it out. So now we have Beth who’s got bulimia. There’s Tony, who’s in a wheelchair, but he’s meant to be really violent. There’s Jacqui, who’s been expelled from four schools and run away from home a hundred times. There’s Nick, who gets panic attacks and can’t breathe. There’s Tanya, who cuts herself, not like slashing her wrists, but just, I don’t know, because she wants to, I suppose. And there’s a new girl, I don’t know her name or what she’s here for. I guess she’s replacing Oliver. She came in a couple of hours ago. Tomorrow I’ll have to go and do my welcoming routine: ‘Good morning and welcome to the funny farm. We hope you enjoy your stay. This resort has everything you could ever ask for, including Mr Miles who’ll try to take you into the Mens’ so he can grope you and Max who thinks the CIA are after him and Bernadette, who’ll wake you up in the middle of the night trying to strangle you. Don’t worry though, she’s not strong enough to do it. Have a nice day.’
I think if I had anywhere to go they’d probably discharge me pretty soon, too. But with Dad not getting bail and Mum still not capable of looking after herself, let alone anyone else, they’re not quite sure what to do with me. I’ll probably do like Mark and go to boarding school. I don’t know about the holidays. I think Mark’s going to stay with friends from Clifford College. Probably Josh. Mark’s lucky; he’s still got friends from his old school. I don’t think I do. It’s two months since I heard from anyone from my school.
Maybe I’ll just stay here forever, welcoming people and saying goodbye to people. I might be the first permanent member of the Patients’ Committee. Safe in here, safe and secure, protected from the piranhas, not having to think about my family and my friends and how I killed my darling dog, Checkers.
Learn great new writing skills, with John Marsden
You are invited to spend a few days with John Marsden at one of Australia’s most beautiful properties.
The Tye Estate is just 25 minutes from Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport, and is perfectly set up for writing camps and other activities.
Every school holidays, John takes writing and drama camps, where you can improve your skills, make new friends, expand your thinking, and have a huge heap of fun.
Accommodation is modern and comfortable; meals are far removed from the shepherd’s pie they gave you at your last school camp, and supervision is by friendly and experienced staff.
Between the workshops with John, you can explore 850 acres of spectacular bush, looking out for rare and highly endangered species like Tiger Quolls and Powerful Owls, as well as koalas, platypuses, wedgetail eagles, kangaroos and wallabies.
Mountain bikes, bushwalking, orienteering, and a picnic at nearby Hanging Rock, are among the highlights of your memorable stay at the Tye Estate.
School groups in term time are also welcome.
For details, write to:
The Tye Estate
RMB 1250
ROMSEY
VICTORIA 3434
Or fax: (61) 03 54 270395
Phone: (61) 03 54 270384
John Marsden
Secret Men’s Business
This is the most urgently needed book of our time.
Where Steve Biddulph’s best-selling Raising Boys talks to parents and teachers, Secret Men’s Business talks to young men themselves—in the way that only John Marsden can. It sets out, in direct honest language, the things every young man needs to know . . . and the things young men aren’t being told.
Young men who read this book will learn how to be strong, how to be honest, how to confront their fears. They’ll understand how to deal with men and women, parents and teachers, male friends and female friends. They’ll get a sense of the integrity that every true man needs.
They’ll find ways to resolve problems without being destructive or self-destructive.
They’ll have their questions about sex answered . . . in clear, straightforward language.
With Tomorrow, When the War Began John Marsden wrote the most powerful novel for teenagers ever published in this country. Now he has written the most powerful non-fiction work ever made available to young men.
Secret Men’s Business has been written by a man, edited by a man, and published by a team of men at Pan Macmillan. It is a book for men only, especially recommended for young men, adolescents and boys entering adolescence.
John Marsden
Everything I Know About Writing
The ultimate ‘get off your bum and do it’ book, Everything I Know About Writing will motivate anyone to write. It’s a lively funny guide to writing, as readable as a novel, but packed from front to back with ideas and insights.
And this new edition has one other very special feature: nearly 6000 extraordinary topics, guaranteed to have you or your students writing before you know it.
John Marsden is not just one of Australia’s most successful writers of all time; he’s also one of our best teachers of writing. Everything I Know About Writing is the most painless way into writing—ever.
‘. . . highly recommended . . .’
SUN-HERALD
‘. . . the most exciting, interesting and useful book on the teaching of writing . . . Everything I Know About Writing is a must . . .’
AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH TEACHER
John Marsden
Dear Miffy
‘You can squeeze my lemon, baby, juice runs down my legs.’
Sex, I can’t stop thinking about it but. It’s like the best sweetest torture ever invented. It tears you apart but you wouldn’t want it any other way. It’s the drug you never try to give up . . .
Tony writes letters.
To Miffy.
And breaks your heart.
Is there something wrong when your main ambition in life is to be dead?
John Marsden
The Tomorrow Series
‘The feeling of reality you bring into your work is extraordinary. It makes you feel as if you are running along the dangerous streets with Ellie, tense and alert, about to blow up a bridge, or a couple of houses, or waiting quietly inside a container in the bottom of a ship, about to do the biggest thing of your life.’
KIM, MOUNT GAMBIER
‘We have bags under our eyes thanks to your books, because we can’t put them down long enough to sleep!’
COURTNEY & DIANNA, YORKETOWN
Readers across Australia are unanimous: this is the greatest series ever published in this country.
Seven books charged with high emotion, drama, action and even a dash of romance.
When you open the first page of Tomorrow, When the War Began you’ll enter a world that’ll change you forever.
A world of danger, risks, challenge and self-discovery.
A world that will stay with you, through all the years of your life.
Tomorrow, When the War Began is the first of the Tomorrow Series, and is followed by The Dead of the Night, The Third Day, the Frost, Darkness, Be My Friend, Burning for Revenge and The Night is for Hunting. The final in the Tomorrow Series will be published in October 1999.
PRAISE FOR THE TOMORROW SERIES:
‘. . . compulsively readable’
NEW YORK TIMES
‘. . . without a doubt the best series for younger readers that an Australian writer has ever produced’
DAILY ADV
ERTISER
‘. . . makes for reading as exciting, disturbing, provocative, as we have had for many years’
JUNIOR BOOKSHELF (UK)
‘Like ancient myths, the stories confront the purpose of life, death, betrayal, killing, love, hate, revenge, selflessness, sacrifice and, in the most recent book, faith’
THE AGE
John Marsden
Out of Time
James reads by his open bedroom window at night. Other lives and other worlds beckon. One of these worlds is conjured by old Mr Woodford, a physicist who looks more like an accountant and who constructs a strange black box.
One day when James slips into the laboratory, he makes a dreadful discovery and learns to master a great power.
Who is the little boy in Mexico who scratches pictures of aeroplanes in the dust? How will the girl caught in a wartime bomb blast be reunited with her parents? And why does James sit alone in his island of silence?
With Out of Time John Marsden has produced a novel that will further enhance his reputation as one of the most successful writers of fiction for teenagers. This is a challenging novel which poses a new question on every page as it draws us into an ever-widening series of mysteries, into magical, dangerous worlds—in and out of time.
John Marsden
The Great Gatenby
Maybe deep down every kid knows his parents want him to be the Pride of the School, the Captain of the Cricket and Tennis and Rowing and Darts and Knitting and anything else that’s going down.
They don’t want to know that you’ve had more detentions than any other new student in the history of the school, that you’re going out with a girl who doesn’t wear a bra to PE, and that the Head Swimming Coach is some kind of Nazi whose last job was training the shark in Jaws.
Erle Gatenby has been sent to boarding school to straighten out, but there’s about as much chance of that happening as there is of his giving up smoking . . . or drinking . . . or falling through the Art Room roof.
Erle’s a full tank of petrol and wild, sexy Melanie Tozer is about to light the match.
John Marsden
The Journey
By the author of So Much To Tell You, The Journey is a story of young people in a world so different and yet so like our own. It is a world in which young people must undertake a journey of discovery on their way to becoming adults.
Argus sets out on his journey away from his valley and his parents, never knowing what adventure will befall him next. He learns how to survive in the wild until he meets with a travelling fair, which he joins, becoming a friend of Mayon the storyteller, of Lavolta and Parara—twins who share the same body—and many others.
But it is with the sweet and wise Temora that he learns some of the deepest secrets.
All journeys must find an end. Argus leaves the fair and travels on alone, until his last and greatest adventure beckons him home. There he tells, for the approval of his elders, the seven stories which are now his story. But all is not done.
There is one more chapter to be lived out in the story of Argus.
‘. . . an extraordinary story . . . I would commend it to everybody. Although ostensibly it’s a children’s book it’s something that any adult can read with great pleasure. It’s one of those books that don’t actually belong to any particular age group . . . like The Snow Goose’
TERRY LANE, ABC RADIO
John Marsden
Take My Word for It
You know what Tracey said to me after English today? She said: ‘The reason you’ve got no friends is that you don’t tell anyone your problems’ . . . I hate the way they tell everyone every single detail about themselves . . . If you ask me, it’s dangerous. Once you start, you don’t stop.
Strong, cold, private . . . this is Lisa, as seen by Marina in her journal, So Much to Tell You.
But Lisa too keeps a journal. It’s a record of her friends and family, her frustrations and successes, her thoughts and feelings. As page follows page, the real Lisa begins to emerge. Not always strong, not always private and certainly not cold.
As in the best-selling So Much to Tell You, award-winning novelist John Marsden takes us into the world of young people trying to make sense of their lives.
‘John Marsden is a major writer who deserves world-wide acclaim’
ROBERT CORMIER
John Marsden
Letters from the Inside
Dear Tracey
I don’t know why I’m answering your ad, to be honest. It’s not like I’m into pen pals, but it’s a boring Sunday here, wet, everyone’s out, and I thought it’d be something different . . .
Dear Mandy
Thanks for writing. You write so well, much better than me. I put the ad in for a joke, like a dare, and yours was the only good answer . . .
Two teenage girls. An innocent beginning to friendship. Two complete strangers who get to know each other a little better each time a letter is written and answered.
Mandy has a dog with no name, an older sister, a creepy brother, and some boy problems. Tracey has a horse, two dogs and a cat, an older sister and brother, and a great boyfriend. They both have hopes and fears . . . and secrets.
‘John Marsden’s Letters from the Inside is, in a word, unforgettable. But this epistolary novel deserves more than one word. It is absolutely shattering as it brings to vivid life two teenage girls and then strangles your heart over what happens to their relationship . . . John Marsden is a major writer who deserves world-wide acclaim’
ROBERT CORMIER
John Marsden
Looking for Trouble
Friendships, adventures, problems and excitement . . . stuff that could be you and your friends.
And some of the funniest scenes you’ll ever read in a book.
Tony and his mates are the kids you’d want to hang around with if they were at your school.
Even if they are always looking for trouble.
‘a celebration of friendship, of mateship . . . and happy endings’
THE ADVERTISER
‘delightful . . . full of humour, surprises, suspense, reality’
ADVOCATE
‘enjoyably fast-paced and well observed’
AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW
John Marsden
Staying Alive in Year 5
Scott and his friends are simply staying alive in year 5 until their surprising new teacher, Mr Murlin, comes along.
Boring textbooks go into the bin, eating chocolate in class becomes compulsory and suddenly it’s OK to be weird.
But Mr Murlin is not popular with everyone . . .
Staying Alive in Year 5 is a monster hit for primary school readers from one of Australia’s most popular storytellers, John Marsden.
‘children . . . will relish this book’
REVIEWPOINT
‘ideal reading for children ten and over’
SUN (MELBOURNE)
John Marsden
You Make it Happen with Creep Street and Cool School
If you’re about to enter either of these books, we have a piece of advice for you. BE CAREFUL in there. Be very careful.
Making the wrong moves can get nasty!
In CREEP STREET you could find yourself up to your ankles in blood . . . or with flesh-eating spiders crawling all over you . . . or with a skeleton stalking you through an attic.
Is there any escape? IT’S UP TO YOU.
In COOL SCHOOL, it’s your first day at your new school. By lunchtime you could have gone into the wrong toilets, gatecrashed the staff room, blown up the science block, been hypnotised by the principal, asked for a date, broken every bone in your body.
IT’S UP TO YOU. You could have become your school’s biggest hero . . . or its biggest loser . . .
YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN.