Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick

“What if the nightmare imagined by George Orwell in 1984 were real? What if you had to live in a country where radio dials were fixed to a single government station? Where the surroundings were entirely black-and-white except for the red lettering of the propaganda signs? Where you were required to keep a large portrait of the president on your living room wall and bow to it on national holidays? Where sexuality was repressed except for purposes of reproduction? Where spies like Orwell’s Thought Police studied your facial expressions during political rallies to make sure you were sincere not only in your speech but your thoughts? This is a real place – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea or North Korea. The Communist regime that has controlled the northern half of the Korean peninsula since 1945 might be the most totalitarian of modern world history.” (From http://nothingtoenvy.com/).

‘Nothing to Envy’ by Barbra Demick – an American journalist - is an eye-opening book about North Korea that follows the lives of six ordinary people, from an idealistic woman doctor to a model factory worker who loves Kim Il Sung more than her own family. Demick spent six years collating accounts and interviews to build a picture of life in the closed society of communist North Korea during the reign of Kim Jong-il. Many of the issues that it explores are unimaginable, outrageous and illogical to those of us who live in the West; it describes the punishments given out for holding hands with someone of the other gender, the forgotten children who don’t turn up to school due to starvation and those that blindly followed a leader who brought the country to its knees. This book is a window to a society few people have been able to understand visit and a must-read for anyone who wants to gain an understanding of this alien culture.

Reviewed by Elishna O'Donovan of Year 12 and available in the Senior School library.

Ernest by Catherine Rayner

Ernest is a LARGE moose with a BIG problem.... he can't fit into his book! What is a moose to do, but enlist a little friend with some big and helpful ideas...

This is an ingenious picture book which combines excellent draftsmanship with a brilliant sense of scale and perspective. Both expression and character are well portrayed, and Rayner builds a terrific sense of anticipation in her story towards the fold-out dnouement, which comes as a wonderful surprise to the reader and really extends the book as a consequence.

Shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway medal 2011

Available in the Junior School Library