Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca

by Melina Marchetta

Unabridged 12CD Audio Book Set

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Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca - by Melina Marchetta - Audio Book CD  

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About Looking for Alibrandi

"Eat, Jozzie, eat. Oh, Jozzie, Jozzie. Look at your hair. Why, Jozzie? Why can you not look tidy?"

My grandmother says that to me every afternoon. She says it with a painful cry in her voice as if she is dying. I'm not sure if anyone has ever died of the fact that their granddaughter looks untidy, but I'm sure my grandmother will one day because she'll strain her voice so much she'll choke.

For as long as Josephine Alibrandi can remember, it's just been her, her mum, and her grandmother. Now it's her final year at a wealthy Catholic private girls' school where the nuns couldn't be any stricter. But that doesn't seem to stop all kinds of men from coming into Josie's life, including her father!

Caught between the old-world values of her Italian nonna Katia, the no-nonsense wisdom of her mother Cristina, and the boys who continue to mystify her, Josie is on the ride of her life.

This will be the year she falls in love, the year she discovers the secrets of her family's past - and the year she sets herself free.

About Saving Francesca

Most of my friends now go to Pius Senior College, but my mother wouldn't allow it because she says the girls there leave with limited options and she didn't bring me up to have limitations placed upon me. If you know my mother, you'll sense there's an irony there, based on the fact that she is the Queen of the Limitation Placers in my life.

Francesca battles her mother Mia constantly over what's best for her. All Francesca wants is her old friends and her old school, but instead Mia sends her to St Sebastian's, an all-boys' school that has just opened its doors to girls. Now Francesca's surrounded by hundreds of boys, with only a few other girls for company. All of them weirdos - or worse.

Then one day, Mia is too depressed to get out of bed. One day turns into months and as her family begins to fall apart, Francesca realizes that without her mother's high spirits she hardly knows who she is. But she doesn't yet realize that she's more like Mia than she thinks. With a little unlikely help from St Sebastian's, she just might be able to save her family, her friends, and especially herself.

About Melina Marchetta

Melina Marchetta lives in Sydney and writes full time.

Her first novel Looking for Alibrandi was released in 1992 to much acclaim, with a first print-run sellout within two months of its release.

Published in 14 countries, including 11 translated editions, it swept the pool of literary awards for young adult fiction in 1993 including the coveted Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Award (Older Readers).

Dubbed "the most stolen library book", the popular novel was followed by her film adaptation of the same title released in 2000. While writing the AFI award-winning screenplay Melina taught English and History full time, for ten years, at a city high school for boys.

During that time she released her second novel Saving Francesca in 2003, followed by On the Jellicoe Road in 2006. Both novels have been published in more than 6 countries, with Saving Francesca translated into 4 languages. On the Jellicoe Road was recently awarded the prestigious 2009 US Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature.

Her current novel, the fantasy epic Finnikin of the Rock, was released by Penguin Australia in October 2008. It has since won the 2008 Aurelius Award for Best Young Adult Novel and the 2009 ABIA (Australian Booksellers Industry Awards) Book of the Year for Older Children and was recently shortlisted for the 2009 Children's Book Council of the Year (Older Readers) Award.

Melina has also written short stories including the recent Twelve Minutes as part of the Books Alive anthology 10 SHORT STORIES YOU MUST READ THIS YEAR, along with reviews and opinion pieces for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and The Australian Literary Review. She has also been a writer-in-residence around the country, as far north as Thursday Island and as far south as Hobart.

Her fifth novel The Piper’s Son, is due to be released in Australia in March 2010.

Looking for Alibrandi and Saving Francesca - by Melina Marchetta - Audio Book CD