Syd Sixpence

Last updated
Syd Sixpence
Syd Sixpence 1st ed.jpg
Author Joan Lindsay
Illustrator Rick Amor
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Genre Children's literature
PublisherKestrel, Puffin
Publication date
1982
Pages65
ISBN 978-0-722-65776-8

Syd Sixpence is a 1982 children's book by Australian author Joan Lindsay, [1] featuring illustrations by Rick Amor. Its plot follows an anthropomorphic sixpence coin who is thrown into the ocean, and his subsequent adventures on the ocean floor.

Contents

It was Lindsay's last published work before her death in 1984, and her only work of children's literature. [2]

Plot

The narrative follows Syd, an anthropomorphic Australian sixpence, who finds himself on the ocean floor. The book details his search for his friend, Tramline. While in the ocean, Syd meets a family of winkles who subsist on seaweed, encounters a fish who is a magician, and a performing octopus who kidnaps Syd and forces him into a performing circus, from which Syd must plot an escape.

Release

The book was published in Australia by Kestrel in 1982, [3] and was published again in November 1985 by Penguin's Puffin Storybook Series.

Related Research Articles

<i>Picnic at Hanging Rock</i> (novel) Book by Joan Lindsay

Picnic at Hanging Rock is an Australian historical fiction novel by Joan Lindsay. Set in 1900, it is about a group of female students at an Australian girls' boarding school who vanish at Hanging Rock while on a Valentine's Day picnic, and the effects the disappearances have on the school and local community. The novel was first published in 1967 in Australia by Cheshire Publishing and was reprinted by Penguin in 1975. It is widely considered by critics to be one of the best Australian novels.

Joan Lindsay

Joan à Beckett Lindsay, also known as Lady Lindsay, was an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and visual artist. Trained in her youth as a painter, Lindsay published her first literary work in 1936 at age forty under a pseudonym, a satirical novel titled Through Darkest Pondelayo. Her second novel, Time Without Clocks, was published nearly thirty years later, and was a semi-autobiographical account of the early years of her marriage to artist Daryl Lindsay.

Norman Lindsay

Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, etcher, sculptor, writer, art critic, novelist, cartoonist and amateur boxer. One of the most prolific and popular Australian artists of his generation, Lindsay attracted both acclaim and controversy for his works, many of which infused the Australian landscape with erotic pagan elements and were deemed by his critics to be “anti-Christian, anti-social and degenerate”. A vocal nationalist, he became a regular artist for The Bulletin at the height of its cultural influence, and advanced staunchly anti-modernist views as a leading writer on Australian art. When friend and literary critic Bertram Stevens argued that children like to read about fairies rather than food, Lindsay wrote and illustrated The Magic Pudding (1918), now considered a classic work of Australian children's literature.

<i>The Executioners Song</i>

The Executioner's Song (1979) is a Pulitzer Prize–winning true crime novel by Norman Mailer that depicts the events related to the execution of Gary Gilmore for murder by the state of Utah. The title of the book may be a play on "The Lord High Executioner's Song" from Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado. "The Executioner's Song" is also the title of a poem by Mailer, published in Fuck You magazine in September 1964 and reprinted in Cannibals and Christians (1966), and the title of one of the chapters of his 1974 novel The Fight.

Tim Renwick

Timothy John Pearson Renwick is an English guitarist. He is best known for his association with Al Stewart in his early career and for his long-standing role as lead guitarist for the Sutherland Brothers & Quiver. His single "Dark Island" peaked at number 80 in Australia in 1980.

Daryl Lindsay

Sir Ernest Daryl Lindsay was an Australian artist and member of the creative Lindsay family.

Rosemary Dobson

Rosemary de Brissac Dobson, AO was an Australian poet, who was also an illustrator, editor and anthologist. She published fourteen volumes of poetry, was published in almost every annual volume of Australian Poetry and has been translated into French and other languages.

Randolph Bedford

Randolph Bedford was an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer and Queensland state politician.

Berlie Doherty is an English novelist, poet, playwright and screenwriter. She is best known for children's books, for which she has twice won the Carnegie Medal. She has also written novels for adults, plays for theatre and radio, television series and libretti for children's opera.

Pamela Kay Allen is a New Zealand children's writer and illustrator. She has published over 50 picture books since 1980. Sales of her books have exceeded five million copies.

<i>The Battle of the Labyrinth</i>

The Battle of the Labyrinth is an American fantasy-adventure novel based on Greek mythology written by Rick Riordan. It is the fourth novel in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. The novel was first published in the United States on May 6, 2008 by Hyperion Books for Children, an imprint of Disney Publishing Worldwide. It has been published in hardcover, audiobook, ebook, and large-print editions. To date, The Battle of the Labyrinth has been translated into 29 languages from its original English.

Eleanor Spence (1928–2008) was an Australian author of novels for young adults and older children. Her books explore a wide range of issues, including Australian history, religion, autism, bigotry, materialism and alienation. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2006 Australia Day Honours.

Joan Margaret Phipson AM (1912–2003) was an Australian children's writer. She lived on a farm in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales and many of her books evoke the stress and satisfaction of living in the Australian countryside, floods, bushfires, drought and all. Two of her novels, Good Luck to the Rider and The Family Conspiracy, won the Australian Children's Book of the Year Award.

The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) is a non-profit organisation to bring books and children together. In 1966, IBBY Australia was established and Ena Noël OAM became its first president and remained in this role for over 20 years.

George Mackaness (1882–1968), born in Sydney, was a distinguished Australian educator, historian and bibliophile. He married Alice Symons in 1906. He trained as a teacher and spent many years as English master at Fort Street Public School, Sydney. His book "Inspirational Teaching" was widely acclaimed. He was in charge of the English Department at Sydney Technical College from 1924 to 1946. He was on the board of the Commonwealth Literary Fund, and a trustee of the Public Library of NSW. He was longtime member of the Royal Australian Historical Society, and president in 1948-9.

<i>Dot and the Kangaroo</i> (film)

Dot and the Kangaroo is a 1977 Australian film which combines animation and live-action. It is based on children's literature book Dot and the Kangaroo by Ethel Pedley.

<i>Through Darkest Pondelayo</i>

Through Darkest Pondelayo: An account of the adventures of two English ladies on a cannibal island is a 1936 Australian satirical novel by Joan Lindsay, published under the pseudonym Serena Livingstone-Stanley. The book, which was Lindsay's first-published work, was based on her time spent traveling in Europe, and functions as a parody of English tourists abroad. It is structured in the format of a travel book through a series of first-person letters edited together to form a metafictional narrative.

Mavis Thorpe Clark

Mavis Thorpe Clark AM was an Australian novelist and writer for children who was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Hilarie Lindsay is an Australian toy manufacturer and writer of short stories, poetry, instructional texts, biography and other genres. She is a former president of the Toys and Games Manufacturers' Association of Australia and of the Society of Women Writers (Australia), who has been inducted into the Australian Toy Association Hall of Fame and the National Pioneer Women's Hall of Fame, Alice Springs. Her best-known work, The Washerwoman's Dream, described by one reviewer as "enthrallingly readable", has become an Australian classic.

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1982.

References