Mark Twain + Harper Lee = Coming of Age in Australia

Picking up from my last post, John Green said in a recent vlog that when he was in college he thought adult life would be a series of very interesting conversations about great books. That is what I want this blog to be about – a series of very interesting conversations about great books. So indulge me and please, please comment.

This week I want to share a book that you may not know about – Jasper Jones. It’s a brilliant book by a young Australian writer, Craig Silvey. The book was published in Australia in 2009 and was shortlisted for two of Australia’s biggest literary awards and won the Indie Book of the Year Award in Australia. In Australia and other parts of the world where it was published first, it is considered an adult literary masterpiece. But when the book was finally published here in the United States in April 2011, it was classified as a young adult novel and won the Michael L. Prinz award honor book for excellence in young adult literature. I really can’t tell you why the US publisher Knopf labeled it for young readers. I feel it reads like a classic – for all ages. This book reminds me of both Huckleberry Finn and To Kill A Mockingbird in one delicious book. When I heard Jasper Jones called an Australian To Kill a Mockingbird, I really didn’t believe it would be as good as my all-time favorite book. But it was.

The story is set in the summer of 1965 in a small mining town in Western Australia. The main character, Charlie Bucktin, is a serious book-loving boy of 13, who wants to be a writer when he grows up and calls Harper Lee and Mark Twain two of his favorite writers. His best friend, one of the most vivid characters in this book, is a Vietnamese refuge named Jeffrey Lu. He is absolutely devoted to cricket in spite of his small size.

The book starts with Jasper Jones, the town bad boy, summoning Charlie out of his bed in the middle of the night. Only a year older than Charlie, Jasper is much more worldly and basically on his own in life. Charlie barely knows Jasper, but he is sucked into a mystery involving Jasper and the daughter of the shire president, a very powerful man in their small town. The mystery surrounding the young girl’s death propels the reader through the book, but it’s also a romance, coming of age story and a moral tale of racism and adultery, and a story of a friendship. The characters are vivid and the story is gripping and intense, but also has its light moments. Get your hands on a copy of this book (I got mine in Australia, but you can find it online), read it and pass it on.