Ethel TurnerReseñas

The single greatest work of book-length fiction in 19th century Australia (rivalled only by the short stories of Henry Lawson and Steele Rudd) is a children's book. Ethel Turner's masterpiece haunts me, and I think it always will. Turner saw something in the still nascent Australia and its people, at just the period when the country was breaking free from its imperial roots (but before anyone other than white Anglos were permitted to live there) that I believe helped perpetuate that sense of freedom and difference from Europe. Read passionately by children for a century, I'm not sure if this work will reach the generation now starting school, but I hope so.

Turner says that not one of the seven children "is really good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are... [I]n Australia a model child is - I say it not without thankfulness - an unknown quantity.
It may be that the miasmas of naughtiness develop best in the sunny brilliancy of our atmosphere. It may be that the land and the people are so young-hearted together, and the children's spirits are not crushed and saddened by the shadow of long years' sorrowful history.
There is a lurking sparkle of joyousness and rebellion and mischief in nature here, and therefore in children.”

This is a work by a privileged white woman, no doubt, in a country that committed some grave sins in the 19th century. But as a work for Australian children, none of that should matter. Thank you, Ethel.

Set mainly in the 1880s—and first published in 1894—this novel is apparently an Australian children’s classic. It tells the story of seven rather rambunctious siblings, the offspring of Captain Woolcott: six by his first (late) wife and the seventh with his very young second wife, Esther, only four years older than the eldest Woolcott child, Meg. They live in a chaotic household called Misrule in Sydney, Australia, and the ringleader of most of their mischief is 13-year-old Judy (known to her brothers as Fizz, and inexplicably called Helen by her stern father), whose antics get her exiled to boarding school. The story is full of difficult family dynamics, but laughter and tragedy as well. A timeless story for middle grades through adulthood.

6/10, it was ok.

Oh it was so good to see these seven trouble makers again!
Meg, Pip, Judy, Nell, Bunty, Baby & the General are the seven little Australians in this classic Aussie story. Ruled with military discipline (starting to sound a bit like The Sound of Music lol) by their father, Captain Woolcot but his discipline & stern attitude are no match for these mischevous children.
I first read this when I was in primary school & loved it. I'm happy to say I love it still! It's a really good story filled with good, clean fun & lots of antics from Judy, Pip & the rest of the crew! :O)

"The family at Misrule" is set five years after the events of "Seven little Australians", there is a new sibliing (named Esther after her young mother) and the older children are grappling with maturity. Captain Woolcot and Esther are sent to India, and the book tells of how the children fare under the care of oldest child Meg, now twenty one. In many ways it's similar to the earlier book, but it is still extremely moving. It's also interesting to see how society has changed in the intervening 125 years, and how facing separation, illness and death was a part of children's lives in a way it has not been for us until the recent pandemic. Probably best only read if you've read the previous book (and with a box of tissues handy at the end).½

A passel of siblings in Australia get up to sundry hijinks. They have a too-severe military father and an uncomfortably young but sweet stepmother. The dad essentially beats them, but haha it's fine, apparently. And there's some borderline predatory views of young girls in there, for good measure. Yoicks. This one hasn't aged well in the slightest. I'd recommend giving it a hard pass.½

The book begins.

Before you fairly start this story I should like to give you just a word of warning.

If you imagine you are going to read of model children, with perhaps, a naughtily inclined one to point a moral, you had better lay down the book immediately and betake yourself to 'Sandford and Merton' or similar standard juvenile works. Not one of the seven is really good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are.

Sigh. It's true, it's true.

I liked this story quite a bit more than Seven Little Australians, probably because the father is not in it as much. The ending doesn't seem as rushed also. A little bothering is the family's snubbing of lower class people and new money people.

A surprising delight, a comedy of errors, and what I thought was going to be the typical naughty children story turned out to be a sweet romance.

Quite a lot of fun; however, I was quite disturbed by the abusive father and the matter of fact easy he is presented. He is quite a contrast to the children who are described as naughty and wicked, yet the children show real love and compassion. Maybe that was the author's point... ?

The story of a very young, newly married couple and their second year of marriage, after the baby is born. The wife and husband were a bit frustrating to read about. It is an interesting study in attitudes towards gender roles and expectations from the time period. But the lack of communication and loving kindness/patience is just as applicable today as a hundred years ago. Too many marriages today suffer and fail from the pride described in this story. The ending was pretty abrupt and I felt like the author cheated and ended just a few pages too early.

Challenging, as there were cultural references & slang, etc., that made me feel often confused. I think I got enough of a sense of it, though, to see why it was influential and popular in its own place & time.

This is an interesting short read and a classic of Australian children's literature. But it is most interesting as a look at the way family dynamics have changed. The father , captain Woolcott, is aloof. With no understanding of his own children. His 2nd wife is only 20. His 1st wife having died about 3 years before the story is set. He has 6 children from his first wife and 1 from his second. The kids range in age from 1 to 16. And all are used to doing pretty much whatever they please. All the adventures are pretty innocent by today's standards but reading this one to your kids would be a good way to open discussions about how society has changed, parental roles have expanded and technology has changed our lives.

I realize I may be somewhat obtuse, but for people like me, this book needed a preface or some kind of introductory material. Without any indication to the contrary, I assumed at first that it takes place after the other books, or at least after Book 2. It is supposed to be Book 4, and the blurb in my edition says that it "completes" the series, so that sounds as if it is chronologically later. I therefore wondered who the Judy was in this book. Between book 1 and 2 the children change names - in the first chapter of Misrule (book 2) it introduces them all by name and age. "The General is six - answers to Peter" (or Rupert, or Jumbo, or Billy -- I never met such a confusing character); "Baby has become Poppet," also a nickname, so perhaps it was her. Judy's formal name on her luggage tag is Helen - Nell is a diminutive of Helen. But it's not likely to be Nell or Poppet, because both of them were born before the Judy of book 1 dies. Perhaps this is a very young sibling, or one of Meg's children, named after the beloved deceased sister? Suspicion that it is "that"Judy grows, but not until chapter 8, page 70-something, does a packet of letters from Misrule arrive and make it quite clear that this is a return to earlier times and yes, it really is "that" Judy. (I'm still not sure quite how old she is in this story. She seemed quite young in book 1.) She's not Nell, she gets a letter from Nell - how can one family have a Helen and a Nell?

Worst of all, the ending seems arbitrary - it felt as if a few chapters were left off. Judy has run away from boarding school, her escape described in great detail; then in a few paragraphs the story glosses over her experiences of privation and weeks of living rough, and abruptly stops before she arrives at her home. Was it a first draft, an incomplete manuscript cobbled together without the author's help? You'd think they could have cobbled a bit better than that. Altogether it's a bit puzzling, but the story has moments and passages of brilliance which I would not have wanted to miss. Judy's insouciant appearance at boarding-school dinner dressed in rummage-sale leftovers (because, in an attempt to be sent home, she has switched luggage labels with a random trunk at the railroad station) had me laughing out loud. When the intended recipient of the trunk, a young teenaged girl, finally appears and keeps broadly hinting to keep Judy's best dress, it's even funnier.

1894 erschienen, aber immer noch gut zu lesen

'Seven Little Australians' beschreibt eine australische Großfamilie gegen Ende des 19. Jahrhundert. Der Vater ist Offizier, kann mit seinen Kindern aber wenig anfangen, die Mutter der älteren sechs ist verstorben, deren Stiefmutter (und Mutter vom Jüngsten) ist 20, damit gerade einmal vier Jahre älter als das älteste Kind.Dass diese Zusammenstellung nicht gerade für Ordnung sorgt, dürfte klar sein (ein alternativer Serientitel ist daher auch 'The Family at Misrule').

Jedes der Kinder hat seine altersgemäßen spezifischen Probleme, findet andererseits unter den Geschwistern auch immer einen Ansprechpartner. Schwierig wird es, wenn alle versuchen, besonders brav zu sein...

Insgesamt sehr gut lesbar geschrieben gibt der Text Einblicke in den australische Gesellschaft Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts - dieses Buch gehört zu den Kinderbuchklassikern Australiens und ist daher gerade wieder neu aufgelegt wurden (allerdings als Digitalkopie des alten Textes, d.h. nicht alle Scanfehler wurden gefunden).

I found this delightful. Returning to the family from Seven Little Australians was an absolute joy.

Actually this is a collection of excerpts of Turner's diaries with introduction and discussion by Turner's granddaughter Sybil. The whole thing is kind of flat and dull and many of the excerpts are repetitive details of Ethel's shopping expeditions and daily trivia. There are of course gems of information about when Ethel met various other authors but they are few and far between. i think perhaps if the material was in a publisher's hands the resulting book would have been far different. I'm not finished yet but feel very let down by the overall atmosphere of the editing - it is toned very much like a family history with no analysis at all.

Seven Little Australians is an excellent children's novel that isn't just for children! I loved the characters because they were so real. The Woolcot family consists of Captain Woolcot, his six children from his first marriage (ages 4-16), his second wife (Esther, age 20), and their 1-year-old son. The step-mother's youthfulness added an interesting element to the family dynamic.

I might have given this book five stars, but the ending is unnecessarily tragic, and it seemed like the author didn't really know how to end the story. Seven Little Australians was Ethel Turner's first novel, and she was only 22 years old when it was published, so I was still very impressed.

Now that I've read the book, I really want to see the ABC mini-series from 1973, but the only good DVD of it seems to be out of print. I guess I'll have to be content with these video clips (http://aso.gov.au/titles/tv/seven-little-australians/).

Not as good as Seven Little Australians, but still very enjoyable. This book is more of a conventional Victorian novel (lots of moral lessons, etc.).½

I read this book when I was a kid and I have very good memories of it. It was charming and full of adventures that made me laugh and even cry, something which has proven to be quite difficult for me afterwards. So I highly recommend it.

This is one of my earliest memories of reading.

A childrens book written in 1894 by the 24 year old Ethel Turner and set in Australia. I purchased my 2005 National Library of Australia edition at the Murwillumbah Art Gallery which held an exhibition of John Lennox's wonderful paintings used as illustrations for this edition.

The story is about the 7 Woolcot children who, we are warned by the author ," not one of the seven is really good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are."
Although there are a number of "pranks" in this book it also has a very serious side and deals very compassionately with some of the sadder parts of the storyline. Certainly a book that can be appreciated by adults.

Australian children's classic is just as readable now as it was when published in 1894. I first read it after the ABC TV series and have re-read it many times since. It still makes me laugh and makes me cry. If you've not read this one then it's time to get a copy. (This time I read a free e-book version on the plane home from NSW using the iPad Kobo app so there's no excuse for not reading it).

How I missed reading this earlier I do not know. I happened across this beautifully illustrated centennial edition and thoroughly enjoyed reading of the trials and tributations of Meg, Pip, Judy, Nellie, Bunty,Baby and The General along with their officious father Captain Woolcot and his new wife Esther at thier property Misrule and latter Esther's parents' property Yarrahappini where the ultimate sacrifice of Judy takes place. A sequence that brought tears. A beautiful read that stands the test of time½

Seven Little Australians is a charming Australian children's classic that is just as appealing to adults as it is to children. It is refreshing to read a book that doesn't moralise the way many children's books of the era did. This is an entertaining and uniquely Australian story, with a highly unexpected ending, and it deserves a place in everyone's reading list.