The Coconut Children
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4.4 • 21 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Life in the troubled neighbourhood of Cabramatta demands too much too young. But Sonny wouldn’t really know.
Watching the world from her bedroom window, she exists only in second-hand romance novels and falls for any fast-food employee who happens to spare her a glance.
Everything changes with the return of Vince, a boy who became a legend after he was hauled away in handcuffs. Sonny and Vince used to be childhood friends. But with all that happened in-between, childhood seems so long ago. It will take two years of juvie, an inebriated grandmother and an unexpected discovery for them to meet again.
The Coconut Children is an urgent, moving and wise debut from a young and gifted storyteller.
Customer Reviews
Great start
3.5 stars
Author
Australian of Vietnamese heritage. Grew up in Cabramatta. She was 16 when she wrote this as part of a weekly writing workshop conducted by the Sydney Story Factory, a NFP creative writing centre for marginalised youth aged 7 to 17 years. It started out as a novella and grew from there. Published in e book format by the Story Factory in late 2017, attracting the attention of a mainstream publisher. Ms Pham is 19 now.
Plot
16 year old Sonny, a child of Vietnamese refugees, grows up in 1990s Cabramatta and is attracted to a local bad boy, just back from juvie. Standard YA fare except Ms Pham weaves in the histories and problems of Sonny's parents and their generation who arrived in Australia on boats, providing intriguing insights along the way. ("The coconut children on the trees need to drop into the water. That way the ocean can carry them to another island, where they can grow.")
Characters
Sonny is well drawn, if a little cliched at times. Her family, including a younger brother prone to fractures because he has weak bones, are fascinating. The other kids are other kids.
Narrative
Third person from Sonny's POV. Draws on tropes familiar, to me at least, from other novels by second generation members of Asian immigrant families.
Prose
Impressive from one so young, if irritatingly overblown at times. It will be interesting to see how Ms Pham develops as a writer, because she can certainly tell a story.
Bottom line
Only time will tell, but this book might mark the emergence of an important new voice in Australian fiction.