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All Four Quarters of the Moon
by Shirley Marr
Published by Penguin Random House
ISBN 9781760899554
As a first-generation Chinese-Australian, Shirley Marr writes with authenticity of her own experiences which she portrays through 11 year old Peijing. The story begins as the family are preparing to leave the following day to live in Australia. Peijing and her younger sister as excited at the prospect but also filled with trepidation of what to expect and leaving their beloved grand-mother behind in Singapore.
The title, All Four Quarters of the Moon relates to the moon cakes that her grandmother bakes for the northern hemisphere's mid-Autumn festival. Peijing is helping prepare the mooncakes that she loves, but she's not sure if she will find them in Australia.
This is a beautifully written story, giving an interesting understanding of what it's like for a young girl and her family to migrate to another country where nothing is familiar.
Even school is different, the teacher is friendly, unlike her strict teacher she was used to. Peijing was unused to being in a class with boys, she went to a girls school back in Singapore and at first she feels a little awkward. She doesn't want to stand out but with her black hair and tanned skin, she looks so different to the blonde girls in her class, She needn't have worried as she finds new friends and adapts to new customs while keeping some.
This is a thoughtful, heartfelt and touching story of family, friends, respecting the old ways of honour, adapting to a different culture, while sharing an understanding of what it's like for a young girl and her family to adapt to life in a different country.
The Author: Shirley Marr describes herself as having a Western mind and an Eastern heart. She likes to write in the space in the middle where they both collide, basing her stories on her own personal experiences of migration and growing up in Australia, along with the folk and fairy tales from her mother. Arriving in mainland Australia from Christmas Island as a seven-year-old in the 1980s and experiencing the good, the bad and the wonder that comes with culture shock, Shirley has been in love with reading and writing from that early age. Shirley is a universe full of stars and stories and hopes to share the many other novels that she has inside her. Shirley Marr also wrote Glasshouse of Stars which we reviewed.
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