Senior Library Books
Resource Key
LEVEL 1
brief, basic information laid out in an easy-to-read format. May use informal language. (Includes most news articles)
LEVEL 2
provides additional background information and further reading. Introduces some subject-specific language.
LEVEL 3
lengthy, detailed information. Frequently uses technical/subject-specific language. (Includes most analytical articles)
Databases
- Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre Plus This link opens in a new window
This resource provides the largest collection of full text from leading regional and international newspapers and periodicals, full-text reference books, tens of thousands of full-text biographies, and a collection of images containing more than one million photos, maps, and flags.
- Britannica Schools This link opens in a new window
Britannica School covers the core subject areas of English, Maths, Science and History. Interactive lessons, activities, games, stories, worksheets, manipulatives, study guides and research tools.
Introduction
Cloudstreet is a book about finding one's place in the world and the search for meaning in life. From separate catastrophes two rural families flee to the city and find themselves sharing a great, breathing, shuddering joint called Cloudstreet, where they begin their lives again from scratch. For twenty years they roister and rankle, laugh and curse until the roof over their heads becomes a home for their hearts. Tim Winton's funny, sprawling saga is an epic novel of love and acceptance. Winner of the Miles Franklin and NBC Awards in Australia, Cloudstreet is a celebration of people, places and rhythms which has fuelled imaginations world-wide.
The book follows the two families from the time they leave their rural homes and move into Cloudstreet, a big, old house in Perth. Both moves are precipitated by disaster. For the Lambs, this misfortune takes the form of the near-drowning of the family favourite, Samson, better known as Fish; for the Pickles, it occurs in the loss of father Sam's fingers in a fishing accident. These mishaps mean that both 'Sams' - like the biblical Samson - lose some of their strengths, but they also gain new opportunities and insights. Sam Pickles's move to the city brings him a home of his own and a job at the mint - a stroke of poetic justice for a man addicted to gambling. Although Fish loses his mental faculties as a result of his accident and is unable to communicate with the outside world, his near-drowning and subsequent bond with water also lead him to a new life as a visionary, and it is this fish who is the omniscient narrator of the novel.
The two families are a study in contrasts, 'squared off at one another like opposing platoons'. The Lambs are righteous, God-fearing, hard working and parsimonious while the Pickles are licentious wastrels. The Lambs find meaning in industry and in God's grace; the Pickles, in luck. The Lambs' God is a maker of miracles; the Pickles' God is the 'Shifty Shadow' of fate. Both families are often betrayed by their faith.
Cloudstreet
Showcase Australia. (2011, March 29). Tim Winton's Cloudstreet - official trailer [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/xQMOa7vXRjY
Biography
- Tim Winton. (2015). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved from http://school.eb.com.au.db.plcscotch.wa.edu.au/levels/high/article/476091
Tim Winton, in full Timothy John Winton, (born August 4, 1960, Perth, Australia), Australian author of both adult and children’s novels that evoke both the experience of life in and the landscape of his native country. Winton had decided by age 10 to be a writer. He studied creative writing at the Western Australian Institute of Technology, but his down-to-earth hobbies—sports and recreational surfing, fishing, camping, and “hanging out” in the old whaling port of Albany—gave him an inexhaustible supply of anecdotes that appealed initially to teenage readers. At age 21, he won The Australian/Vogel Literary Award, presented for the best unpublished novel manuscript of an Australian author younger than 35, for his first novel, An Open Swimmer (1982). He won the Miles Franklin Award, Australia’s most prestigious literary prize, for his second novel, Shallows (1984). More novels followed, and by the time his international best seller The Riders (1995) was short-listed for the Booker Prize, Winton had become Australia’s most successful author since Nobel Prize laureate Patrick White.
Australian Literature 101: Tim Winton: Cloudstreet
- McPhee, H. (2012, November 22). Australian Literature 101: Tim Winton: Cloudstreet. Retrieved from http://www.wheelercentre.com/broadcasts/podcasts/the-wheeler-centre/australian-literature-101-tim-winton-cloudstreet
Who tells the story of a country? What story does a country’s national literature tell about its people and its identity? Is there such a thing as Australian literature at all? If there is, Hilary McPhee would be unmistakable as one of its modern ambassadors. The founding director of McPhee Gribble Publishers speaks of one of the imprint’s big successes, and a great exploration of our national voice - Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet - and its sensitive, pensive author. In discussion with Ramona Koval.
Study Guide
- AustLit. (n.d.). Cloudstreet - A reading Australia information trail. Retrieved from http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/6646472#6646472
Cloudstreet (1991) by Tim Winton is a novel set in mid-20th century Perth. This trail provides useful information and links to provide context and further reading:
– Part One discusses the novel's historical and geographical contexts.
– Part Two examines the novel's publishing and literary contexts.
– Part Three draws together some critical responses to Cloudstreet.
The trail finishes with links to interviews and reviews. Some of these critical works and other resources are available to read online. Click the hyperlinks in the citations below to be taken to the full text. - Reading Australia. (2019). Cloudstreet guide. Retrieved from https://readingaustralia.com.au/lesson/cloudstreet/This resource allows for close reading of the novel as well as exploring important intertextual comparisons relating to style, construction, thematic similarities and contextual connections.
