John marsden biography summary template

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    AustLit

    John Marsden was born in Melbourne, the third of four children of Eustace Cullen Hudson and Jeanne Lawler Marsden. He attended Devonport Primary School in Tasmania and Eastwood Primary School and King's School, Parramatta, in New South Wales. Marsden began teaching at All Saints College, Bathurst, New South Wales, in 1978 while studying Arts at the University of New England. He continued to teach at All Saints while completing his Diploma of Teaching from Mitchell College.

    In 1982 he became head of English at Geelong Grammar School, Highton, Victoria, and in 1984, rather to his own surprise, he found himself teaching at Timbertop, Geelong Grammar's 'bush' campus. Noticing a complete lack of interest in reading among his Year 9 students he tried writing a short novel that he thought they might enjoy. The novel, So Much to Tell You (1987), was immediately successful, winning the Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year: Older Readers

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    About John Marsden

    John Marsden's family tree shows no trace of writers, although his great great great great uncle was a famous Australian clergyman, who wrote millions of words, in the form of sermons, letters and diaries.

    In the early days of white Australia he served as both magistrate and Church of England minister. Known as the "Hanging Parson", it was said that he sentenced people to death bygd hanging on Friday, gave them Communion at church on Sunday, then supervised their execution on Monday. One of Samuel’s biographers commented that in all the millions of words he wrote, no hint of a sense of humour could be discerned, except for one pun that was probably accidental.

    John's grandfather was a well-known opera singer, and a colourful character who brought a team of Fijian cricketers to Australia on a much-publicised tour in the 1900s. John's own father was somewhat more conservative: a bank executive who fought with distinction in World War II. His mother was a

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    The Writing

    John Marsden's writing style is very accessible and easy to read. The quotes below are intended to give you a sense of what you will find in this series and help you decide if it is something you would like to read. As this page is intended for people who have not read the books, quotes that give away the plot have been avoided. Unfortunately that means that the two extremely powerful scenes are unavailable, but I think those included below will give you a sense of what you will find within the pages of "Tomorrow, When the War began" and its sequels.

    The "Tomorrow" series is quite densely written, while each book is generally only 250 - 300 pages long a lot happens on each page. This is an action/adventure series and suspense,violence (sometimes quite gruesome), chases and evasions make up large sections of the books. These are nicely written and work well but the real power of the books are how John Marsden brings his characters to life.

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