DUBOSARSKY, Ursula (Bridget) 1961-

PERSONAL: Born June 25, 1961, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; daughter of Peter (a writer and politician) and Verna (a writer) Coleman; married Avi Dubosarsky, December 17, 1987; children: Maisie, Dover, Bruno. Education: Sydney University, B.A. (with honors), 1982, Dip. Ed., 1989.

ADDRESSES: Home—Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Offıce—c/o Author Mail, Penguin Group Australia, P.O. Box 701, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Writer. Australian Public Service, Canberra, Australia, researcher, 1983-84; Reader's Digest magazine, Sydney, Australia, freelance researcher, 1986—. Formerly worked as a teacher of French.

AWARDS, HONORS: Notable Book citations, Children's Book Council of Australia (CBCA), for High Hopes, Zizzy Zing, Bruno and the Crumhorn and Black Sails White Sails; New South Wales (NSW) commendation for Family Therapy Award, 1990, for High Hopes; CBCA Young Readers Award shortlist, 1994, for The Last Week in December, and 2001, for The Game of the Goose; NSW State Literary Award, and Victorian Premier's Award for Children's Literature, both 1994, and shortlist, CBCA Award for Older Readers, 1995, all for The White Guinea Pig; NSW State Ethnic Affairs Commission Award, 1995, and Royal Blind Society Talking Book Award shortlist, inclusion in United Nations White Raven library collection, and CBCA Honour Book, all 1996, all for The First Book of Samuel; Queensland Premier's Literary Award shortlist, 2001, for The Game of the Goose, and 2003, for Abyssinia.

WRITINGS:

Maisie and the Pinny Gig, illustrated by Roberta Landers, Macmillan (South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), 1989.

High Hopes, Penguin (New York, NY), 1990.

Zizzy Zing, Angus & Robertson (North Ryde, New South Wales, Australia), 1991.

The Last Week in December, Puffin (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 1993.

The White Guinea-Pig, Viking (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 1994, Viking (New York, NY), 1995.

The First Book of Samuel, Viking (New York, NY), 1995.

Bruno and the Crumhorn, Viking (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 1996.

Black Sails White Sails, Penguin (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 1997.

The Strange Adventures of Isador Brown ("Aussie Bites" series), illustrated by Paty Marshall-Stace, Puffin (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 1998.

Honey and Bear, illustrated by Ron Brooks, Viking (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 1998.

My Father Is Not a Comedian!, Puffin (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 1999.

The Game of the Goose, illustrated by John Winch, Penguin (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 2000.

The Even Stranger Adventures of Isador Brown ("Aussie Bites" series), illustrated by Paty Marshall-Stace, Puffin (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 2000.

The Two Gorillas ("Aussie Nibbles" series), illustrated by Mitch Vane, Puffin (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 2001.

Fairy Bread ("Aussie Nibbles" series), Puffin (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 2001.

The Magic Wand, Puffin (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia), 2002.

Special Days with Honey and Bear, illustrated by Ron Brooks, Puffin (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia), 2002.

Abyssinia, Viking (Ringwood, Victoria, Australia), 2003.

Isador Brown's Strangest Adventures of All, illustrated by Mitch Vane, Puffin (Camberwell, Victoria, Australia), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Australian author Ursula Dubosarsky is noted for penning young-adult novels that, while sometimes humorous, also reveal a dark streak. In award-winning books, such as Zizzy Zing, High Hopes, The White Guinea-Pig, The First Book of Samuel, and Black Sails White Sails, she introduces her readers to many vivid characters involved in closely wrought incidents. Gaining in popularity even among American readers who are sometimes unfamiliar with the "Australianisms" scattered throughout her books, Dubosarsky continues to reveal her talent as a writer through her compelling characters, as well as her use of language. Noting that Dubosarsky "writes with extraordinary clarity and simplicity," Viewpoint contributor Robyn Sheahan-Bright added that the author's books for young readers "are timeless . . . and ageless in their appeal." Moreover, the critic added, "Dubosarsky loves to empathize with children. She gives us their angst and their fearlessness; their poignant attempts to understand the frailties of adults who act in ways which are impenetrable to them." Difficult to classify by genre, her books, Sheahan-Bright concluded, "are enigmatic and original and boundaries definitely don't suit them."

Born in Sydney, Australia, Dubosarsky was raised by parents who were both writers, and as a child she enjoyed books by Maurice Sendak, Enid Blyton, and other imaginative authors. Graduating from Sydney University in 1982, she spent two years in Canberra as a researcher for the Australian Public Service while writing in the evenings. She spent a year on an Israeli kibbutz where she met her Argentine-born husband. Returning to Sydney in 1986, Dubosarsky worked as a researcher for Reader's Digest while raising her three children.

Dubosarsky's first published picture book, Maisie and the Pinny Gig, tells the story of a young girl and her imaginary friend, Pinny Gig. Also for young readers are several books in the "Aussie Bites" series of beginning readers, among them The Strange Adventures of Isador Brown and its sequels, The Even Stranger Adventures of Isador Brown and Isador Brown's Strangest Adventures of All. In the "Aussie Nibbles" series of readers, Dubosarsky's The Two Gorillas, about the treatment of a pair of stuffed gorillas by their rambunctious owner, was dubbed "highly entertaining" by Magpies reviewer Debbie Mulligan.

High Hopes, published in 1990, was the first of many novels Dubosarsky would gear toward older readers. High Hopes focuses on twelve-year-old Julia, whose concern over her widowed father's new girlfriend leads her to bake a "poisoned" cake—one with an entire bottle of vanilla in it—she hopes to end the romance with. Although her harmless plot fails, Julia eventually accepts her father's need for companionship and reconciles herself to the addition of a stepmother to the family. Reviewing High Hopes for Voice of Youth Advocates, Andrea Davidson called it a "funny, offbeat novel about growing up, remarriage, and family ups and downs." and praised in particular Dubosarsky's "very skillful writing." Horn Book's Ellen Fader deemed High Hopes "a breezy novel with realistic underpinnings that will please fans of contemporary fiction," while Adrian Jackson concluded an assessment of High Hopes in Books for Keeps by praising the author's "lovely confidence in the story telling" and her "clever blending of the comic and serious."

The mysterious letter at the heart of Dubosarsky's Zizzy Zing leads young Phyllis back in time to 1938 and into the most horrifying summer of her life. Dubosarsky cut her teeth on this mystery novel, which she wrote years before the publication of her first two books. As she worked on the book, Dubosarsky knew only that she wanted to create a murder mystery where the child was the detective; what she ended up with was perhaps a bit more of a ghost story than mystery, teaching her that the best stories are sometimes as much a surprise to the writer as they are to the reader.

The novel Abyssinia is, like Zizzy Zing, a mystery novel that involves time shifting. In the story, sisters Mary and Grace live in rural Australia, where a doll-house is one of their few playthings. As the story unfolds, readers learn that there is a strange connection between the stories the girls concoct for their dolls and their own lives, a connection that becomes alarmingly clear when one of the girls disappears. In the Australian Center for Youth Literature publication Reading for Life, Lili Wilkinson described Abyssinia as a "truly exceptional" novel that will be enjoyed by fans of unusual fantasy stories.

Written in the third person, Dubosarsky's The White Guinea-Pig introduces Geraldine, who while reluctantly taking care of her friend's white guinea-pig for six weeks, finds her life suddenly falling apart. Her bankrupt father is selling their house; her older sister is crumbling under relationship problems; and her cute neighbor, Ezra, appears to be guarding an awful secret. Booklist contributor Chris Sherman felt that the "surreal quality" of the novel "sets it apart from the usual crop of middle-school problem novels about families," while Deborah Stevenson, writing in the Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, noted that Dubosarsky creates "a story of humor and notable eccentricity" which is sure to be appreciated by "readers with particularly offbeat literary tastes."

The First Book of Samuel is inspired by the Biblical story of Samuel, who disappears on his twelfth birthday, leaving family members trying to piece together his life using the scraps of information available to them. Reviewing the novel for Magpies, Jo Goodman observed that "Every word, every nuance is carefully judged." Bruno and the Crumhorn is about a boy taking lessons on the crumhorn, a musical instrument dating back to the fourteenth century that has an embarrassing honking sound. Val Randall, writing in Books for Keeps, called Bruno and the Crumhorn "a whimsical story, peopled with eccentric characters," and went on to note that the "narrative has a dry, whacky humour." Reviewing that same novel in Magpies, Anne Hanzl called it "a 'hoot' of a story full of sly humour, and interesting, quirky characters."

In My Father Is Not a Comedian!, Dubosarsky showcases her humorous take on adult life from a nine-year-old's point of view. In the first-person novel, Claudie is determined to waste no time in beginning her literary career and decides to start by writing about her family and friends. Her disgruntlement at not having her story about a singing cactus acknowledged by a literary magazine and her slightly off-kilter interpretations of adult activities fuel the novel's subtle humor, according to Australian Book Review contributor Ruth Starke, who called Claudie "a keen but tolerant observer" and My Father Is Not a Comedian! proof that Dubosarsky "is one of the funniest writers around." In Magpies, Joan Zahnleiter offered a similar opinion, writing that the dramatic Claudie, the ostensible author of the book, "knows how to hold her audience, with tantalising chapter headings and hooks in the ends of chapters. . . . She is quite a character."

Although most of Dubosarsky's stories take many months to make it from idea to finished manuscript, there are notable exceptions. She once described the process of writing her book Honey and Bear to CA: "I was suffering a great deal from sleeplessness. One night lying there staring at the dark, feeling rather desperate, the very first story of Honey and Bear, which is called 'Good Idea, Bad Idea,' came into my head, word for word, virtually as it appears on the page today. It was as though the characters of Honey the bird and Bear the bear and their life together dropped down from heaven, in just the right voice. In fact, all five of the little stories in Honey and Bear came to me that very night. Then, at last, feeling both very excited and content, I fell asleep.

"When I woke up, I remembered my nocturnal visitors, and I was both happy and nervous—altogether too nervous to rush to the word processor to write them down! What if they were no good? I walked around for several days keeping the stories a secret in my head, like someone who has witnessed something strange and is in two minds about telling anyone about it. Finally, about a week later, I sat down and typed the stories out. Wonderful to relate, I seemed to have remembered them all—every word.

"I had never had what you might call a creative experience quite like that—one that came like something given, and brought its creator so much pleasure in the process. . . . For me, the book feels like a blessing; writing it was one of those experiences which . . . comes to a writer perhaps once in a lifetime. And I am so grateful for it."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

St. James Guide to Young Adult Writers, 2nd edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

PERIODICALS

Australian Book Review, September, 1999, Ruth Starke, review of My Father Is Not a Comedian!, pp. 42-43.

Booklist, August, 1991, Mary Romano Marks, review of High Hopes, pp. 2146-2147; July, 1995, Chris Sherman, review of The White Guinea-Pig, p. 1878.

Books for Keeps, May, 1991, Adrian Jackson, review of High Hopes, pp. 14-15; September, 1996, Val Randall, review of Bruno and the Crumhorn, p. 16.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, June, 1995, Deborah Stevenson, review of The White Guinea-Pig, p. 107.

Horn Book, September-October, 1991, Ellen Fader, review of High Hopes, p. 596.

Junior Bookshelf, December, 1994, p. 223.

Magpies, July, 1993, Robyn Sheahan, review of TheLast Week in December, p. 34; May, 1995, Jo Goodman, review of The First Book of Samuel, p. 32; May, 1996, Anne Hanzl, review of Bruno and the Crumhorn, p. 42; July, 1999, Joan Zahnleiter, review of My Father Is Not a Comedian!, p. 33; March, 2001, Debbie Mulligan, review of The Even Stranger Adventures of Isador Brown and The Two Gorillas, p. 29.

Observer (London, England), November 20, 1994, review of The White Guinea-Pig, p. 12.

School Librarian, February, 1994, p. 31.

School Library Journal, September, 1991, p. 252; July, 1995, p. 76.

Times Educational Supplement, November 7, 1997, p. 7.

Viewpoint, summer, 2000, Robyn Sheahan-Bright, review of The Game of the Goose.

Voice of Youth Advocates, October, 1991, Andrea Davidson, review of High Hopes, p. 226.

ONLINE

ACHUKA Children's Books,http://www.achuka.co.uk/ (December 4, 2001), interview with Dubosarsky.

Between the Lines,http://www.thei.aust.com/ (November 15, 1997) Wendy Caveneti, review of Black Sails White Sails.

Reading for Life: Australian Center for Youth Literature Web Site,http://www.statelibrary.vic.gov/au/acyl/ (September, 2003), Lili Wilkinson, "New Fantasy Books—From Archon to Zygmunt."*