Australian childhoods - Pamela Bone

In ""Up We Grew"", award-winning journalist, Pamela Bone explores these questions through the prism of her own experience as daughter, sister and mother. Taking as her starting point her own story of growing up in a small town on the Murray River after the war, Bone illuminates the influences that shape us from early life: family, friendships, school. Then through a series of candid interviews, she broadens out her investigation, considering how some famous and less well known Australians coped with the death of a parent, divorce, differentness; talent, opportunity, money, or the lack thereof. The subjects of ""Up We Grew"" include Mark Latham, Natasha Stott Despoja, Michael Leunig, Max Gillies, and Joanna Murray-Smith. Richly researched, vividly written, by turns nostalgic and unblinkingly unsentimental, this book provides a remarkable insight into how we are tempered and transformed by the process of growing up.