Duncan Ball
Bio
Duncan Ball was born in 1941 in Boston. He moved to Australia in 1974 and began working as a chemist. He published his first novel in 1984 and year later published his first Selby book (most popular work).
Key Works
Duncan Ball’s key works would be the Selby Series. The first being published in 1985. Today there are 16 Selby books published. In total there are 16 Selby books, starting from Selby’s Secret to Selby’s Santa. Within each book there are several mini stories that range from very simple ideas of Selby chilling eating prawns. To more extreme stories of a Frankenstein robot taking control of the town Selby lives in.
Target Audience
The Selby series falls under Children’s short fiction. There are 12-13 different short …show more content…
This was a time when Australia had just opened up their borders. So these knew migrants although they called Australia home, would not have known some of the Australian jargon or cultural references that the books gave insight too. As migrants they would have keep to themselves so references like the footy, the barbee. This is reflected in the first Selby novel. No other ethnic groups besides Australian are mentioned in the first novel. Compare this to Selby Shemozzle the 12th book in the series. By the 12th book in the series, several ethnic groups are portrayed. Such as a Chinese family that runs the restaurant that supplies Selby with his favourite food or the Indian doctor that checks on Selby when he’s sick (Ball, 1985, p.34). Selby Shemmozzle came out in 2005, 20 years later. These migrants would now have had children who would 2nd generation migrant Australians who would now understand the language and jargon used by Ball. However they might struggle to relate to the all-white cast of Selby’s secret. The setting of Selby’s Secret was not a reflection of what Australia was like at the time of 2005. So Ball changed this, however I’m not sure if this was intentional.
Critical Responses
The Selby books are mainly used by primary school students and teachers. One criticism has been that his novels can be a bit simplistic, therefore competent readers can outgrow his novels quite quickly as they don’t provide a challenge. However many amateur reviewers praise Ball for his literary style. “As a kid Selby was my go to book series, I waited patiently for new books to come out and once went in the store to buy one simply because they were giving away a toy with the book” (Reed. H,
Bio
Duncan Ball was born in 1941 in Boston. He moved to Australia in 1974 and began working as a chemist. He published his first novel in 1984 and year later published his first Selby book (most popular work).
Key Works
Duncan Ball’s key works would be the Selby Series. The first being published in 1985. Today there are 16 Selby books published. In total there are 16 Selby books, starting from Selby’s Secret to Selby’s Santa. Within each book there are several mini stories that range from very simple ideas of Selby chilling eating prawns. To more extreme stories of a Frankenstein robot taking control of the town Selby lives in.
Target Audience
The Selby series falls under Children’s short fiction. There are 12-13 different short …show more content…
This was a time when Australia had just opened up their borders. So these knew migrants although they called Australia home, would not have known some of the Australian jargon or cultural references that the books gave insight too. As migrants they would have keep to themselves so references like the footy, the barbee. This is reflected in the first Selby novel. No other ethnic groups besides Australian are mentioned in the first novel. Compare this to Selby Shemozzle the 12th book in the series. By the 12th book in the series, several ethnic groups are portrayed. Such as a Chinese family that runs the restaurant that supplies Selby with his favourite food or the Indian doctor that checks on Selby when he’s sick (Ball, 1985, p.34). Selby Shemmozzle came out in 2005, 20 years later. These migrants would now have had children who would 2nd generation migrant Australians who would now understand the language and jargon used by Ball. However they might struggle to relate to the all-white cast of Selby’s secret. The setting of Selby’s Secret was not a reflection of what Australia was like at the time of 2005. So Ball changed this, however I’m not sure if this was intentional.
Critical Responses
The Selby books are mainly used by primary school students and teachers. One criticism has been that his novels can be a bit simplistic, therefore competent readers can outgrow his novels quite quickly as they don’t provide a challenge. However many amateur reviewers praise Ball for his literary style. “As a kid Selby was my go to book series, I waited patiently for new books to come out and once went in the store to buy one simply because they were giving away a toy with the book” (Reed. H,