Comments on: Famous in their own country

By: Criss

Criss — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 21:27:51 +0000

A) I love that you use the term “USians” (I’m a foreign-born Spanish teacher in the US. You don’t want to know how many class periods I have wasted attempting to explain to US kids that “americano” does not mean “American” in the sense in which they use it. GAARGH!!!)

B) I’ve been in the US since my freshman year of high school, and I’ve never read “The Lottery”… guess I need to get me to a library!

By: cuileann

cuileann — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:12:05 +0000

I knew that there were many many Australian writers and artists and musicians USians had never heard of. But I had not realised that the reverse was true. It heartened me. It still does. There is no country in the world whose culture is so dominant that everyone else knows all their most famous artists. Not a one.

Wherever you go in the world you will discover new and wonderful things. Even in the United States of America.

This makes me so happy.

By: kris

kris — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 00:42:43 +0000

I got through school without reading The Lottery (in the US). But I just finished We Have Always Lived in the Castle, causing me to read The Lottery, finally. We Have Always Lived in the Castle is brilliant, by the way.

I’m going to have to locate this alternate version as well. Thanks for sharing.

By: Mary Elizabeth S.

Mary Elizabeth S. — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 01:40:19 +0000

Now I’m going to go read both “Lottery” books…

~Mary

By: Amber

Amber — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:17:07 +0000

One of my most favouritest things about living in different countries is finding books by authors I didn’t know about. And I have a double-relevant comment!

1. Beth Goobie is an amazing YA writer from Saskatchewan, well known in Canadian YA but not as much elsewhere.

2. One of her best-known books is… (are you ready?)

The Lottery.

“Inspired by”, “based on”, “version of” – not sure what would be the right thing to call it, but in Goobie’s book it’s a high school lottery to decide who gets ostracised for a school year, and all the fallout from that.

Y’all in YA who have not read her books are poorer for it!