THE ROAD FROM COORAIN SUMMER READING

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• Helioptrope p.41

• Chrysanthemums p.41

• Pink cockatoos p.64

• Black Kelpie p.43

• Blowflies p.64

• White ants p.75

• Bottlebrush trees/ Callistemon p.93

• Brown Boronia p.93

• Waratah p.93

• Jacarandas p.101

• Honeysuckle p.101

• Merino ewes p.107

• Yellow Daffodils p.162

• White Azaleas p.162

• Mock orange p.162

• Blue Buddleia p.162

• Daphne p.162

• Magnolia p.162

• Ginger plant p.162

• Lemon-scented gum trees p.162

• Koala bear p.229

III- After You Read :

Opening scenes:

The beginning is meant to present the main idea of the story and the important elements that will have an impact throughout the rest of it. Conway starts by giving hints about the Australian way of life, about Coorain how they had many difficulties because of the droughts and about the expectations her family had to meet to fit in. These hints are often repeated and echoed throughout the story to emphasize the fact that conway herself is completely different and doesn’t meet the expectations of a typical Australian women. They will also help to understand the rest or the book and the background to her father’s death or to her mother’s loneliness and depression and the need for Jill Ker conway to stay strong and feel the need to have to succeed in life to make her parents proud and help them.

Personal writing:

Picture this: a typical freezing, misty New-York November morning. My exhausted mother is seated in a hospital wheelchair wearing a blue overall and her blonde hair tied in some sort of a knot. She is carrying in her weak, tired arms a bundle of joy, wrapped in that pink stripped cloth topped with an unusually small, little, tiny pink hat , a fashion adopted by all those new born american babies. The wind is so strong that morning that the little pink hat takes off into they grey skies. The camera then zooms on the babies hair, red hair. My father finally rolls in his snow covered Dodge with his windows down. His face is glowing with pride. He sweeps her off her wheelchair and into the car. Once parked in the driveway, we hear hysterical teenage girls screaming. My four sisters come running outside to greet the new addition to the sisterhood as the snow falls dramatically. At this point, I see no better choice of a song than “we are family” by the sledge sisters, you can see my sisters mouthing the words “I got all my sister’s with me” and busting their best moves as they snap their fingers to the groovy 80’s hit. They pick me up and whirl me around as the whole world me freezes and my future self’s voice pronounces one sentence, the summary of my life : That bundle of joy, that’s me. The fifth and last daughter but the one and only red head”. “thats me, the 5th and last daughter but 1st and last redhead of the family”

Where is Home?

The main character defines “home” as where she comes from but also somewhere of her own making. We immediately understand by the title road from coorain that her life starts over there and that it was her first house but the “from” means that she has come a long way since. Even though she later moves from coorain she continues to talk about it throughout the book and continues to be involved with it in her life which shows she doesn’t want to forget it and is still very attached to it.. In the book, Coorain is a symbol of her true home but in fact her home is everything she wants it to be. A part of her home is also her mentality and her outstanding knowledge. For example she would read books and learn new things when she was confronted with hard choices to just be in her own world and forget about everything else.

Personal writing:

1020 Cove road south

Mamaroneck, NY 10543

USA

This house is the one I grew up in right outside of New York. It was a blue-grey individual house with three floors and a garden. There was a huge cherry blossom tree in the front of it that me and my sister would play under as children. On the right side there was the drive-way that leads to the garage. The drive-way was surrounded by beautiful blue hydrangeas that my dad planted as soon as he bought the house. The passage that leads to the house was filled with different types of wild Sage flowers which bees loved. On the main floor there was the living and dining room, the kitchen , my mother’s office, my parents’ bedroom and my sister’s and i. Upstairs were all of the other bedrooms and in the basement there was the playroom, the tv room, my dad’s office and the laundry room. Every room of the house had a different color, the kitchen was purple, the living room orange, the basement yellow… The garden was filled with patches of flowers all around the house. A yellow hammock was attached to the two main trees of the garden on the left next to the barbecue and the table. Our garden was filled with wild animals such as foxes, coyotes, squirrels, bunnies and lots of beautiful birds. We also had a little orchard filled with aromatic herbs, raspberries and strawberries that we would try to eat before the animals did. I remember every winter shoveling the half meter of snow in the drive-way and all the snow days spent sledding in the golf court next to our house, every summer running in the garden when my dad would turn on the sprinklers, building tents to play with our dolls and on special occasions go shopping in the city.

Community, Beliefs, Values and stereotypes

In her memoir Ker Conway describes