Belinda Jeffrey

Quite chuffed to find Brown Skin Blue plastered on the cover of WA Education Department’s Fiction Focus for Western Australian schools.

Fiction Focus

It’s especially valuable to me because some schools perceive the content of my book to be unsuitable for young adults. I’ve never understood the need to keep teenagers and young adults from accessing some of the darker concerns of life. In fact, I think that if adults are too scared to confront a range of issues, then it makes it a scarier place for younger people.

My son recently saw a poster of ‘The Boy In Striped Pajamas’ and asked me what it was about. I gave a simple, fluffy answer and he kept picking up on the vague places in my answer and asking specific questions. He said he didn’t want me to leave out the bad parts because he needed to know the whole story.

When I hear comments from adults saying that young adults ’shouldn’t read about things like that’ I often think of what it would be like to be a kid who’s had to live through terrible things, imagining what it would feel like to hear an adult describe their life as unsuitable for ‘good kids’ to think about, read, let alone understand. If Barry (my main character) were real, he’s the kind of person I’d love my kids to spend time with. Real, honest, un-afraid of grey.