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  • Published: 29 March 2010
  • ISBN: 9781742530475
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 312

A Girl Like Me



Based on real events that took place more than a century ago, capturing headlines all around Australia, this is a true-crime, a romance and a coming-of-age novel with an unlikely friendship at its heart.

Their lives couldn't be more different, but Emmie can't help liking Bertha Schippan. She's funny and knowing and wild, and she distracts Emmie from the monotony of farm life in their tiny, isolated community. But, as Emmie soon discovers, Bertha has secrets. Terrible secrets.
This heartbreaking story is based on a real crime that took place more than a century ago, capturing headlines all around Australia.

  • Published: 29 March 2010
  • ISBN: 9781742530475
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 312

About the author

Penny Matthews

Penny Matthews is a freelance writer and editor based in Adelaide. She has written YA and junior novels, chapter books for beginning readers, and picture books for all age groups. Her picture books include Pudding and Chips (a CBCA Notable Book in 2005), Little Red Bear (shortlisted for the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards in 2004) and A Year On Our Farm, which was the CBCA's 2003 Book of the Year (Early Childhood) and a CBCA Honour Book in the Picture Book of the Year category. In 2010 Something About Water was joint winner of the Wilderness Society's Environment Award for Children's Literature. A Girl Like Me, her first young adult novel, was also a 2010 CBCA Notable Book and won the Sisters in Crime's 2011 Davitt Award for Young Adult Fiction.

Also by Penny Matthews

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Awards & recognition

Davitt Awards

Winner  •  2011  •  Best Young Adult Crime Book

CBCA Book of the Year Awards

Notable Book  •  2011  •  Older Readers