SHORT-LISTED: CBCA Book of the Year, Older Readers, 2005

‘My name is Kate O'Farrell and I am seventeen years old. I am in my last year of school, and when that is over I will be leaving this place for good - going to a real city, where I will begin my new life.

'I have long red hair and pale skin. I like staying up very late at night. It is my ambition to see the sun rise, but sadly I am always asleep by then. I love eating and reading, preferably at the same time.

'I am very tall, and too thin. I have never been in love.’

Kate has three notebooks, the Red, Yellow and Blue Notebooks, in which she records her life. Through reading and writing, living and learning to love, she discovers things about herself that she never expected.