Tag: Ananda Braxton-Smith

We found my brother in the skybog.
It was me that found him.
His body upright in the black water of boghole and his white face upturned to the dawn-pearl sky, like one moon watching another.
Skybog ground is dabbled with sinks of standing water as flat and shining as looking-glasses. When the bog mists curl away the pools show only white cloud or silver moonrays, lightning or stars, like bits of the sky have fallen right into the black earth. those sinks fill with falling rain or rising groundwater. Some are tiny, hardly big enough to hold even one star; some are deep as two men laid down end-to-end.

Fermion Quirk has just lost her ‘soft’ twin brother to the bogs that provide their family with a living. It’s true that Boson was always ‘soft’, but he became so much worse in the last years, since he went missing and was found. From then on, his talk was all of lonely people, voices in his head, and of being a bird. Fermion knows it is the reason that the townsfolk avoid them. Boson’s death threatens to tear Fermion’s family apart and she struggles to find a way to get through to them. Because it’s very soon clear that her mother is too lost in grief, and her father is lost without her mother to keep him on track. Fermion has lost her brother, her twin, and it seems that there is no room at all for her grief. Then the voices begin…

Tantony is set on Carrick, an island in the Irish Sea, in a time long ago. Superstitions and religion fight to explain variations in weather, in harvest, even the birth of ‘different’ children. Anyone different in anyway may be blamed for the sun not shining, the rain not falling and any manner of misfortunes that may occur. Tantony recalls another time, another place, but timeless issues. Fermion, who tells her own story along with that of her brother, her family, her community has a wonderful mix of practicality and openness to new ideas. She loved her brother deeply, but also loves her family too. She exposes the bullying, ignorance and more of the community and comes to understand other outcast community members. With a resoluteness that often appears to border on stubbornness, she saves the family she can. Tantony includes some words from the almost extinct Manx language, but also includes very poetic language. It is a potage of history and wonder. Recommended for secondary school readers.

Tantony, Ananda Braxton-Smith
Black Dog Books 2011
ISBN: 9781742031668

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author
www.clairesaxby.com

This book can be purchased from good bookstores, or online from Fishpond.

Auntie Ushag said I wasn’t fit to be around. She said it was beyond her how a body could be so prickly and dark. She said it gave her the Screaming Purples just to look at me, always lying about looking sideways at her like a reptile on a hot rock. That if I couldn’t raise myself on my hind legs and help, the least I could do was Go Away and leave her to it.
Honour Bright, all I said was I wished she’d open her mind a bit and that she didn’t know all about everything. I said she couldn’t prove that our Marrey great-grandmother wasn’t a merrow. she couldn’t swear that Mam had run away after Pa drowned, now could she? All I said was perhaps Mam had actually just gone home to her people under the sea, and that she could come back to us one day, if she wanted to. I only said it was possible.

Neen is growing up in a remote part of a small island, surrounded by ocean and the myths the sea generates. Neen’s father died near her birth, and her mother disappeared about a year later. Neen has been raised by her aunt, Ushag, her mother’s younger sister. They struggle to survive and there’s little Ushag finds joyful. Neen is endlessly curious, about life in general and about her mother in particular. Stories from the town come via Ma, a neighbour and her blind fiddle-playing son, Scully. There has long been talk that the Marreys have merrow (mermaid) blood. The more Neen thinks about it, and the more she explores the shores, the more she is sure that her mother is still alive. Neen is convinced that her mother has returned to her home under the sea, to be with her husband, Neen’s father. Nothing Ushag says will convince her otherwise.

At once ancient and modern, Neen’s is a search for identity. Most teens reach a point when they begin their future by seeking to understand their past. For most that’s a matter of asking the questions. But when the answers are not available, or buried in mystery, it’s more complicated. Neen has no ability to see beyond her aunt’s gruffness or reticence. She can only believe what she wants to believe. Time and the truth bring her to understanding slowly and she discovers that nothing is as simple as it seems, nor as complex. Neen tells her story in first person, and the reader shares her thoughts and frustrations as well as the limitations her youth and experience impose. The power, turmoil, and the secrets of the sea provide a rich backdrop to Neen’s growing maturity. Revel too in the stories of the merrows themselves. Recommended for mid-secondary readers.

Merrow, Ananda Braxton-Smith
Black Dog Books 2010
ISBN: 9781742031361

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author
www.clairesaxby.com.

This book can be purchased in good bookstores or online from Fishpond. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.