Tag: neil grant

The Ink Bridge by Neil Grant

Omed, a boy, flees Afganistan after a run in with the Taliban. He leaves behind his family and all he knows. His agonising and protracted journey leads him to Australia. There he is supposed to find peace and prosperity. Hector is an Australian boy, locked into silence by trauma. He’s gradually withdrawing from all he has known.

Omed had the Buddha’s eyes and a tongue that refused words. His was the silence of caves; the false peace that descends when a mortar shell rips apart a building. His was the stillness of bald mountains and long beards and the paths cleared by bullets; the quiet of a long-bladed knife.

Did all this begin with Omed? Or did it start with me at fifteen, shouting for answers; words running sour in my mouth, bleeding to whispers in my throat, evaporating in numbed ears. Those ears: my dad, my invisible friends, teachers that either didn’t care or cared too much.

Omed, a boy, flees Afghanistan after a run in with the Taliban. He leaves behind his family and all he knows. His agonising and protracted journey leads him to Australia. There he is supposed to find peace and prosperity. Hector is an Australian boy, locked into silence by trauma. He’s gradually withdrawing from all he has known. Their lives intersect in a candle factory in the suburbs. It is a place of numbing boredom, but also a place of secrets. Dangerous secrets. Hector and Omed are linked by their stories, by their experience and by the secrets they uncover.

Hector and Omed are from very different worlds. Both are silent, although it’s not immediately obvious why that is. Candles are supposed to light up the darkness, but illumination leaves shadows, even when two candles combine. There are dark corners in the worlds these boys encounter, separately and together. Meeting each other is a turning point, although neither could have predicted the direction. Grant takes the reader into the enduring horror of Afghanistan’s wars and shows the complexity of the challenges, the realities for a people so long the focus of aggression and hate. The metaphor of a bridge linking the seemingly unlinkable features strongly. He also shines a light on the desperation that impels refugees to seek homes elsewhere, and the barriers that make the journey so much harder than it should have to be. Hector’s rites of passage journey contrasts with Omed’s, but shows the power of empathy and shared experiences. Recommended for mid-secondary readers.

The Ink Bridge, Neil Grant
Allen & Unwin 2012 ISBN: 9781742376691

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

The Ink Bridge by Neil Grant

Omed, a boy, flees Afganistan after a run in with the Taliban. He leaves behind his family and all he knows. His agonising and protracted journey leads him to Australia. There he is supposed to find peace and prosperity. Hector is an Australian boy, locked into silence by trauma. He’s gradually withdrawing from all he has known. Their lives intersect in a candle factory in the suburbs.

Omed had the Buddha’s eyes and a tongue that refused words. His was the silence of caves; the false peace that descends when a mortar shell rips apart a building. His was the stillness of bald mountains and long beards and the paths cleared by bullets; the quiet of a long-bladed knife.

Did all this begin with Omed? Or did it start with me at fifteen, shouting for answers; words running sour in my mouth, bleeding to whispers in my throat, evaporating in numbed ears. Those ears: my dad, my invisible friends, teachers that either didn’t care or cared too much.

Omed, a boy, flees Afganistan after a run in with the Taliban. He leaves behind his family and all he knows. His agonising and protracted journey leads him to Australia. There he is supposed to find peace and prosperity. Hector is an Australian boy, locked into silence by trauma. He’s gradually withdrawing from all he has known. Their lives intersect in a candle factory in the suburbs. It is a place of numbing boredom, but also a place of secrets. Dangerous secrets. Hector and Omed are linked by their stories, by their experience and by the secrets they uncover.

Hector and Omed are from very different worlds. Both are silent, although it’s not always obvious why that is. Candles are supposed to light up the darkness, but illumination leaves shadows, even when two candles combine. There are dark corners in the worlds these boys encounter, separately and together. Meeting each other is a turning point, although neither could have predicted the direction. Grant takes the reader into the enduring horror of Afganistan’s wars and shows the complexity of the challenges, the realities for a people so long the focus of aggression and hate. He also shines a light on the desperation that impels refugees to seek homes elsewhere, and the barriers that make the journey so much harder than it should have to be. Hector’s rites of passage journey contrasts with Omed’s, but shows the power of empathy and shared experiences. Recommended for mid-secondary readers.

The Ink Bridge

The Ink Bridge, Neil Grant Allen & Unwin 2012 ISBN: 9781742376691

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

This book is avaialble for purchaes in good bookstores or online through Fishpond.

From Kinglake to Kabul

When an Afghan rug is made, many knots are tied. Each one is a connection between individual strands. Standing back from the work, a strange magic occurs. The rug can be seen in its beautiful entirety: the intricate design, the startling colour, the richness of materia. So it is in this book, each story knot tying people and two resilient communities together forever.

From Kinglake to Kabul is a collection of stories, both fiction and factual. The stories come from an international school in Kabul in Afghanistan and from secondary students from Kinglake who were affected by the Black Saturday fires of February 7 2009. Here, teenagers, supported by family, teachers and others, discover that despite the apparent difference in their appearance, landscape and history, they have much in common. Contributors not only write their own story, but in some cases, respond to the stories of others. Sometimes they are surprised at the similarities in their lives, sometimes by the difference. But always there is empathy and enhanced understanding of themselves and of others.

A collection of stories from a war-torn, faraway country and a fire-ravaged community. From the outside, it could be difficult to expect this to be an easy or a fun read. But it is. It has sadness, plenty of that, but the overwhelming sense is of people surviving, finding ways to not only survive but thrive in challenging circumstances. It doesn’t pretend life is easy, but demonstrates the resilience and humour of humans all over our world. There are Afghan stories of returned refugees and the other-nationals who help them. There are stories of those who escaped unimaginable terror, changed but not beaten. The stories are creatively and effectively linked by the editors, giving connection to very disparate stories. This is a fabulous collection which should be read by everyone, but particularly those who don’t yet understand that we are one people. Recommended for upper primary and beyond.

From Kinglake to Kabul, Ed Neil Grant and David Williams
Allen & Unwin 2011
ISBN: 9781742375304

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

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