Month: October 2012

The Messenger Bird by Rosanne Hawke

I remember what I was doing when I first heard the news; I was playing Mozart’s ‘Sonata in C’. Would I ever be able to play that again? During the coda I heard the cow bell at the back door, a silence, then Dad’s voice raised in question. They didn’t come into the lounge to tell me. Unsuspecting, I went out to the kitchen when I’d finished playing. Mum and Dad were sitting there barely touching, staring at nothing.

I remember what I was doing when I first heard the news; I was playing Mozart’s ‘Sonata in C’. Would I ever be able to play that again? During the coda I heard the cow bell at the back door, a silence, then Dad’s voice raised in question. They didn’t come into the lounge to tell me. Unsuspecting, I went out to the kitchen when I’d finished playing. Mum and Dad were sitting there barely touching, staring at nothing.

When you first realise the unfairness and randomness of death it eats into your thoughts like acid. I didn’t believe in God the way Mum did, but I still screamed at him in my head, ‘You’ve picked the wrong family to do this to.’ I knew I wouldn’t be strong enough, Mum wasn’t either. Then there was Dad, a crumbling pillar trying to hold both of us up.

How does a family deal with death? In The Messenger Bird the short answer is ‘not well’. Set in outback South Australia, three members of a family mourn the loss of the fourth. Separately and in very different ways. It is as if a piece of a puzzle is lost and without it, nothing makes sense. Mum retreats into herself, and Dad spends all his time and energy restoring their old stone house. They three are side-by-side but alone. Tamar, the main character, can see this but there seems to be no fixing it, and she seems to be the only one trying to change things. Nothing that once gave her pleasure can touch the emptiness and pain. Including – or perhaps particularly – her music. Then she finds a piece of sheet music that somehow links her with the past and helps her to begin to imagine a future.

A house holds in its walls the memories of all who live there. In The Messenger Bird, Tamara discovers the history of the house as surely as her father does as he renovates. For each, the discoveries also allow them time and perspective in coming to terms with the loss in their lives. Truths that are too big to imagine are broken down into smaller bites and piece by piece, the characters can put their lives back together. The Messenger Bird is full of mystery. Or mysteries. Some are intended to be uncovered, others will remain forever out of reach. And the business of life is to decide which ones are which. A moving story about death and life and the choices people make. Recommended for mid- to upper-secondary readers.

The Messenger Bird

The Messenger Bird by Rosanne Hawke UQP 2012 ISBN: 9780702238826

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Bitter Greens by Kate Forsyth

It is 1666 in France and Charlotte-Rose is summonsed to the court of Louis XII. In 1590 Margherita meets Selena Leonelli for the first time. In Venice in 1580 a desperate girl engages the skills of the sorceress Selena Leonelli, better known as the muse of artist Tiziano.

I had always been a great talker and teller of tales.

‘You should put a lock on that tongue of yours. It’s long enough and sharp enough to slit your own throat,’ our guardian warned me, the night before I left home to go to the royal court at Versailles. He sat at the head of the long wooden table in the chateau’s arched dining room, lifting his lip in distaste as the servents brought us our usual peasant fare of sausage and white-bean cassoulet. He had not accustomed himself to our simple Gascon ways, not even after four years.

I just laughed. ‘Don’t you know a woman’s tongue is her sword! You wouldn’t want me to let my only weapon rust, would you?’

It is 1666 in France and Charlotte-Rose is summonsed to the court of Louis XII. In 1590 Margherita meets Selena Leonelli for the first time. In Venice in 1580 a desperate girl engages the skills of the sorceress Selena Leonelli, better known as the muse of artist Tiziano. Three stories, spread across two countries and more than a century, the telling slips back and forth through time. ‘Bitter Greens’ is the story of Rapunzel by another name. Just as Rapunzel was known by many names. It is the story of beauty and its costs; of what it was to be a woman; of choices seized and choices removed. Three women of their times reveal their worlds, their strengths and challenges.

What a grand novel! Bitter Greensstitches together the richest fabric, multi-hued and glorious, from threads both fine and coarse. Part fairy tale, part history, part magic, it pulls you in and refuses to let you go. Along the way, there are so many twists and turns, each one a new thread to be sewn until the picture is complete. Charlotte-Rose and Selena tell their stories in the first person, while Margherita’s is told in third person. Quotes from Rupunzel retellings preface each section and remind how a story is shaped by the teller as they make it their own. Bitter Greensexamines the French court, the wildness of Venice and the superstition and fragility of both. It is a story that lingers in the mind, long after the final page is turned.

Bitter Greens

Bitter Greens, Kate Forsyth, Vintage 2012 ISBN: 9781741668452

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com