February 2013 – Aussie Reviews

Rocket Into Space, by Ragbir Bhathal & Johanna Davids

Maddy and Jack are going on a journey into space. They’re counting down and taking off on a rocket trip through the solar system. Along the way thy are going show readers what they see and share lots of intriguing facts.

Starting at the Sun, and going past Earth’s Moon, the travellers then stop at each of the other seven planets in the solar system before heading back to Earth. Each spread features illustrations, photos and facts, presented with interactive elements including flaps, tabs and dials. There are also back of book activity suggestions such as making a Solar System mobile and making a crater.

This sturdy offering is both informative and entertaining.

Rocket into Space!, by Ragbir Bhathal and Johanna Davids
National Library of Australia, 2012
ISBN 9780642277510

Available from good bookstores, the NLA Bookstore or online.

Stories for 7 Year Olds, edited by Linsay Knight

What do seven year olds like to read about? Lots of things! And this book aimed at seven year old readers, covers lots of different subjects, in different forms. There is a story about a mother on a diet, one about surfing in an outback pool, another about a young emperor with a headache, and yet another about an author visiting a school. Whilst all are prose, one is interspersed with poetry and others use fairytale, mythology, first person narration and even the format of a school report, meaning there is plenty of variety.

The 11 stories are illustrated by Tom Jellett, giving a uniformity to the volume, and back of book biographies introduce each author who include some of the biggest names of Australian children’s literature, including Morris Gleitzman, Paul Jennings and Margaret Clark.

Suitable for newly independent readers to read on their own, the stories are also suitable for reading aloud.

Stories for Seven Year Olds, edited by Linsay Knight, illustrated by Tom Jellett
Random House, 2012
ISBN 9781742756622

Available from good bookstores or online.

The Girl From Snowy River, by Jackie French

I may not have lost my legs, she thought, but I’ve lost those I love forever. The war had savaged Mum, and Mrs Mack, and every woman in the valley. The war was over but the pain was still there, for her and the families left behind, not just for the men who had been maimed.

We’re all bits that the war didn’t take, Flinty thought, gazing at the stranger’s back. But those left behind had a right to know more about the beast who’d chewed their lives and spat the remnants out.

It is 1919, and in the Snowy Mountains Flinty McAlpine is trying to hold her family together – what is left of her family, at least, since the Great War tore it apart. One of her brothers was killed in the war, and another is so scarred that he seems unable to stay at home. Her mother died, Flinty suspects of a broken heart, and her father too passed away, after contracting influenza brought home by returning troops. Flinty may be only 17, but she is now responsible for her two younger siblings and for the running of the farm and the paying of the bills.

When Flinty meets a stranger in a wheelchair, she presumes he is another returned soldier – and he is – but somehow he is not from the Great War, but from a war far in her future, the Vietnam War. Just like Flinty’s brother, and Sandy, the man she loves, Nicholas is scarred by his war time experiences. They may be from different times, but somehow Flinty and Nicholas can see and hear each other, and it may be that they can help each other to heal.

The Girl from Snowy River is a dramatic, heart warming story of survival. Flinty is faced with many challenges – the loss of her parents and brother, her strained relationship with Sandy, the financial stress of trying to keep hold of the family farm, and being a girl in a man’s world – but she also faces unexpected physical challenges, too.

With reference and links to several famous Australian bush poems, The Girl from Snowy River is a wonderful celebration of the Snowy Mountain region as well as an exploration of the history of the time and issues of the impact of war, the role of women, family relationships and more.

The Girl from Snowy River, by Jackie French
Angus & Robertson, an imprint of Harper Collins, 2012
ISBN 9780732293109

Available from good bookstores or online from Fishpond.

Dark Star, by Lara Morgan

“Holy…” She dimply heard Hanto swearing, then he was on his knees beside her, his face centimetres from her own. “What the hell did you do? Goddamn stupid zero.”
But Rosie couldn’t reply. Her jaw was locked tight by the effect of the blast. He ripped off the shoulder of her shirt and sprayed something cool on her skin. She began to shake as the pulse worked its way down the back of her shoulderblade, and bit her tongue, tasting blood.

Seemingly against everything she’s been fighting for, Rosie Black has joined Helios. But she is far from a loyal disciple – she is there to find out what is going on, and to protect her friend Pip. As she tries to work out who she can trust – and who wants to control Helios, and the world she faces danger after danger. Is she going to stay alive long enough to save those she loves?

Dark Star is the third and final instalment in the Rosie Black Chronicles. Set five hundred years in the future in a world vastly changed by global warming and problems of overpopulation and water shortage, this is an action packed finale. Rosie’s life hangs in the balance more than once, and there are fights, chases, escapes and battles. In amongst the action is character development, and a satisfying conclusion the series.

Best suited for those who have read the first two instalments in the series.

Dark Star (Rosie Black Chronicles), by Lara Morgan
Walker Books, 2012
ISBN 9781921529412

Available from good bookstores or online .

Time Vandals by Craig Cormick

Mai didn’t even have time to scream. The two men grabbed her at the end of her street and threw her into the black van. One had half-shoved a gag over her mouth before she started lashing out. She looked into the eyes of the man in front of her, a near-bald bulky thug, who was trying to get a sack over her head. She kicked him in the middle of the forehead, and then spat the gag free.

The black van pulled up down the street from Jacque’s house and the three men had a clear view of him standing halfway up a wobbling ladder, trying to reach his bedroom window. He had stopped climbing momentarily and looked around. An odd feeling that something wasn’t quite right had filled him.

Two very different teenagers from opposite ends of the world (Sydney and London) are kidnapped and taken to Switzerland. Mai is an Olympic athlete and academic. Jacques loves computer games. For reasons that take some while to be clear to them, they are particularly suited to time travel. Their first surprise is that they are not French. But there is no time to spend understanding, only time to be travelling. Mei and Jack, accompanied by knowledgeable if unexpected others are off to the past to save the world. Along the way there are challenges that need their disparate skills. Time changes everything.

Time Vandals is a crazy romp through time and history. Mai and Jack appear to have very little in common beyond eye colour, but it is important that they find ways to work together if the world is to be saved. There is very little about any of their worlds that can be taken for granted, and they must be constantly adjusting their perceptions and expectations. Each character has the opportunity to shine. There is also the opportunity to see what could have happened if the outcome of historic military encounters had been different. From Napoleon to zombies, from cats to gargoyles, ‘Time Vandals’ is action-packed and hilarious. Sure to appeal to upper primary and early secondary readers.

Time Vandals, Craig Cormick
Omnibus Books 2012
ISBN: 9781862919471

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Available from good bookstores or online.

The Witch Hunter Chronicles 3: The Devil’s Fire by Stuart Daly

Standing knee-deep in water in the flooded medieval dungeon, I raise my pistol to my lips, kiss its polished barrel and pray hastily that our ambush works. I lean out of the cell, take aim down the tunnel and fire at the closest of the unsuspecting Dutch soldiers. He staggers back, holding his blasted chest.

My signal given, six English soldiers spring out of the adjacent cells that line the tunnel, level their muskets and pistols at the Dutchmen and blast away. Before the powdered flashes from our firearms have cleared, my fellow Hexenjager Armand races out from one of the cells and terars into the startled Dutch soldiers, his mortuary blade and sabre moving with blinding speed. Three of the Dutchmen drop dead, clutching at wounds they never saw delivered.

The Witch Hunter Chronicles are set in the 17^th Century at a time when witches and devils added to the dangers of living. To counter these dangers, countries established groups of elite hunters to fight evil. The Devil’s Fire is instalment three in this series. Jakob and his fellow Hexenjager (witch hunters) are German and a search for Jakob’s father is postponed when they discover that demonic soldiers, the Sons of Cain, have stolen a medieval bible and are headed for London. It is clear that their plan must be foiled if the city, and humanity, is to be saved. The Hexenjager ally with a brother-order of English witch hunters, although each group is accustomed to working solo and slow to trust the other. Trust is essential if this race-against-the-clock mission is to succeed.

Jakob is the youngest member of the elite fighting order, the Hexenjager. The team also includes an Italian, Francesca, an almost-giant, von Frankenthal, and the almost narcissistic Armand. Armand is their leader, but each has particular skills to bring to their team. Jakob is still learning but his skills are fast improving and the team are moving from treating him as a child to considering him an equal. There is action aplenty and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of villains. This is an adventure grand style! Themes include the fight for good and evil, trust and friendship. Along the way, the reader is introduced to a fascinating history with which they may have been unfamiliar. This is episode three, and although there are references to previous adventures and hints of others to come, ‘The Devil’s Fire’ stands comfortably on its own. Recommended for early- to mid-secondary readers.

The Devil’s Fire (Witch Hunter Chronicles) by Stuart Daly
Random House 2012
ISBN: 9781742754802

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Available from good bookstores or online.

S.C.U.M. By Danny Katz

… And in through the gates I go and now here I am in school. Lots of others are coming in through the gates with me and some are walking-talking …

angie got invited? /yeah epic party / angie? Y’serious?’

Saw Cutsy riding his bike around near the pool / Bullcrap / Nah bull-true bro

None of them is Sarah. Why isn’t Sarah here now? This is the gate she always goes through, this is the time she normally goes through the gate.

she asked why I dyed my hair blonde / I would take that as an insult

Always 8.43. Every now and then it might be earlier if she walks quick or gets dropped off by her dad, but I am the international expert on Sarah-school-arrival-times, …

… And in through the gates I go and now here I am in school. Lots of others are coming in through the gates with me and some are walking-talking …

angie got invited? /yeah epic party / angie? Y’serious?’

Saw Cutsy riding his bike around near the pool / Bullcrap / Nah bull-true bro

None of them is Sarah. Why isn’t Sarah here now? This is the gate she always goes through, this is the time she normally goes through the gate.

she asked why I dyed my hair blonde / I would take that as an insult

Always 8.43. Every now and then it might be earlier if she walks quick or gets dropped off by her dad, but I am the international expert on Sarah-school-arrival-times, …

S.C.U.M. is short for Students Combined Underground Movement, a loose collective of students who don’t fit into any recognised social grouping at school. Tom Zurbo-Goldblatt narrates this journey of the educational and social life of a public school teenager. Every student has a history, and if they don’t Tom and his friends will happily invent one. Every teacher has a nickname and if they are female, a position on the ‘hot’ scale. Tom has a crush on Sarah and knows as much about her as it is possible to learn without actually speaking to her. He has a best friend and they communicate via insults. This is the inside story, Tom-style.

Tom Zurbo-Goldblatt is 14 years old. Schoolwork seldom keeps his focus for more than a few seconds before other important matters flood in. He has to maintain an awareness of the school bully and what he might do next, chase the girl he likes, avoid the girls he doesn’t like, maintain friendships and communicate non-verbally. It would hardly be reasonable to expect him to keep track of what the teacher is saying. But he does somehow navigate through the day. Readers will recognise the various hazards of school life and empathise and chuckle at his lurch from crisis to crisis. From the scruffy cover to the sketch illustrations and variety of text size/type, this is teenage boy up close and personal. Thank goodness there’s no scratch and sniff! Recommended for upper-primary and early secondary readers.

S.C.U.M., Danny Katz
Allen & Unwin 2012
ISBN: 9781742379241

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Available from good bookstores or online.

Louis Beside Himself by Anna Fienberg

‘Come on, Louis, didn’t you hear me?’ yelled Dad from the living room.

I sighed. Dad was singing The Undertaker’s entrance theme.

‘Remember to tighten your abs, and spring up with your knees!’

‘But I’m nearly up to the last page. The best part.’

Dad was standing on the wrestling mat, cushions carefully strewn around to break our falls. ‘Get ready for The Tombstone!’ he called. He was working on his shoulder deltoids. His eyes were wide and enthusiastic, instead of dead, which was how you’re supposed to look for The Tombstone.

‘Come on, Louis, didn’t you hear me?’ yelled Dad from the living room.

I sighed. Dad was singing The Undertaker’s entrance theme.

‘Remember to tighten your abs, and spring up with your knees!’

‘But I’m nearly up to the last page. The best part.’

Louis and his dad get along fine. Fine that is, except with Dad’s obsession with wrestling. And even that would be fine, if he didn’t insist that Louis master all the moves. And really, Louis would rather read. His friends think Dad is fabulous, but Louis can’t imagine ever needing the skills that Dad insists he develop. Words are Louis’s thing and he peppers his conversation with them. This summer, however, Louis is challenged by broken mirrors, runaways of all ages, his father’s new romance, and oversized burglars. Surviving intact will need all the skills Louis can muster.

Louis is not your stereotypical hero. He would be the first to admit it. But heroes come in all sizes, and appear at the right time. Louis Beside Himself includes all Anna Fienberg’s trademark humour and championing of the apparent underdog. She suggests that there is a hero in all of us and that being true to yourself is the first step in being able to be true to others. The relationship between Louis and his father is a lovely one and this adventure allows it to strengthen. Friendships and family relationships are all drawn realistically, allowing for individual differences and strengths. But before all that, Louis Beside Himself is a humourous adventure through a familiar landscape. Recommended for confident readers from mid-primary on.

Louis Beside Himself, Anna Fienberg
Allen & Unwin 2012
ISBN: 9781742379944

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author

www.clairesaxby.com

Available in good bookstores or online.

Lost Voices, by Christopher Koch

Late in life, I’ve come to the view that everything in out lives is part of a pre-ordained pattern. Unfortunately it’s a pattern to which we’re not given a key. It contains our joys and miseries; our good actions and our crimes; our strivings and defeats. Certain links in this pattern connect the present to the pas. These form the lattice of history, both personal and public; and this is why the past refuses to be dismissed. It waits to involve us in new variations; and its dead wait for their time to reappear.

When Hugh Dixon overhears his father confiding to his mother that he is in trouble, Hugh is determined to help him. His father has a gambling debt which could be the ruin of the family, and young Hugh believes that he only person who can help them is his great-uncle Walter – a man he has never met and who his father will have nothing to do with. Hugh visits his uncle in the old family home, and a friendship develops. As it does, Hugh also learns of his family’s links to a notorious band of bushrangers in the mid nineteenth century. Later, events in Hugh’s own life have strange echoes of that earlier time.

Lost Voices is an evocative, absorbing book, with an intriguing double narrative. The book is divided into three parts, with the middle section telling the 1854 story of two escapees from Tasmania’s Port Arthur who return to their secret mountain hideout – but not before meeting a young Martin Dixon, who convinces them to let him accompany them to tell their tale. In the first and third sections of the book we follow the late teens and early twenties of Hugh Dixon, Martin’s great grandson, a hundred years later. If it were not for this father’s trouble, Hugh would not have met his great uncle and so learned the story of his grandfather.

Yet there are echoes between Hugh’s life and that of his long dead ancestor, particularly the pattern of uneasy relations between father and son. Martin heads off to live with the bushrangers knowing his father will not approve, but determined to follow a path of his choosing. Hugh too does this both in seeking out his great uncle’s help, but also in following a career in illustrating which his father has attempted to discourage him from. This exploration of the relationship between father and son is repeated in other connections in the book – including Hugh’s father and grandfather, his friend Bob’s relationship with a violent father and the bushranger Wilson’s relationship with his father.

There are other echoes and parallels – young men’s relationships with older women, the treatment of women and, importantly the concept of truly evil men. There is so much being explored that the experience may be different for individual readers, and the processing of these themes is likely to go on long after the reading finishes.

Whilst there is action and drama, this is not a fast paced book, taking time to read and to digest, but it is a satisfying, beautiful journey.

Lost Voices, by Christopher Koch
Fourth Estate, 2012
ISBN 9780732294632

Available from good bookstores or online. Buying through this link supports Aussiereviews.

In Falling Snow, by Mary-Rose MacColl

In the beginning, it was the summers I remembered – long warm days under the palest blue skies, the cornflowers and forget-me-nots lining the road through the Lys forest, the buzz of insects going about their work, Violet telling me lies.

When Iris receives an invitation to attend a reunion in France, she is determined to go. Her granddaughter Grace, a doctor, discourages her. Iris is getting old, and a trip like this might be too much. But for Iris, the memories of the ast are strong, and the invitation has brought back memories of her time in France during World War I when she found herself working in a hospital staffed only by women as she tries to find her 15 year old brother, Tom, who has joined up against his father’s wishes.

Grace, meanwhile, is facing her own battles. A female doctor in a male-dominated hospital world of the 1970s, she tries to balance her career with parenthood and keeping an eye on her ailing grandmother. When her husband suggests there is something wrong with their son, Grace is stunned. Surely he is just different from their daughters?

In Falling Snow is a beautiful, moving dual narrative, telling two seemingly separate stories. Initially it seems the link is simply one of blood – of a grandmother and granddaughter – but as each story progresses there are surprises, and the complexity of their relationship is explored. A second commonality is the idea of women breaking new ground, as it were, with the 1917 storyline showing women playing vital roles in war time, and the more modern tale exploring some of the complexities of being a female doctor in struggling with a male-dominated work place. But what is perhaps the key kink here is the impact of events in the earlier time period on the later one, events and implications which are only slowly unravelled.

There is so much explored in this book that it could easily have become overwhelming – with war, family, motherhood, women’s roles, friendship and more all important themes – but it is so well woven and told through the voice of the elderly Violet and the third person perspective of the younger Grace that it is just lovely.

In Falling Snow, by Mary-Rose MacColl
Allen & Unwin, 2012
ISBN 9781743311219

Available from good bookstores or online.