Westport, the town where I live, lies (mostly) between the banks of the Buller and the Orowaiti rivers. The Buller flows fast and deep through bush and gorges. It finally emerges amid a narrow strip of farmland before being channelled to the sea at the south end of the town between two man-made tip heads. After running freely from wild mountains deep inland, I think it must be embarrassed when it becomes a river port and then, even worse, has its final send-off over the dredged river bar into the Tasman. It gets its revenge, however, because when it rains the Buller swells to be the largest river in New Zealand and then nothing stands in its way. It tears whole trees from its banks, will take farmland and close roads. Nothing survives if caught in its waters.
Annie is fifteen, living with her folks in a west-coast New Zealand town, where the downturn in coal production is taking what few jobs remain there. On her way to basketball, she is turned back by the police. Not only does Annie miss the basketball game that day, she sees a coat floating down the swollen river and discovers a mysterious stranger riding a beautiful horse along her beach. Suddenly, the wet, economically-depressed town is immersed in a high-profile murder investigation. Around her, in the only place she has ever lived, everything seems to be changing.
Like the river that sometimes flows quietly, Annie has been drifting through her life. As rain continues to fall, and everything that’s certain begins to dissolve, Annie has to decide whether to be passive and accept everything that happens in her world, or to begin to make her own decisions, to make her own path, like the raging river does. She begins to open her eyes and see what’s actually happening in and to the town where she was born. She knows this place. Now she needs to decide what to look for, what to tell, what to hide. Themes include community, family, safety, first love, rites of passage. A thriller for early secondary readers.
Rainfall, Ella West
Allen & Unwin 2018 ISBN: 9781760296834
review by Claire Saxby, Children’s author and bookseller
www.clairesaxby.com