Sparrow, by Scot Gardner

One two three breath one two three four.
After the dusk burned out and the stars began winking in his salt-stung eyes it became impossible to judge the distance to shore. The stars finished some way above the waterline, but was theat the Kimberley coast he could see, or clouds hanging low over an endless ocean?
One two breath one two breath.

Travelling by boat at the end of a survival trip off the Kimberley coast, Sparrow sees that the boats i about to sink and decides to swim for safety and for freedom. His life in juvie has been tough, and h’es prepared to risk everything for freedom. But there are sharks and crocodiles in the water, and its getting dark. the shore, too, is filled with dangers. Yet none of these dangers are perhaps as dark as the memories that crowd his mind.

Sparrow is a compelling story of survival both in the remote Kimberley wilderness, and on the streets of Darwin. Sparrow, selective mute after a childhood of trauma, relives the events which have lead to him being in juvenile detention as he tackles the new challenges for day to day survival which have arisen as a result of his decision to flee the boat.

A moving, unforgettable story.

Sparrow, by Scot Gardner
Allen & Unwin, 2017
ISBN 9781760294472

Voicing the Dead by Gary Crew

You ask, ‘Can the dead speak?’

I answer, ‘Is this blood that runs in my veins, or ink?’

You ask, ‘Are you real or a character in a book?’

I answer, ‘I am real enough. I call myself Jack Ireland. I am sixteen years old. A century ago I sailed the South Seas. I lived then, I live now.’

You ask, ‘So is this history?’

I answer, ‘If it bores you, shut the book – but you will not silence my voice. After all I have suffered, it is impossible to destroy me. So I ask you to red me. I ask you to hear me. See me. Touch me. Others have, and tasted my blood …’

You ask, ‘Yet you are still alive?’

I answer, ‘Ask no more. Read …’

You ask, ‘Can the dead speak?’  Voicing the Dead

I answer, ‘Is this blood that runs in my veins, or ink?’

You ask, ‘Are you real or a character in a book?’

I answer, ‘I am real enough. I call myself Jack Ireland. I am sixteen years old. A century ago I sailed the South Seas. I lived then, I live now.’

You ask, ‘So is this history?’

I answer, ‘If it bores you, shut the book – but you will not silence my voice. After all I have suffered, it is impossible to destroy me. So I ask you to red me. I ask you to hear me. See me. Touch me. Others have, and tasted my blood …’

You ask, ‘Yet you are still alive?’

I answer, ‘Ask no more. Read …’

Jack Ireland was best boy to the captain of ‘Charles Eaton’ a sailing ship in the 1830s. He thinks well of himself, perhaps a little too well. Even before the ship has pulled anchor, he has to revise his thinking and become a little more humble. But his life aboard ship is easier than many of the the crew and some of the passengers. The ‘Charles Eaton’ travels to Australia and delivers its load before heading north into the Torres Strait. There they are shipwrecked and Jack’s real adventure begins. Their boats are wrecked and passengers and some crew set out on a raft. Jack begins to show his mettle as the remaining crew seek food and build a second raft. They discover tropical paradise islands and encounter indigenous islanders. These are traders. Jack doesn’t need to understand their language to realise that he and others are tradeable.

Fourteen-year-old Jack Ireland is determined to tell his own tale. Others have told it, he says, but not as truly as he can himself. He finds himself with ‘ink in his veins’ and able to travel through and reference all the books he’s read. And having been the Captain’s best boy, he’s read his way through the Captain’s vast library. More than this, he’s read through many other books throughout time, both before and after his shipwreck. He quotes from books written about the ‘Charles Eaton’ and about himself. He acknowledges where they get it right, but mostly he feels that he is not well-represented, or not well enough. He seeks to set the tale straight. ‘Voicing the Dead’ is based on a real shipwreck, Jack Ireland was one of the survivors, but this story is fiction, a revisiting of the journey leading to the shipwreck and the time afterwards. The reader looking for adventure will find rewards here, as will the historian and literature buff. This is a complex and rich novel, full of intrigue and sensory detail. Recommended for mature secondary-aged readers.

Voicing the Dead, Gary Crew
Ford Street Publishing 2015 ISBN: 9781925272055

review by Claire Saxby, Children’s author and bookseller

www.clairesaxby.com

Sam, Grace and the Shipwreck, by Michelle Gillespie & Sonia Martinez

In a fictionalised retelling of the events, Gillespie shares the story in accessible language and detail, capturing both the excitement and the terror of the day.

The kitchen door bursts open. A gust of wind lashes about the room and Sam enters, panting….
‘A ship’s hit the rocks down Calgardup, Mrs Bussell. The swell’s all strong there today, an’ people in the water – I can take the horse to help.’
‘Sam, saddle Smiler for me.’ Grace shakes the cake mixture from her hands. ‘I’ll ride with him,’ she says to her mother.

In 1876, sixteen year old Grace Bussell helped to rescue the passengers of the shipwrecked Georgette and was rightly labelled a hero. But her fellow rescuer, Sam Isaacs, an Aboriginal stockman, was all but forgotten in spite of his important role in saving the lives of passengers and crew. Now, in Sam, Grace and the Shipwreck, new author Michelle Gillespie hopes to right that wrong by celebrating the role both rescuers, and their horses, played in saving those aboard the Georgettefrom drowning.

In a fictionalised retelling of the events, Gillespie shares the story in accessible language and detail, capturing both the excitement and the terror of the day. The dark tone of the illustrations, by Sonia Martinez, provide an excellent complement to the dramatic nature, and seriousness, of the text. the endpapers are especially stunning – the opening one showing the ship steaming ahead of foreboding storm clouds, and the back of book showing the hip sinking beneath the waves. Back of book notes provide information about the sinking and rescue.

Sam, Grace and the Shipwreck, provides a wonderful glimpse at this little known piece of Western Australia’s maritime history.

Sam, Grace and the Shipwreck

Sam, Grace and the Shipwreck, by Michelle Gillespie, illustrated by Sonia Martinez
Fremantle Press, 2011
ISBN 9781921696008

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