My sister lives on the mantelpiece

Author: Annabel Pitcher

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Reading Age 10 – 14 years

This book had my attention from beginning to end. How does a small boy cope with a drunken, racist father, an absent mother, a teenage sister, moving to a country town and a new school and the constant presence of an urn on the mantelpiece? 

Narrated by ten-year-old Jamie this story tears at your heart strings yet makes you laugh at the same time. Though his understanding is limited, Jamie gets things right about what is important, while his parents have shut their living children from their grief-overwhelmed lives. 

At school he can’t write truthfully about his holidays or family, the parent /teacher interview is a disaster, to his class mates and teacher he is quite weird. His fifteen- year-old sister, who deals with the loss in her own ways, understands. Jas is there for Jamie while their father can’t let the other sister go. Their mother has gone off with the Support Worker sent to help the family cope with grief. If you think this sounds too sad to read, read it. You will want to protect Jamie and Jas who are totally neglected by those who should be protecting them, yet be delighted by the honesty and humour, the irony and the bitter-sweetness of help coming from the girl who bears classmates’ jibes of curry germ because of her origins.


Reviewed by Gayle Davidson

Odell Learning Resources Centre

Oliver

Author and Illustrator: Birgitta Sif

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Recommended for Kindergarten to Year Two

Three different staff members independently picked this book out of a collection of books from a supplier. Oliver "felt a bit different". Exactly how or why he is different is not explained. He plays lots of games, but even in a room full of people he plays with his toys and puppets. He loves to read and has all sorts of adventures. As we get to the end of the book Oliver starts another adventure... he befriends a little girl who likes to play just the way he does. Charmingly the book has "The End" crossed out and replaced by "The Beginning".

The illustrations are delightful and much of the story is told through these pictures that combine an expressive free style with rich detail. Most pages have a single picture as a double spread, and they are full of things to notice, discuss and comment on. I thoroughly approve of books that can be pored over and explored.

The take home message is that we don't all have to like or do the same things (an important point in this age of globalism and advertising mediated conformity), but that relationships are a wonderful adventure. This book works well as a book to read out loud, but will also work as a visual story for little ones to read to themselves even without the words.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

Focus: Reflections

Editor: Julie Hale

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I'm a sucker for good photography, I love light and I am fascinated by reflections. Is it any wonder I grabbed a book from a stack offered by a passing bookseller that combines all three? This is a small format hard-cover book packed with fascinating images (around 180 pages with an image per page). With a theme like "Reflections" the subject matter is very broad, from "found art" (photographs that are impromptu of people and scenes that are not rehearsed) through to carefully structured close-ups.

There are a wide range of styles as well. I love the shot of a single pencil coil of pencil shaving shot against a shiny dark table, but equally an astonishing shot of a closed lily bud with three dew drops hanging from it... each reflecting perfectly an open flower from the background.

The pages are mostly offered as diptychs, with pictures on the left and right that have some resonance with each other. Sometimes it is a colour, sometimes a concept such as a page of pool reflections that have been inverted so we see the reflection as the reality. Some of the links are shapes, some are textures, some are technical, such as a set of three shots that are duo-tones with vignette... but all from different photographers.

There is little discussion of how this collection was put together. All artists are attributed, but the back cover suggests the sources are "emerging photographers" from image hosting sites.

This is a celebration of light and reflection in a thoughtfully selected presentation with dazzling variety. It is well printed and a surprisingly satisfactory format for a relatively small book. There is no material I could find that would give parents any cause for concern for younger viewers... and I'm going to suggest that younger students would enjoy glancing through this to find and enjoy eye catching photographs. As well as the book cover I have added one of my own "reflection" photographs from the Blue Mosque in Kuala Lumpur.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Old Man Mad About Drawing and Hokusai Prints and Drawings

Hokusai was a renowned Japanese artist who died in 1849. Even if you know nothing about Japanese prints you will be familiar with one of his famous images at it inspired the Quiksilver Clothing logo. We have two beautiful books now in the OLRC. The one I love most is Hokusai Prints and Drawings (Author Matthi Forrer). It is a hefty book with 200 pages covering Hokusai's major series (such as 36 Views of Mount Fuji)   nicely reproduced in colour, though not at the original size. There is a thirty page introduction about his life and art.

I can think of many reasons to sift through these beautiful and exotic images. He is an acclaimed master, but also heavily influenced the French Impressionists. Many well known artists have been collectors of his prints. He is sometimes said to be the forerunner of modern Manga, but his works were never assembled into comic styled stories. Individual pictures, however, often tell intriguing stories. When you reflect that much of what is in the book are hand carved woodblocks you can also start to appreciate the artisanship involved in the fine lines, detail and delicate textures.

For younger readers, we have The Old Man Mad About Drawing (by Francois Place). This lovely book tells the story of Hokusai's life from the point of view of a young boy who sells rice cakes and meets the famous artist. It is illustrated both with original Hokusai prints and also with charming illustrations of Japanese street life done in the style of Hokusai. Both book are suitable for any age, with the Biography suiting Year Four and up.

For those who want to follow up connections, I reviewed 36 Views of Mount Fuji by Cathy Davidson a few weeks ago. This is the story of her time spent in Japan and is named and structured as a tribute to Hokusai.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

Cloud Atlas

Author: David Mitchell

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Cloud Atlas is an exciting and unusual novel. It uses a structure I have never seen before in a book... a nested palindrome.  The book opens with a story set about 200 years ago, which is half told, then interrupted. A new story starts, set in the early 20th C. This is then interrupted, and a contemporary story starts, which in turn gives way to a story set in the foreseeable future, then another story starts in the far, post-apocalyptic future. This is the “keystone” of the arch, and after it is told the other stories are completed in order. Each story in the layer is connected in some way to the story that follows, typically by having the main character in the subsequent story read, view or observe the previous story. This could have been handled badly but Mitchell does this well. As soon as the structure’s full design became clear I was actually pumping the air with my fist and saying “YES”.

The author simply disdains the conventional divisions such as “historical fiction”, “adventure story” and “science fiction”. I was delighted to find out that the book was both on the Booker Prize short list (as literature) and the Nebula Award short list (as Sci Fi) in the same year. The connections between the stories are not forced. In some ways this consists of six well written short stories or novellas that have been torn in two and inserted in each other. Doing this, however, and doing it with the nesting also happening in terms of an ascending then descending time line, opens all sorts of wonderful possibilities for subtle interactions between the “layers” of stories. For instance, once you read about how the character in the fifth story is remembered in the sixth story, you have a new layer of understanding of her fate and purpose as you read the conclusion of the fifth story. There is also the hint of a more mystical connection as each main character seems to carry a similar birth mark.

The stories are of many kinds, each told in the first person, each using a language representing the age and context.  There is a decided moral tone throughout the book, though one of the characters is decidedly immoral, and other characters describe distressing sights and events.  While the book
reeks with imagination and is redolent with rich story-telling, it is not merely artifice and rumination. Most of the stories have elements of adventure, risk and challenge: I was torn between reading for the sometimes poetic language and intriguing cross references, and flicking pages in my normal style to catch the drift of the action.

I was reminded of another recent favourite, A Visit from the Goon Squad which also combines interlinked tales with stories from past, present and future. I was also reminded of the extraordinary Gödel, Bach and Escher by Douglas Hofstadter which explores the concept of layers of meaning and
reference.

This is a thoroughly engaging book for an adult reader who is prepared to explore unusual structures. There are definitely adult themes and references to sexual encounters, some quite grim, though overall there are positive messages about resilience, fortitude, courage and virtue. A delightful
discovery for me!

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Shadow Girl

Author: John Larkin

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I’ll break some rules here, and review a book that I’m not putting in the library. Don’t get me wrong, it is a book I read to the end with interest, and there is nothing in it that makes it inappropriate for adult readers. The problem I see is that it takes a real issue (and starts with a real story) and puffs it up into a sensationalised drama. Even this is not the heart of the reason I struggle with the book… it is just that it is plainly intended for teen readers.

A bit of context is in order. John Larkin is a prolific teen fiction/ young adult writer. The book was inspired by meeting a girl who told him her story about being a run-away. There is no suggestion however that this is a biography. It is simply a story that starts with the idea of an intelligent girl who runs away from home to escape a predatory uncle/guardian. We are introduced to her through a number of scenes where she describes her life to the author, but segue into first person narration. I find the mechanism a little contrived. In order to tell the story with a sense of development certain details are held back even though we can see the author and the story teller are both aware of the details in the narrative “now”.  I am not adverse to complex narratives (loved All That I Am) but clunkiness is always annoying.

I found myself reeling with the series of tragedies and confrontations the girl has to deal with… not just exposure to a sexual predator, but violence, murder, rape, betrayal and institutional neglect. I am pleased that there are some adults who provide a degree of kindness or even shelter for the girl, so the book is not without its sense of hope. Religion gets some pretty stern serves and the only religious leaders shown are either uncaring or, in one case, sexual predators themselves.

A friend of mine found the book fascinating, and I found it interesting, but showing all the hallmarks of a recent trend to offer teens books with levels of adult themes, sex and violence that not that many years ago would have been questioned in books for adults.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

36 Views of Mount Fuji

Author: Cathy N. Davidson

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This delightful, autobiographical book leapt out at me from the shelves of the gift shop at the Museum of Contemporary Art. It is a poignant and sometimes funny account of the author’s various stays in Japan, where she worked as an English teacher at a university. While the edition I have was published in 2006, the book was written in 1993, so the Japan we meet is not the 21st century Japan. Having been fascinated by the country, culture and people all my life, I found this book touched on many of the complexities of Japan that I have pondered, and I identified strongly with some of her experiences.

At the same time, this is not simply a travelogue. She describes in painful detail sad events in the lives of some who she got close to in Japan, and also the upheaval and devastation of losing unexpectedly a close family member. The book certainly has some amusing and entertaining travel tales, but also deploys some motifs and images that link different scenes.

This is unlikely to attract younger readers but older teens and adults who are interested in Japan or simply the complex interface between cultures will find this stimulating. Several of her stories refer to blown green glass fishing net floats that she used to collect… and I was moved to find just such a float advertised on the website of a Sydney vendor of all things Japanese the other night.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

All That I Am

Author: Anna Funder

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I am not personally a fan of historical novels… but this crept up on me as I did not realise that it was! To start with I associate historical novels with books about Anne Boleyn, and this is actually about the “between the wars” period in Germany. In fact while we hear a bit about Hitler and the National Socialist Party, this is the story of some of the key figures in short lived Bavarian Soviet Republic, a left wing government in Germany ousted by Hitler. Those involved were mercilessly hunted by German agents of the Nazis even when they had escaped to England or other countries.

The story is told in a complex way, but I found this attractive, partly because real stories are complex. We hear from two narrators: Ruth and Toller. Ernst Toller was a real figure, a German playwright, a Jew, and for six short days president of the ill-fated Bavarian Soviet Republic. Ruth is the woman to whom the book is dedicated, whose life was closely linked to Toller and to the third key character in this story, Dora Fabian. Dora was an early feminist, a pacifist and anti-Nazi campaigner, who was found dead in her flat in England raising the possibility that she had been murdered by a Nazi agent.

We meet Ruth still living in contemporary Bondi and Toller who lived a distressed life as an emigrant in the US. Toller writes the story of Dora’s life and work. Ruth tells us something of her quiet Sydney existence, but thinks back to the events in Germany and England. While she initially seems on the periphery of the drama, it becomes clear as we go through the book that she is ultimately deeply involved in the drama and tragedy.

This is rich in historical detail while being the story of particular individuals, not the story of an event or epoch. I found it moving and eye opening… details about a time in Germany I was hardly aware of. Recommended for older teens and thoughtful adults. Some of this deals with grim matters, though there are no grotesque or unnecessarily intimate descriptions. Younger readers may struggle with the multiple voices (two voices and at least two levels of flash back) as well as the terrible injustice of both German and English intolerance and anti-Semitism.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

Brotherband: The Outcasts

Author: John Flanagan:
Short-listed for the Children's Book Council of Australia 2012 Book of the Year

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Following the successful international best-seller Ranger’s Apprentice, John Flanagan’s new series Brotherband will be appreciated by younger and older readers.

Flanagan deals with issues such as bullying and being ostracised. Brotherband is about boys who are seen as losers but battle on to achieve their goals.

When I was twelve years old we moved to a small country town. It has been many years but I still remember the pain when the most popular students chose their teams for softball from the most popular kids to the least popular and no one wanted me! Being thought of as worthless does enormous damage to children. In Brotherband eight boys face the same pain.

John Flanagan creates a world of seafaring adventures, treacherous pirates and epic battles. In Skandia, there is only one way to become a warrior. When boys turn sixteen they are grouped together and chosen for teams called brotherbands. They must endure three months of gruelling training in seamanship, weapons and battle tactics. When Hal Mikkelson finds himself the unwilling leader of a brotherband made up of misfits and outcasts, he must step up to the challenge. His team consists of such boys as the thief, the huge blind boy and the boy who mimics animals. Hal himself is an outcast as his mother is not Scandian. The "Heron" brotherband might not have the strength and numbers of the other teams, but use their strange skills, inventiveness, ingenuity and courage to succeed.

Flanagan will get readers thinking about bullying issues while enjoying a great story. The boys may have fewer in their team and they may be picked on by the other teams but they go about winning points with good humour and against the odds. The story also tells young readers not to give up when things are tough. This is certainly the case when we see the boys sailing away from Scandia ready for the adventures and challenges of the second book The Invaders.

Anne Montgomery
Odell Learning Resources Centre

When We Were Two

Author: Robert Newton  

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It is 1914. Brothers Dan and Eddie can no longer cope with home life in a country town in New South Wales.  Even their dog, Bess, has suffered since their mother left home and headed for the coast. Dan decides to leave and Eddie follows: dog and all, they start to walk over the mountains to Port Macquarie. Dan will have to be responsible for their journey into the unknown.

There are no streetlights in the small towns they will pass through. The roads are dirt tracks. There are no cars, only horses and carts.  The characters they meet on the roads have their own reasons for travelling: not all are reputable. One group have a single ambition – to join up to fight in The Great War. These would-be soldiers protect the lads.  The brothers left home as boys wanting  to change their difficult circumstances. They arrive having matured through their experiences and comradeship.

This story will touch your heart... suitable for Year 5 and up.

Reviewed by Gayle Davidson  
Odell Learning Resources Centre

Past the Shallows

Author: Favel Parrett

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Beyond the shallows, as we all know, you get into deep water. A family ekes out an existence diving for abalone in the south of Tasmania. Harry, the smallest boy of the family is protected… he has not been forced to go on the boat because of his sea-sickness, and his older brother Miles protects him from their sometimes violent father. The sea is everywhere, but it seems the land is not necessarily safer.

This first novel has been shortlisted for the Miles Franklin award this year, and it is a sad but familiar story. We slowly discover through emerging memories the events of the past that have shaped the unhappy present. There are many glimpses of the familiar for Australian readers: familiar show bags, familiar rural scenes, familiar guarded comments  from the adults who surround the family.

The narrator’s role is passed deftly but abruptly between three boys, so the twin narratives of history and the present are formed from fragments. As the book progresses these start to make a complete story but it is still up to the reader to assemble the whole. The author does an excellent job of conveying the different degrees of innocence and perspective of the two boys.

There is little graphical “adult” material apart from some swearing. The issues and themes, however, and tragedies that befall the characters, means this is more of an older teens or adult read.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

Beyond the Knock Knock Door

Author: Scott Monk

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This is a cheerful fantasy romp that starts and ends in an Australian suburb, and spends most of its time in a playfully imagined land…beyond the Knock Knock door. The children involved are triplets, though of three different characters, and are not entirely sure that they like each other or want to work together despite being catapulted into hair raising adventures.

This is not classical fantasy. Monk sets up a mechanism in which one triplet is a pirate, one is a knight and one is a space ranger. A little like the old “Vikings” game that started Blizzard on its journey, each has to use the power of their costumes to solve different challenges along the way. They travel to a land where fish swim in the air and islands float as well… but it turns out the people are not what they seem either. Much more would be a spoiler.

I did not find myself really warming to this yarn. There is no real effort to justify the strange sights or physics of the land, so it is a “what if” land rather than a carefully created world. It is a story where the children have to look beyond appearances to work out what is right and wrong. Though the children are described in an enthusiastic and animated style, there was little subtlety or development.

I am more than happy to have the book on the shelves… it will make a thrilling if quirky read for a middle school student.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

Wonderstruck

Author: Brian Selznick

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This is a “novel in words and pictures” even more so than the author’s celebrated The Invention of Hugo Cabret. By this I mean that the story is told by means of two threads. One, told mainly in words but with some haunting pictures (especially of dreams) is of young Ben Wilson. The other told entirely in pictures for the first two thirds of this hefty book is of a young girl in an earlier age. One of the joys of this complex literary device is the ability to hint at links between the two stories… and there is a delight in doing this while swapping medium (words to pictures and back). Initially the links are reflections or echoes, but gradually the two stories converge and as you might expect a moment comes when they become one story.

As with Hugo there is considerable drama surrounding the main protagonist, Ben. His mum has died, and though he is cared for by a kindly Aunt and Uncle, he is slowly starting to realise the depth and consequences of his loss. His nights are disturbed by terrifying dreams of wolves, and shows strange obsessions in wanting to collect tiny objects that are meaningless to others. All these disturbances crystallize when his one good ear is damaged and he decides to plunge into a search for someone or something he has lost.

I enjoyed reading Wonderstruck. It is, in appearance, a solid tome, but due to the heavy paper weight and many, many double spread illustrations the reading time is not that long. It is a satisfactory story with drama, tension and completion, but I enjoyed the medium and process a bit more than the actual story. There was a sense to me that the story telling was a bit disjointed in parts, and the ending perhaps too comfortable.

This would suit most ages though some of the images could be uncomfortable for young children, who would also struggle with some of the descriptive and explanatory print passages. There are important themes of dealing with grief, struggles with memory, friendship, family and disability. Just as Hugo celebrates the history of the theatre so Wonderstruck has a good deal about museums in it.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Dead I Know

Author: Scot Gardner

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This book is simultaneously satisfying and disturbing. It touches on death, physical abuse, loneliness, alcoholism and self-doubt, and yet all of these grim themes are set against a sometimes mundane world where at least one family cares for the increasingly desperate Aaron.

Aaron is a teenager who has left school before Year Twelve. He has opted to take a job in a local funeral parlour, and it is here that he must confront death and the discomforting challenges of the trade. Compared to other parts of his life, the small family run business is actually a haven. Aaron struggles with inner and external torment. He has shocking dreams that start to push a door open to something he does not want to remember. He lives with his carer in a caravan park and there attracts the hostility of teenage thugs and a vindictive supervisor.

The story unfolds with a series of ever more intense confrontations and challenges for Aaron. Some of the detail is, I feel, far too gritty for younger readers, but John Barton, the owner of the funeral home, is doing his best to understand Aaron’s defensive secrets and silence, knows things are not going well, and is determined to help if he can.

Aaron is an engaging character, and the reader is likely to be barracking for him right through to the last page. My personal unease was that for the purpose of the story Aaron faces a perfect storm of emotional and physical struggle, so the events are well beyond the sort of thing a normal teen reader may have ever experienced. We accept this in an action story or a sci fi space opera, but this book is seemingly about an ordinary boy in an ordinary suburb.

Emotionally intense and including scenes of murder, physical violence and death. Short listed for this year's CBCA awards.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Golden Day

Author Ursula Dubosarsky

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This is a charming book, though I am puzzled about it. What genre is it? Who would read and enjoy it? Does it tell a story or is it more like a painting that captures a moment and into which we read unspoken stories?

Eleven little girls make up a class in an unnamed private girls school in Sydney… they and their idiosyncratic teacher, Miss Renshaw. The girls giggle together as they walk hand in hand to the nearby botanical gardens by the edge of the harbour. They know the reason for the regular visits: Miss Renshaw likes to talk to one of the gardeners, Morgan.

One particular day Morgan offers to show Miss Renshaw and the girls a secret cave he knows of, and that is the start of… well, in another author’s hands the start of a magical journey into another country, or detective story. In this book there is a single startling event (no spoilers here) and one finds that one is close to the end of the book.

My hint about a painting is not accidental: there is much reference in the authors notes to various Australian paintings. I did enjoy the descriptions and writing style that mixes action, observation and scattered and somewhat disconnected allusions to hymns, poems and phrase motifs. It is a modern palette that chooses broad brush strokes over smooth representation. Still, unlike serious modern writers the book is short and not especially complicated (I am not actually making a criticism there).

This book has been shortlisted for the 2012 Children's Book Council Awards (Older Readers) but I can’t quite pick the reading audience: perhaps Middle School girls with an interest in unusual stories.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

Tanglewood

Author Margaret Wild
 Illustrator Vivienne Goodman

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Do you glance at the picture books that some Junior School children bring home from the OLRC and dismiss them as “just for the little ones”? Yes, I know that there are trivial and repetitious stories, poor or unimaginative illustrations, and endless repetition of the same plot outline. However one of my favourite episodes of Black Books was the one where Bernard and Manny decide to write a children’s book, for after all “how hard can it be?” A night of soul searching and a stack of jotter pads later and they were no closer to a good idea than at the start. 

Tanglewood is a complex, thought provoking story told mainly in pictures. A twisted, gnarled tree stands alone on a small atoll, asking passing seals and birds for company. Without understanding why, it feels its grip on life slipping away, until one day during a violent storm a gull is battered unconscious and drops into the middle of the tree. 

This beautifully illustrated story does indeed discuss living and dying, loneliness, time and family, bravery and commitment, hope and determination… and by now in the review I have used more words than are in the book. Rather than a single approach to page layout the illustrator uses aspects of layout to convey aspects of meaning. As an example a page talking about the passing of much time has a double spread full of small “days” with all sorts of weather and events. 

The pictures that held me most, however, are the pictures of the roots of the tree. These are possibly metaphors for what holds us embedded in life, but even without that they are beautifully complex and I can imagine some children (and adults) following individual roots as they wrap around each other and twist into the ground. 

Suitable for young children but full of reverberations for adults. I would make reading this a parent/child activity given the sombre notes at times, though there is a joyfull outcome. Teachers may be glad of this book as it allows much discussion of visual literacy matters such as framing, colour, texture, naturalism and aspect ratio. Given its reliance on the visual, there is much in the book that must be intuited or figured out. 

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Fault in Our Stars

Author: John Green

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I read a book about dying from cancer. I laughed all the way through. I then pondered long and hard as to where I would review this. 350Wordsorless is for books actually inthe Odell Learning Resources Centre library. As you can tell, I’m going to get this book but may display it in my office while I’m thinking through the harder questions. 

I simply wouldn’t bother scratching my head over a poorly written or insignificant book… but this is neither. The story is told by Hazel, a seventeen year old who does not go to college much, and has become fixated on a particular book (an invention of the author) called An Imperial Affliction. Hazel’s life has been somewhat constrained by having serious cancer, so serious that she is permanently on oxygen and, as far as she knows at the start of the book, facing only a limited time left on earth. 

Almost everything that follows is the opposite to the reader’s expectation. Hazel fits no simple stereotypical cancer victim persona. She is feisty, but refuses to be “brave”. Her parents are admirable and understanding, and while she finds them irritating at times she does not hate them. While many of the people you meet in the book also have cancer of various sorts, some very significant people in her life do not. Hazel is not exactly an ordinary teen, despite her “teenspeak” language, and shows a distinctly philosophical bent (in part influenced by the book she can’t stop reading and thinking about). 

Hazel questions much of the conventional “dance” of the cancer patient… doctor’s attitudes, support group platitudes, even her parents insistence that she “gets out more and makes friends”. She does, with unexpected consequences. 

This is not a self help book about coping with cancer. It is a book about friendship, romance and serious relationships, philosophy, death, grief, family and afterlife. While most of it is reasonably realistic, Hazel does encounter at least one larger than life character, but even he is essentially made up of super failings rather than super powers. 

I enjoyed this from cover to cover… so if you are reading this as a parent you will be wondering what could possibly cause me any concern (spoilers follow). Writing: very nicely done, swinging from “teen speak” to philosophy and back. Language: not too bad, mostly restrained. Violence: emotionally tough in parts but no physical violence. Sex: Hazel does go to bed with her boyfriend. It is handled discreetly but there is absolutely no doubt what does happen. Morality and overall hopefulness: this is a book that investigates death from cancer from the eyes of a teenager, and is consequently potentially harrowing for some. It does it (I believe) very well. Family allegiance is celebrated, as is faithfulness to friends and to those you are romantically involve with. Generosity, honesty and a kind of gritty positivity is pushed to the forward. Christianity: some of the Christians in the story are not shown as being especially helpful or responsive to Hazel’s real needs or ideas, on the other hand both sets of parents in the book seem to be church goers and this is not handled negatively. One of the characters believes in life after death (though not necessarily in a straightforward Christian context), another does not. 

So now you know… or at least enough to say “that’s the book for me” or “nah… not so much”. I hope adults do read this book… and I think it will have some positive things to say to teenagers who venture into its pages. Remember how I started? It’s a book about dying from cancer, and I laughed all the way through. 

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Dragon’s Tooth

 Author: N.D. Wilson

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A boy throws two old tires into an empty swimming pool, picks up a ringing phone in a dilapidated motel, and hears the voice of someone demanding to stay that night in Room 111. Cyrus (the boy) is furious when his older brother allows the stranger to stay in the room, as in fact it is his own bedroom, however by the morning, everything has changed. A night of fire, murder and strange events means you have entered an N. D. Wilson story. 

The author’s first series, 100 Cupboards, was an engaging American Fantasy series, and this book is the start of a new series. There are some things in common, but for those already missing the unionised fairies and hand carved wooden typewriter of the first books, I have to point out this book has a very different premise. In both cases the introductory book is especially attractive because it sets up a number of mysteries. In both cases the focus is not on an individual hero but on a family with a secret history… but not a family with innate or mysterious powers. 

Despite the title, the book is not about a world of high fantasy (dragons, elves and spells). Instead it proposes an ancient secret society whose purpose is to incarcerate forces of evil that seek to ravage the world. Their tools include guns, genetically enhanced dragon flies and planes as well as some more mysterious objects such as the dragon’s tooth fragment of the title. The book has at least has a very clear distinction between good and evil, with a particularly nasty master villain who dabbles in genetic modification of those he captures. I’m interested that in an end note the author talks about trying out sections of the book as bedtime stories for his own young children, as there is a quite strong violence and some very nasty characters. 

Some of the mechanisms are familiar from other stories, but both in his first series and in this book Wilson shows many distinctively original touches and ideas. I also enjoy reading his books as an adult, as he is quite capable of using beautifully crafted images and language. If I have a criticism apart from the violence it would be that some of the physical adventures and trials of Cyrus and his sister Antigone are rather over the top, however it does seem ironical to be talking about “realism” when in the throes of a fantasy story. 

So, the start of another series by an interesting writer with a good pedigree: some magic and horror elements and relatively strong violence, clear distinction between good and evil, and writing that is at times quite literary. 

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Lake of Dreams

Author: Kim Edwards

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This is rich fare but tasty. We start in Japan (that had me in from page one) as we meet the narrator Lucy Jarrett. She is living there with her partner Yoshi. Gradually themes emerge from her narrative about the details of the day (peppered with earthquake shocks). It becomes clear we are going to be looking at the idea of family relationships, the role of the near and far past in impacting the present, ideas about domesticity and independence, food, fine art and beauty. The book seems initially to be a fairly light read, but partly due to a small font and partly due to the gorgeous descriptive passages it took me longer than expected. 

Lucy journeys back to her home town (by the Lake of Dreams). Nothing is as she remembers it: her mother is falling in love with someone she has met, her uncle seems bent on purchasing pristine lake frontage and commercially developing it, and a former boyfriend is now a much talked about glass blower in the “crafts” section of the town. We walk with Lucy through small events, interactions and discoveries, and gradually the pace and intensity picks up. She becomes intrigued by evidence she discovers of an unknown relative two generations prior, and this becomes the focus of one of the larger story arcs. 

The book is well crafted, with a pacing that ebbs and flows, but I was interested till the conclusion. There are moments of high drama with particular revelations, but it is less about the surprises than gradual uncovering of dimensions in her own past that end up feeding significantly into her present dilemmas. The process of story telling is therefore more like polishing an old vase until you can start to see your own reflection. 

It is unlikely to attract younger teens given the lyrical passages, multi-layered narrative and rich use of interlinked motifs: recommended for older teens and adults. There is certainly reference to adult themes and interactions but little to be uncomfortable about.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

Mummy laid an egg!

Author: Babette Cole

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Children are naturally curious. One question that they really puzzle over is “Where do babies come from?”. Parents need all the help they can get to tell the biological truth in a fun way.

Babette Cole puts a hilarious twist on one of the most difficult yet important discussions necessary in their development. In the book the Mum explains “Girls – sugar and spice and all things nice”. Dad says “Boys, slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails”. Suggestions from the adults include “squidge them out of tubes of baby paste”, “make them out of ginger bread”, “grow them from seeds in the green house” and other whimsical nonsense.

The children in the story decide to illustrate with childish drawings the whole baby making process, so that their parents will no longer be as deluded as their silly answers imply.

Some parents may find the sketches unsuitable for young children. You can check it out on YouTube – or borrow it from the Odell Learning Resources Centre. This is a fresh and delightful way to convey some helpful detail about bodies and babies.

Gayle Davidson
Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Chemistry of Tears

Author: Peter Carey

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I’m a little cautious opening a Peter Carey book. Like many people I found Oscar and Lucinda a rather difficult book to read, with such tortured characters and dense writing. The Chemistry of Tears is a more accessible read (I’m pleased to report) though about another tortured soul. 

The narrator, Catherine, works in a British Museum as a clock and clockwork specialist. The story opens with her arrival at work only to discover that her workmate and secret lover of thirteen years has died suddenly of a heart attack. She is utterly devastated, trapped by the knowledge that she cannot share her grief with anyone. 

It turns out that someone does know… her boss, Eric Croft. With somewhat mysterious motivations, he arranges for her to take on thee extraordinary task of assembling an old automaton (shades of Hugo Cabret). In her grief-stricken altered state, she steals the voluminous notebooks found in the packing box, and we start to read the bizarre story behind the automaton interspersed with Catherine’s increasingly complex reactions to her bereavement, its consequences, and the very strange assistant who Croft provides. 

Not everyone enjoys the “two stories in one” structure, and I admit I hurried through some of the notebook narrative, but only because I was keen to find out more about Catherine. Some of her world and past is revealed, but this perhaps is a book more about grief, anxiety and obsession than about the narrative of a character’s whole life. The dramatic arc that is certainly there in both tales is more of growing complexity and mystery rather than of dramatic action. 

This will suit a reader prepared to deal with complex ideas and strange characters, but if that is not a barrier, then this is certainly worth a read. I note for parents that there is some explicit drug use and sexual references. Recommended for young adults and up, though due to the layers of complexity it is no casual light read. 

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Coming of the Whirlpool

Author: Andrew McGahan

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Dow Amber is the son of timber getter. When he is of age he follows his father and the men of the village up to the plateau to fell trees. While there his heart is stolen... not by a girl, but by an unexpected glimpse of the wild, surging ocean at the base of a headland. His safe world is unmade, and his fate is now to walk in strange and difficult paths. 

Andrew McGahan is an Australian author with several adult novels to his credit, including the Miles Franklin winner The White Earth. This book is the start of a fantasy series aimed at teens. When I say fantasy, I need to clarify that there are no elves, dragons or magic rings in this book, and no magic or monsters (though he may have some in store for later books). It is however set in a world that is almost but not quite Earth... a world with a much reduced level of technology.

In that world the Ship Kings have come to dominate and rule over other island people, and Dow’s fascination with the sea is going to bring him into rapid conflict with these inflexible rulers who allow no one else to even sail out at sea.

The writing is for the most part confident and effective. The various characters are interesting, the situations mostly believable, and there is a sense of several sub plots emerging. The language is more formal than I may have expected, but this is McGahan’s ploy to create a distinct “story telling” tone. It is clear from the cover (Ship Kings Book 1) that this is going to be a series, but he completes the story for this book in satisfactory way. My only real reservation is that in the most dramatic adventure or action section (the actual whirlpool of the title) I think both the physical phenomenon and the human action are a bit over the top. Still, he warns at the start that this is a different world with different rules. 

I will be interested to see how the story continues. It is a bold move to write a book that is in so many ways a fantasy adventure, yet to avoid the supernatural, fantasy world creatures and magic. There are likely to be larger forces at work, but so far they are described as fate, blood inheritance and a curse... and these are ideas expressed by characters, not directly by the author.
A good read for Year Five and above, and an interesting opening salvo from a good Australian author.

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre

The Blood Red Road

Author: Moira Young

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I finished this book a little confused. Is it a western transported into a dystopian future? Is it Sci Fi but without the aliens and gadgets? Is it a love story? Of course breaking genre boundaries is no crime, indeed can win you the Pulitzer Prize (A Visit from the Goon Squad). The problem here is whether the final result works. The folk who awarded this the 2011 Costa Book Award liked it… I was less certain. 

In a bleak future (presumably America) technology has been reduced to medieval level. Evidence of “The Wreckers” (presumably modern Americans) is everywhere, but mostly as scrap. A small family ekes out an existence beside a drying lake. The older children, Lugh and Sada, are twins. On one disastrous day Lugh is kidnapped and Sada vows to rescue him from the riders who have claimed him for a mysterious purpose. Though she is only eighteen her fighting ability and determination will lead her on many strange adventures as part of this mission.

To make life even more difficult she is also responsible for a younger sister, who she cannot love as she blames her for their mother’s death. She also meets Jack along the way, and Jack she finds fascinating and dangerous in equal proportion. 

The story is told in the first person from Sada’s perspective, and she is given a sort of “western” American dialect. Strangely (for a world so far in the future) there are very few new words, simply contractions like “gonna”, “fer”, “outta” and “git”. It is quite easy to read but I feel the author missed on an opportunity to have a more creative look at our ever mutable language. The stuff in the book could easily come from any western novel. 

The book is not really “Sci Fi” in most senses. There is no new technology, no aliens, just a bleak reduction of the future into the past. I personally also found it rather odd in the way it flicks between the love story between Sada and Jack, and the often quite intense action and violence of the rest of the book. Many of the ideas reminded me of other novels: it is not wrong to borrow, but I expect a blend of new and generic at least. The wise crow? Try The Hobbit. The older sister sacrificing herself for the younger? Hunger Games. The cage fighting in Hopetown? Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Even the land yacht is not so far away from Mortal Engines. A population enslaved by drugs? A Scanner Darkly.

I read to the end, but I’m not convinced I’d read another volume (as the series seems destined to continue). Can one come up with truly new ideas in fantasy or “future” novels in an American setting? Certainly! Orson Scott Card does an amazing job in the Alvin the Maker series, and more recently N D Wilson created a fascinating American fantasy with The 100 Cupboards series. I suppose The Blood Red Road comes closest to something like Tomorrow When the War Began. While Hunger Games is possibly more horrifying in the pitting of innocent against innocent, it also has to my way of thinking a much stronger moral centre. 

Suitable for teens and up, with a note that there is a range of intense and fairly graphical scenes of fighting and its consequences. 

Andrew Lack
Head of the Odell Learning Resources Centre