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