The Girl Who Didn’t Know Kelly: Historical novels, traditionally the least popular with children and young people, acquire a contemporary immediacy in the hands of David Martin, who uses the past to point up the timelessness of social issues. In his latest story the girl protagonist, Kit, is a young adolescent in the ton of Beechworth in 1880, when Ned Kelly and his gang were the talk of the district. Kit’s father is a prosperous and socially important bank manager; her best (but clandestine) friend the son of an impoverished Cornish miner. With the older and more sophisticated Dan as guide and mentor Kit makes her first slashes in the cocoon of social respectability surrounding her, and discovers that there are at least two sides to most questions, especially those regarding god, money, and the Kelly gang. Martin paints a gentle, affectionate picture of a young girl just beginning to grow up and an interesting interpretation of colonial life on the goldfields a hundred years ago, one which I think many of today’s young people could find surprisingly relevant. Ages twelve to fourteen.

Jess and the River Kids: This is the paperback reprint of a novel first published by Hamish Hamilton in 1984, and reviewed in Australian Book Review, August 1984. It is the story of a girl of about the same age as Kit Grimshaw, but the setting is a Murray River town at the time of the second world war. Jess’ life is secure and happy, and she has a freedom many contemporary readers would envy; but she becomes aware of other lifestyles and experiences through the chance meeting with two slightly younger boys and the handicapped but still alert and independent elderly woman who cares for them in an ancient houseboat on the river. Judith O’Neill is an expatriate now living in Cambridge; this first novel draws on her own memories of growing up in Mildura at the time of this novel, with its vividly recaptured flavour of time and place. Related books: Eleanor Spence’s The Seventh Pebble (Oxford), Janni Howker’s Badger on the Barge (Julia MacRae).

The Changelings of Chaan: Australian fantasy seems to be going from strength to strength, as does the expanding world view of Australian authors. Like Victor Kelleher (whose fantasy, Master of the Grove, won the Children’s Book Council award in 1983), David Lake is British by birth, and also travelled widely before settling here. Lake’s childhood was spent in India, and his intimate knowledge of southeast Asian life and culture forms the basis for this absorbing novel, set in a mythical kingdom somewhere between Thailand and Indonesia. The narrator: is a fourteen-year-old English boy, the son of a woman doctor, who tells with ingenious enthusiasm his impressions of the exotic kingdom, and of his meeting with the princeling Ajo, who turns out to be his astrological twin and is soon his closest friend. Together the boys are drawn into the orbit of a powerful magician who is searching through space and time for the legendary crown of the rulers of Chaan, missing for generations, and believed to carry with it the luck of the kingdom. A wholly original, fascinating, and many-layered novel of magic and romantic , adventure that will leave young readers with much to think about. Ages twelve to fourteen.

Seashores and Shadows: This is the traditional, classic outdoor adventure updated to meet the more demanding and sophisticated modern standards by the doyen of Australian writers for young people. It concerns the adventures of twin cousins, city-bred Joe and fiery Meg who has lived all her life in the fishing village to which Joe comes as a fourteen-year-old refugee after the death of his father. The reader shares the boy’s enthusiasm for his new life, exploring sea and space and the security of a warm family relationship. Tension is introduced with a dramatic shark attack followed by a full-scale big game hunt for the killer shark; an expedition that ends in tragedy as the fishing launch explodes and Meg and Joe find themselves stranded on an uninhabited island with a badly injured adult to care for until help arrives. Ages twelve to fourteen.

When the Mountains Change Their Tune: Eleanor Stodart has written a number of factual books for younger children but this is her first attempt at a novel, the result of her own interest in ski-touring in the Snowy Mountains. The characters are four boys who set off from Canberra for a weekend of cross-country skiing, and whose holiday turns into a nightmare as a sudden storm descends on them. The two older and more experienced boys are incapacitated through illness and injury leaving the young novices with the responsibility of somehow getting them all to safety through the blinding blizzard. The novel is virtually a ski survival manual of greatest interest to other ski enthusiasts who would appreciate the finer technicalities of the exercise. Ages twelve to fourteen.

Suffer Dogs: Frank Willmott’s first novel, Breaking Up, looked at life in working class inner suburbia from the perspective of an outside, a boy from a middle-class background distanced from his peers by his family’s social patterns and also by his own questioning, lonely, personality. In Suffer Dogs Willmot observes the same scene from the inside: fourteen-year-old Eric is the eldest in a large family whose father has deserted, and his mum unable to cope, sends him interstate to stay with her sister for an indefinite time, So the boy must start anew, in another seedy suburb, and with a family whose problems are, if anything worse than those of his own. Willmott has written a damning indictment of a social system in which the poorly housed, poorly educated underdogs have little hope of ever breaking through the endless chain of circumstance that fetters them. I imagine this is the sort of novel that the author himself would have liked to use for class discussion in his years as a high school teacher; other dedicated educators will benefit from his passion. Ages twelve to fifteen.

Orange Wendy: Brisbane, comfortable and middle class, is the setting for this novel, in as sharp contrast to the grotty background of Suffer Dogs as Wendy differs from Eric. This is a straightforward, uncomplicated teenage problem novel told by fifteen-year-old Wendy herself – fat, freckled and lonely, arid in heaven when one of the popular cliques at her school invites her in. There is, of course, a reason; and despite a certain amount of overwriting Stewart captures very well the miserable insecurity of a young and inexperienced outsider. Judy Blume fans of twelve to fourteen will enjoy this.

Short Stories

For adolescents who have never been switched on to reading, and who turn off completely at the thought of having to decipher yet another BORING novel, short stories may offer a second chance. Tech school librarian Jo Goodman is probably more aware of this need and its possible solution than most; as editor of Win Some, Lose Some she has selected eighteen brief vignettes of contemporary life, ranging through drama, humour, and social satire, and all having in common that indefinable quality (energy? conviction? immediacy?) that distinguishes a story you can’t put down. For older teenagers – those that librarians like to label ‘young adults’ – Frank Willmott and Robyn Jackson have collected the stories in Crazy Hearts, in which such authors as Gabrielle Carey and Jenny Pausacker take a far more penetrating, but equally involving, look at society. Try for example Willmott’s own “Karl in the small room”, a marvellous story of love and alienation, or Noel Maloney’s “Friends”, as haunting a tale as any I’ve come across from some time. Shane Wall’s Spreading Out contains ten of his own stories, which according to the blurb ‘‘focus on issues and dilemmas which concern young people in today’s complex and increasingly fragmented society’’ .and is “designed for use in Years 9-11 English classes”. Unfortunately, the. writing is so dreary it can best be described as anti-literature: students required to work their way through such passages as

I could pick out the wrinkled brow of my mother, the dark rings under her tired-looking eyes which were now red-rimmed. She nervously reached her hand up to fidget with her hair which she wore, as always, in a severe, tightly drawn back style… I watched in awe at her strength and then, noticing the crushed appearance given by her hunched-over shoulders and shuffling gait, realised that she was only human.

could well be excused from switching off literature forever.

Younger Readers

MacLeod Prank Boulderbuster
Scholes The Boy and the Whale
Dann One Night at Lottie’ s House
Cargill The Children’s World of Mr Kelly

Humour – that rarest and most precious ingredient – is paramount in all of Doug MacLeod’s stories, and Frank Boulderbuster is easily .the funniest yet. Here is the archetypal swaggie·in an archetypal send-up; a gaunt laconic. specimen who confides, ‘my mother would keep telling me how terrible, swagmen were, so it was only natural that I should become a swagman myself.’ What child could resist that sort of introduction? MacLeod writes like an Aussie cross between Sid Fleischman and Roald Dahl, in a succession of tall (but kinky) tales just begging to be read aloud. Try for example the great shingleback lizard race – or the story of the boxing ghost – totally addictive. All ages. In contrast to MacLeod’s freewheeling humour, The Boy and the Whale is serious indeed. The rare pygmy sperm whale was found by Sam early one morning, stranded at high tide level, and the boy realised he must do everything in his power to try to keep it alive until help came. This is a fine story of conservation and personal responsibility on a timely topic, and should prove an interesting and popular focus for class discussion. Ages nine to twelve.

One Night at Lottie’s House is about Arthur, a cautious and conservative child, who takes no chances, especially when away from home. Staying overnight with Lottie he arrives prepared for anything – but he hadn’t counted on the total, eccentricity of Lottie’s parents, or the unnervingly offbeat house itself. Max Dann’s brief story offers a light-hearted sendup of conformist consumerism and several other issues, and should be enjoyed by readers of around seven to ten.

The Children’s World of Mr Kelly is an enormous volume, running. to 432 large pages, and came with three brief excerpts issued as separate folders, (more are planned). The author writes that ‘the book’s primary aim was to record for all time what was available to be seen in the heart of the historic Glenrowan. West – Eleven Mile ,Creek districts in the, 1930’s. At that time there were still a number of people living who were young men and :women in the 1880’s era... All stories are true as they happened. All conversations are written as they did take place’. It appears that the author is writing from her own childhood memories of the 1930s, and especially of James Kelly, brother of Ned, who would have been in his seventies at the time. Source material for a children’s novel?

Paperbacks

Kenihan Red & the Heron St gang

Fowler The green wind

Giles Biycycles don’t fly

Giles Flying backwards

Morris, Adventures at Bangotcher Junction

Mattingley Duck boy

Greenwood Marley & friends

Donnelly and Mealing Adventures in the lost kingdom of radish

Red and the Heron Street Gang is set in Mildura, the story of a ten-year-old tomboy whose energy and spirit often get her into trouble, particularly with disapproving neighbours and the strict Sisters at her school. Impetuous and generous, she befriends the handicapped Barnaby, and the climax of the story comes when they are caught in the flooded river and Red must save them both from imminent drowning. This is a lively story with an interesting background that should appeal to both boys and girls despite the uncompromisingly feminist cover. Ages eight to ten.

The Green Wind takes place not far away, on a soldier settlers’ fruit block in the Murray River irrigation district. The heroine is eleven-year-old Jennifer, whose life is complicated firstly by the continual hostility between herself and her brothers and sister, secondly by her hostility toward her school mates, and thirdly by the entire family’s problem in understanding their father still only partially recovered from the effects of his years as a prisoner of war. Ages ten to twelve.

Adventures at Bangotcher Junction is based on the radio serial “Bangotcher Junction” broadcast by the BBC .and on air in Victoria in1985. The four linked stories in the book tell of the adventures of Bat and Possum, residents of a sleepy outback railway station ,whose lives take a surprising twist with the arrival of Gnome, who has come from Norway to lead the Australian sector of the International Gnome Watch in a series of magical adventures … A read-aloud book ages around four to seven.

Bicycles Don’t Fly, first published in 1982, has been a consistent best seller with four reprintings to date; a vindication of innate juvenile good taste, for its popularity is due to the enthusiasm of the young readers themselves. It is all about eleven-year-old Jack, who got some of old Bill’s special Blue Oil for his billycart and discovered that it really was magic, especially for bicycles. In Flying Backwards Jack and his erstwhile enemy, Pug, use the last of the Blue Oil on a bike ride that takes them not only back through time but into a series of lively adventures, past and present. It is the combination of lively dialogue, amusing incident, child-orientated adventure and a sound knowledge of the BMX scene that makes these brief novels the winners they are with nine- to twelve-year-old readers.

Duck Boy was first published in hard-back by Angus & Robertson in 1983 with line drawings by Patricia Mullins. The Puffin edition is illustrated far more sympathetically, by Tessa Barwick, while the smaller (‘Young Puffin’) format and large print make an, inviting book for young independent readers. The hero of the story is Adam, one of three children on a farm holiday without their parents for the first time. Mattingley skilfully portrays a family pattern that will be only too familiar to many young readers, as Adam is constantly belittled or rebuffed by his older siblings. It is Mrs Perry, the understanding farm wife, who quietly encourages the child, finding projects equal to his increasing self-confidence. A good follow-on Pat Hutchins’s universally popular Titch; ages seven to nine.

Marley and Friends (Hutchinson 1983) is for a still younger age group, the story of a small pre-schooler who shares her richly imaginative adventures with her three stuffed-toy. best friends. Ted Greenwood has the rare ability to enter into a young child’s world and see things from that fresh, perspective; always warm and understanding, and never talking down. A special story to read aloud, a chapter at a time, to three- to four-year-olds at bedtime.

Adventures in the Lost Kingdom of Radish is a rambling, disorganised fairy-tale about a mythical kingdom, a hermit, an innocent girl, a young hero, a villain, etc. It is badly overwritten, insultingly patronising and much too long. The illustrations match the text.