28th November 2014. Session F4.3.
Presented by Deb McPherson and Helen Sykes.
This is Part I. Part II is a separate post.
This is Part I. Part II is a separate post.
These notes provide more information about the titles Deb and Helen
introduced in their session at the 2014 ETANSW Conference. As always, Deb and
Helen had more titles to tell teachers about than time available. In fact, they
couldn't even fit everything on the two-page handout, despite resorting to a
very small font. So some of these titles weren't even mentioned in the session
but, as either Deb or Helen - or in most cases both of them - had read them and
thought them worthwhile, they have been included here.
The majority of these titles are fiction. In presenting the fiction
titles in their session, Deb and Helen extracted just a few that they
recommended warmly as possible class-set titles. Of course, this is a difficult
call to make: all kinds of novels can work well as class sets, depending on who
your kids are and what you want to do with them, but there's a small group of
books that work most of the time with most classes. Deb and Helen agreed on
this short list, but then wanted you to know about a great many other terrific novels
that your students will enjoy reading. To encourage you to think about
developing wide reading units, they grouped these titles under some possible
wide reading topics.
While the focus is always on fiction, Deb and Helen always try to draw
teachers' attention to any resource that will enhance their teaching. This year
they have especially concentrated on plays, which have been hard to find. They
are pleased with the list they were able to offer to those who attended their
session. To celebrate the release of the excellent new editions of Cambridge
School Shakespeare, they also put special emphasis on great resources for
teaching Shakespeare.
The annotated notes below are presented alphabetically. There is a lot
to read. As always, each blurb is followed by a recommendation. If you are
looking for a resource of a particular kind, skim the recommendations first.
To help you navigate such a long list of titles, Deb and Helen have
reproduced (and extended a little) the handout that they gave out during their
session.
An overview
Each of the titles listed in this overview is annotated in the
alphabetical listing below. Some titles appear more than once in the overview.
Some class set novels
The First
Voyage by Allan Baillie. Penguin, 2014.
Joyous and Moonbeam by Richard
Yaxley. Omnibus Books, 2013.
Loyal Creatures
by Morris Gleitzman.
Viking, 2014.
The
Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil
Gaiman. Headline, 2014.
Razorhurst by Justine Larbalestier. Allen &
Unwin, 2014.
Refuge by Jackie French. HarperCollins, 2013.
The Ship Kings series by Andrew McGahan. Allen &
Unwin.
The Wall: A Modern Fable by William Sutcliffe. Bloomsbury
Publishing, 2014 (2013).
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
Wildlife by Fiona Wood. Pan Macmillan, 2013.
Some narrative apps
Midnight Feast by Slap
Harry Larry.
The Rules of
Summer by Shaun Tan. We Are Wheelbarrow Pty Ltd.
The Silent History. Ying Horowitz & Quinn.
Summer of the
Seventeenth Doll app. Currency Press.
Some plays
The Black-bearded Bai and
Other Plays from Asian Folklore by Richard Baines. Phoenix Education, 2013.
Cyberbile and Grounded by Alana Valentine. Currency
Press, 2013. ISBN 9780868199849. 111 pp.
The Girl Who
Ran with Gazelles by Richard Baines. Phoenix Education 2014.
His Mother's
Voice by Justin Fleming. Phoenix Education, 2014.
House on Fire and Stories in the Dark by
Debra Oswald. Currency Press, 2008/2011.
Jandamarra by Steve Hawke. Currency Press, 2014
(2008).
Kindertransport by
Diane Samuels. Nick Hern Books, 2008.
Patient 12 by
Kevin Summers. Currency Press, 2014.
The Secret River by
Kate Grenville and Andrew Bovell. Currency Press, 2013.
Shellshock by Justin Fleming. Phoenix Education, 2014.
Staging Asylum:
Contemporary Australian Plays about Refugees edited by Emma
Cox. Currency Press, 2013.
Some
Shakespeare
New
enhanced 2014 editions of Cambridge School Shakespeare.
Cambridge
School Shakespeare apps.
Folger Luminary Shakespeare apps.
Much Ado About
Nothing directed by Josh Whedon. 2012.
Romeo and Juliet:
The Graphic Novel by Gareth Hinds. Candlewick Press, 2013.
Shakespeare
Uncovered DVDs.
Shakespeare on Toast by Ben Crystal. Icon Books, 2009.
Some
picture books and illustrated texts
The Arrival by Shaun
Tan. Lothian Books, 2014 (2006).
I Was Only
Nineteen by John Schumann and Craig Smith. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
Jandamarra by Mark Greenwood and Terry Denton.
Allen & Unwin, 2013.
Midnight by Mark Greenwood and Frané Lessac.
Walker Books, 2014.
One Minute's Silence by David Metzenthen and Michael
Camilleri. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Rae Smith.
Egmont, 2013.
Some graphic novels
The Graveyard
Book Parts I and 2 by Neil Gaiman. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
In the Shadow
of No Towers by Art Spiegelman. Knopf Doubleday 2004.
Percy Jackson and
the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. Puffin, 2013.
Persepolis I and
II by Marjane Satrapi. Vintage, 2008 (2003).
The Truth is a
Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman. Headline Publishing, 2014.
Ubby's Underdogs: Heroes Beginnings by Brenton McKenna. Magabala Books,
2013.
War Brothers: The Graphic Novel by Sharon E.
McKay and Daniel Lafrance. Walker Books, 2014.
Some poetry
The Round Earth's Imagined
Corners 2nd edn by Ken
Watson. Phoenix 2013.
Sense Shape Symbol edited by Brian Keyte. Phoenix Education
2012.
Some
non-fiction
Book by John Agard,
illustrated by Neil Packer. Walker Books, 2014. ISBN 9780744544787. 141 pp.
Hardcover.
Coming of Age edited by Amra Pajalic and Demeter
Divaroren. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
Some films
The Invention
of Lying directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robertson. 2009.
The Sapphires directed by
Wayne Blair. 2012. Screenplay available from Phoenix.
Wadjda directed by Haifaa Al-Mansour. 2012.
A
television documentary
First Contact hosted by Ray Martin and produced by
Blackfella Films. 2014.
Some novels for wide reading
Historical
fiction
Alexander
Altmann A10567 by Suzy Zail. black dog books, 2014.
The Bow by
Catherine Mayo. Walker, 2014.
The First
Voyage by Allan Baillie. Penguin, 2014.
Flora's War by Pamela Rushby. Ford St, 2013.
Hattie Big Sky
by Kirby Larson.
Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2008 (2006).
No Stars to Wish On by Zana Fraillon. Allen & Unwin,
2014.
Refuge by Jackie French. HarperCollins, 2013.
A Ring through Time by Felicity Pulman. Angus &
Robertson, 2013.
The River Charm by
Belinda Murrell. Random House Australia, 2013.
The
Road to Gundagai by
Jackie French. A&R, 2013.
The Sultan's Eyes by Kelly Gardiner. A&R, 2013.
Summer of Monsters by Tony Thompson. black dog books, 2014.
To Brave the Seas: A Boy at War by David McRobbie. Allen & Unwin,
2013.
Alternative
futures
Chasing
the Valley by Skye Melki-Wegner. Random House Australia, 2013.
The
Disappearance of Ember Crow
by Ambelin Kwaymullina. Walker Books, 2013.
The
Divergent Trilogy by
Veronica Roth. HarperCollins.
The
Dreams of the Chosen by Brian Caswell. UQP, 2013.
Jump and Crash by Sean Williams. Allen &
Unwin, 2013/2014.
The Sky So Heavy by Claire Zorn. UQP, 2013.
When We Wake by Karen Healey. Allen &
Unwin, 2013.
Teenage
life
The
Cinderella Moment by
Jennifer Kloester. Penguin Books, 2013.
The
First Third by Will
Kostakis. Penguin Books, 2013.
Girl
Defective by Simmone
Howell. Pan Macmillan, 2013.
Hate is Such a
Strong Word by Sarah Ayoub. HarperCollins Publishers, 2013.
The Incredible Here and Now by Felicity Castagna. Giramondo, 2013.
Rain
Dance by Karen Wood. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
Steal My
Sunshine by Emily Gale. Woolshed Press, 2013.
The Whole of My World by Nicole
Hayes. Woolshed Press, 2013.
You Don't Even Know by Sue Lawson. black dog books, 2013.
The Zigzag Effect by Lili Wilkinson. Allen & Unwin,
2013.
Fantasy
Fortunately, the Milk ... by Neil Gaiman. Bloomsbury, 2014
(2013).
Jamie Reign: Last Spirit Warrior by P. J. Tierney. Angus & Robertson,
2013.
Pureheart by
Cassandra Golds. Penguin Books, 2013.
Refuge by Jackie French. HarperCollins, 2013.
Scarlet in the
Snow by Sophie Masson. Random House Australia, 2013.
Thriller
Every
Breath and Every Word by Ellie Marney. Allen & Unwin, 2013/2014.
Man Made
Boy by Jon Skovron. Allen & Unwin,
2013.
Pulling
down the Stars by James Laidler.
Hybrid Publishers, 2013.
Reboot and Rebel by
Amy Tintera. Allen & Unwin, 2013/2014.
A
Case Study in Aboriginal Resistance
Jandamarra by Steve Hawke. Currency Press, 2014
(2008).
Jandamarra by Mark Greenwood and Terry Denton.
Allen & Unwin, 2013.
Jandamarra's War directed by Mitch Torres. 2011.
Cross-curricular perspectives
Asia
and Australia's Engagement with Asia
The Black-bearded Bai and
Other Plays from Asian Folklore
by Richard Baines. Phoenix Education, 2013.
His Mother's
Voice by Justin Fleming. Phoenix Education, 2014.
I Was Only
Nineteen. Words by John Schumann, pictures by Craig Smith. Allen & Unwin,
2014.
Jamie Reign: Last Spirit Warrior by P. J. Tierney. Angus & Robertson,
2013.
Malini by Robert Hillman. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
Naveed by
John Heffernan. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
Refuge by Jackie French. HarperCollins, 2013.
The Sapphires directed by Wayne Blair. 2012.
The Sapphires:
The Screenplay by Tony Briggs. Phoenix Education, 2013.
Staging Asylum:
Contemporary Australian Plays about Refugees edited by Emma
Cox. Currency Press, 2013.
Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders' Histories and Cultures
The
Disappearance of Ember Crow
by Ambelin Kwaymullina. Walker Books, 2013.
The First
Voyage by Allan Baillie. Penguin, 2014.
Jandamarra by Mark Greenwood and Terry Denton.
Allen & Unwin, 2013.
Jandamarra by Steve Hawke. Currency Press, 2013
(2008).
Jandamarra's War directed by Mitch Torres. 2011.
The Sapphires directed by Wayne Blair. 2012.
The Sapphires:
The Screenplay by Tony Briggs. Phoenix Education, 2013.
The Secret River by
Kate Grenville, adapted for the stage by Andrew Bovell. Currency Press, 2013.
Ubby's Underdogs: Heroes Beginnings by Brenton McKenna. Magabala Books,
2013.
Sustainability
Rain
Dance by Karen Wood. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
When We Wake by Karen Healey. Allen &
Unwin, 2013.
Discovery
These titles from our presentation could be useful
related texts for the Area of Study: Discovery. If you are looking for other
titles on Discovery, Helen has recently posted quite a long annotated list,
covering a wide range of types of text, on her blog. She has also written a
post called Discovery: Some strategies, based on a presentation she gave to HSC
students recently at Cabramatta Public Library.
Book by John Agard, illustrated by Neil
Packer. Walker Books, 2014.
First Contact hosted by Ray Martin and produced by
Blackfella Films. 2014.
The Invention
of Lying directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robertson. 2009.
Rules
of Summer by Shaun Tan.
Lothian, 2013.
The Rules of Summer by Shaun Tan.
App produced by We Are Wheelbarrow Pty Ltd.
We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. Allen & Unwin,
2014.
Stories of World War I
Because 2015 is the anniversary of the Gallipoli
landings, we thought you might be looking for titles about World War I. The
following titles, because they are newly published, are listed alphabetically
in the main section below:
Flora's War
by Pamela Rushby. Ford
St, 2013.
Midnight: The story of a light horse by Mark Greenwood and Frané Lessac.
Walker Books, 2014.
One Minute's Silence by David Metzenthen and Michael
Camilleri. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
Patient 12 by
Kevin Summers. Currency Press, 2014.
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Rae Smith.
Egmont, 2013.
The Year It All Ended by Kirsty
Murray. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
The following titles, many of which we have presented in
previous years, are annotated in a special section on World War I at the end:
Boys of Blood and Bone
by David Metzenthen.
Penguin, 2003.
Evan’s Gallipoli by Kerry Greenwood. Allen & Unwin,
2013.
In Flanders Fields
by Norman Jorgensen and
Brian Harrison-Lever. Sandcastle Books 2014 (2002).
The Gallipoli Story
by Patrick Carlyon.
Penguin, 2003.
The Girl from Snowy River by Jackie French. Angus & Robertson,
2012.
Light
Horse Boy by
Dianne Wolfer, illustrated by Brian
Simmonds. Fremantle Press, 2013.
Lighthouse
Girl by
Dianne Wolfer, illustrated by Brian
Simmonds. Fremantle Press, 2010.
A Rose
for the Anzac Boys by
Jackie French. HarperCollins, 2008.
Soldier
Boy by Anthony Hill. Penguin,
2001.
Why?
by Nikolai Popov. North-South
Paperbacks 1998 (1996).
War
Horse by
Michael Morpurgo. Egmont, 2007 (1982).
War
Horse app produced
by Touch Press.
When We Were Two
by Robert Newton.
Penguin Books, 2011.
Young
Digger by Anthony Hill. Penguin,
2002.
Annotated titles
by Suzy Zail. black dog books, 2014. ISBN
9781922179999. 279 pp.
This is a companion volume to Zail's The Wrong Boy. In both books Zail is
using fiction to explore her father's experience as a Holocaust survivor. Both
books are set in Auschwitz. In The Wrong
Boy Hanna survives, largely because her skill as a pianist means that she
is removed from the worst of the daily life of the camp. In Alexander Altmann A10567 it is
Alexander's experience with horses that saves him. Both novels portray the
horror and the brutality, but both also celebrate resilience and offer the
reader some hope.
One of the strengths of this novel is
Alexander's inability to suppress his humanity. He has convinced himself that
the only way to survive is to become numb and to refuse all offers of
friendship, but he cannot resist caring for the horses and discovers that he
can also find strength from a friendship with Isidor, the city boy who has no
knowledge of horses but is much cleverer than Alexander at working the system.
The climax of the story comes when Alexander is put in charge of the
commander's new horse - a wild, unbroken horse that must be ready for the
commander to ride in just twelve days. It is a life-and-death race: Alexander
knows that the commander will kill both him and the horse if he does not
succeed.
Recommendation: I have had positive reports of The Wrong Boy when used as a class set
with girls in Years 7 and 8. In a co-ed class, why not offer students a choice
of either The Wrong Boy or Alexander Altmann A10567? If you have
equal numbers of girls and boys, you will probably need slightly more copies of
Alexander Altmann A10567: sadly, boys
are nervous about being seen to choose a book with a female protagonist, while
many girls - especially those who love horses - will readily choose Alexander Altmann A10567. You could
supplement the choice with other books for the age group about Germany and
World War II, such as Jackie French's Hitler's
Daughter and Pennies for Hitler,
John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped
Pyjamas and Morris Gleitzman's Once.
-HS
by Shaun Tan. Lothian Books, 2014 (2006).
ISBN 9780734415868. 128 pp.
There are few schools not
using this stunning wordless text and, now that it is available in paperback,
there should be even fewer. This
made history when it won the NSW Premier’s Award for Best Book of the Year in
2007. There was an outcry about the fact that a wordless book had won the
award. The fact that the book was classified as a children’s book added insult
to injury for some people: children’s literature is seen, in some eyes, as an
inferior kind of art.
For those who did not look at it from such a
limited viewpoint, The Arrival was a
glorious discovery. As an artefact, it is a delight – one of those books that
is a joy to pick up, something to be treasured, and loved, and shared. It tells
a story, without any words other than the title, of a man leaving his wife and
child in a country where life is hard and travelling across the sea to a new world,
where at first everything is very strange indeed. It is the universal migrant
story, and Tan’s choice of sepia tones, reminiscent of old photographs, is
perfect for telling such a story. His use of surreal images dramatically
represents the new world as seen through the eyes of the newcomer.
This is a big book – it reportedly took Tan
four years of work. Although like most picture books the pages are unnumbered,
there are 128 of them. Most picture books have 28 or 32 pages. To sustain the
story, without words, through a work of such length is in itself a triumph.
Most – although not all - pages consist of grids of small images, comic-book
style. This is the perfect example of the graphic novel form.
The
Arrival also won the Children’s Book
Council of Australia Award for Best Picture Book in 2007.
Recommendation: The publication of a paperback edition is a
great joy. Use this wonderful text with older readers, from Years 9 upwards. It
is worthy of close study in its own right, but use it as well in any unit of
work about the migrant experience or about cultural diversity. -HS
The Black-bearded Bai and
Other Plays from Asian Folklore
by
Richard Baines. Phoenix Education, 2013. ISBN 9781921586699. 168 pp.
This
is a collection of six short plays, all based on traditional tales from Asia
and all written to be read and performed in secondary English classrooms. The
tales are from Vietnam, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan and India. The
stage adaptations have been made with an eye on students' tastes: these are
very modern adaptations, with lots of action, some wicked - and often black -
humour, and plenty of visual gags. There are detailed stage directions, both at
the beginning of each script and throughout, and some suggestions for classroom
discussion and follow-up at the end of each play.
My
favourite is the title story, 'The Black-hearted Bai', described as a play
about 'the triumph of intelligence over brute force'. The brutish bully gets
his comeuppance very satisfactorily, but there is an amusing twist at the end
where the triumphant good guy reveals nefarious plans. When 'The Director' -
one of the cast - complains that that's not the proper ending, he is told that
this is the modern version. The play uses in an exaggerated way the sort of
distancing techniques characteristic of Brechtian theatre: students who perform
'The Black-hearted Bai' will never have problems understanding Brechtian
theatre.
Baines
uses other interesting techniques to transform these traditional folk tales
into plays that will appeal to students. The Vietnamese story of the old
fisherman with the incredibly beautiful wife is framed by two gossiping
fishermen who comment on the life of their fellow fisherman, usually getting
things wrong. The problem of how to resolve the ending of the East Javan tale
about the evil villain Ken Arok, who kills all his opponents and takes the
princess as his wife, is solved by the appearance as a final chorus of the
Ghost of one of Ken Arok's victims, who can give us a quick wrap up of what
happened next. The story of 'Ido and the Devil', from the Philippines, is
modernised, which causes all kinds of hilarious problems As the Devil himself
says:
Well,
what did you expect? Fire and brimstone? Burning sulphur pits? That's all very passé
I'm afraid, very last millenium. Now it's all middle class values, casual
attire and Oxford English.
The
last play in the collection - 'Harisarman' - has sequences of the kind found in
Bollywood musicals. It would be great fun exploring examples of Bollywood film
with students as preparation for their staging their own version.
Recommendation: These plays offer a good balance of
action, excitement and humour, as well as an introduction to the folktales of
Asia. They are practical scripts that students will be able to perform. They
will have most fun if they can perform them on a real stage with lighting, but
they will work in the classroom too. They would be best with students in Year 9
or 10, as some references are a little too mature for younger classes. They are
also a great springboard for students working to turn other traditional tales
into playscripts. -HS
Book
by John Agard,
illustrated by Neil Packer. Walker Books, 2014. ISBN 9780744544787. 141 pp.
Hardcover.
This little
non-fiction text is a history of written communication, from the Sumerians five
thousand years ago to the e-books of today. What makes it especially appealing
is that it comes to us as autobiography: 'My name is Book and I'll tell you the
story of my life ...' The text is concise, just enough information to enable us
to understand each major stage in the development of Book, and it is ably
supported by the quirky illustrations and the use of various quotations and
extracts. My favourite is from Ibrahim Muteferrika (c. 1674-1745), an
Hungarian-born scholar and diplomat of the Ottoman Empire, who wrote about the
invention of the printing press:
The famine of books will be
at an end. All nations will be able to acquire books at low cost. What glory
for our Empire, and what prayers for its perpetuity will be made, when they see
so many good books which communicate knowledge to them, of which till then they
had been destitute. This motive alone should suffice for our invincible Emperor
to protect and permit the establishment of printing.
Recommendation: This is a great text for Discovery.
Like many non-fiction texts, its subject-matter is discovery. It traces the
many inventions, experimentations and findings through the centuries that gave
humanity better means of written communication. In the process, many
discoverers are celebrated, such as the Chinese scholar Ts'ai Lun two thousand
years ago, who experimented until he invented paper, to the German Friedrich
Koenig in 1814, who invented a new press powered by steam. Most of these
discoveries are of the kind described by the Board of Studies' rubric as
emerging 'from a process of deliberate and careful planning'. It would be hard
to think of anything more powerfully 'far-reaching and transformative for the
individual and for broader society' than access to the written word.
This text is
also a process of discovery for the reader, enlightening us to the
possibilities of presenting a non-fiction text in an unconventional way. This
is a delightfully charming and imaginative approach to the subject-matter,
which could have been long, dull and tedious. From the decision to tell the
story in the voice of Book, to the quirky illustrations and accessible page
layout, to the inclusion of Agard's own poem about libraries, this is a joy -
as we encounter and explore each new idea.
This would also make a great choice as a non-fiction text for whole class
study. It's a welcome change from the usual biographies and autobiographies
that we depend on mostly - which really offer us few opportunities to extend
students' understanding of written text because they are so similar to novels.
This is a totally engaging non-fiction text that provides the reader with a
good deal of information in a very palatable way. -HS
by Catherine Mayo. Walker, 2014. ISBN 9781925081015. 362 pp.
This
sequel to Murder at Mykenai is as
good a read as its predecessor. Both are fast-paced and inventive stories of
the young Odysseus and his adventures, spiced with a good deal of humour. In
the first part of the book Odysseus has to try to recover his dead
grandfather's gold - gold that is badly needed in Ithaka. But the gold is hidden
somewhere in Argos where Thyestes has vowed to kill Odysseus. So Odysseus has
to go in disguise, with only a riddle to help him find the gold: 'Look beyond
the Jaws of Death'.
One
of Mayo's talents is to present Odysseus, the legendary hero, as a very human
character. She does this brilliantly with the disguise, putting him in a fat
suit pretending to be the servant to his father's also-disguised advisor, Eurybates.
The noble quest to find his grandfather's gold becomes the disgusting task of
digging up a grave; young readers will enjoy the stomach-heaving detail.
There's even more fun when he finds the gold but needs to hide it. The only
place is in his fat suit:
With
shaking hands, he pulled the neck of his tunic open, undid the ties at the top
of the leather paunch and prodded his knife inside. The lambs' bladders had
blown up even more as they began to rot, and the stink exploded into his face
as he punctured each one.
In
the second part of the story Mayo takes interesting liberties with the myth of
the Great Bow of Eurytos, a bow which no man for generations has been able to
string and shoot. It is Odysseus, of course, who achieves this, in a final
dramatic moment when he also stops an assassination attempt, but again the
super-heroism is punctured by human reality: the girl Odysseus is so in love
with, Skotia, is instrumental in saving his life but resists his advances. On
the final pages, Odysseus reflects that he should be feeling exultant, but he's
not.
Recommendation: There has long been a myth that young
people don't like reading historical fiction. That statement needs to be
refined: they don't like reading boring historical fiction, and nor do I. Mayo's
books are anything but boring. These are great reads for Years 7 and 8. They
may even inspire students to go on to investigate Homer. -HS
It
is well-known that I worked for Cambridge University Press for some years, but
my enthusiasm and advocacy for their school Shakespeare editions long predates
that period. The Cambridge School Shakespeare editions were first
published in 1992-3, based on the teaching philosophy of the legendary Rex
Gibson, who influenced the teaching of Shakespeare in schools worldwide. They
used a distinctive two-page format, which has since been imitated by other
school editions, but it is the use that is made of that two-page format that
makes the Cambridge editions so special. The Shakespearean text is on the
right-hand page. The left-hand page has a brief running synopsis, glossary
words and suggested activities for students. The activities are based on
Gibson's teaching philosophy, mostly approaching the plays as scripts to be
performed. Students are encouraged to experiment, to try reading a line in
different ways. They are provided with strategies for becoming fluent in their
reading of the Shakespeare text. They are asked to consider practical problems
of stagecraft: how do Macbeth's witches disappear - on Shakespeare's stage, in
a modern theatre?
In 2005-6 the Cambridge School
Shakespeare editions were updated, with a new introductory 8-page colour
section of photos from stage productions, chronologically arranged to give an
overview of the play. What I loved about this feature was that the photos were
chosen from a wide range of very different productions, making it immediately
clear to students that there is no one way to perform - or to read - the plays.
Now, in 2014, Cambridge has
produced new enlarged full-colour editions of eleven plays (Hamlet,
Macbeth. Julius Caesar, The Merchant
of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, The Taming of the
Shrew, The Tempest, Twelfth Night), with three more to come in 2015 (As You Like It, King Lear, King Richard III).
There are lots of new features that I like, including the larger page format, the
inclusion of more colour photos and the glossary entries organised so that they
align with the words in the text. But, best of all, the activities are still
there; they are still in line with Gibson's philosophy; and many of them are in
colour-coded boxes, to make them easier to navigate: Characters, Themes,
Stagecraft, Writing about the play, Language of the plays.
Recommendation: Cambridge School Shakespeare has long been the
recommended edition for NSW HSC. They are based on the Shakespearean text that
has been established by scholars preparing the tertiary-level editions for the
New Cambridge Shakespeare series. Some schools prefer to use the tertiary-level
edition for their Advanced students, but for the majority of students the
Cambridge School editions are perfect. For teachers, the suggested activities
offer a wealth of possibilities for engaging students in the texts. -HS
Cambridge School
Shakespeare 'Explore Shakespeare' apps
available
on iTunes.
Cambridge
University Press has released apps for six of Shakespeare's most popular plays:
·
Romeo and Juliet
·
Macbeth
·
A Midsummer Night's Dream
·
Twelfth Night
·
Hamlet
·
Othello
There
is also quite a lot of supplementary material, gathered under 'Explore' -
characters, themes and use of language - and 'Examine' - diving into meaning
and context. This is useful and worthwhile, but it is the enhanced experience
of reading the play that I love. Personally, I like to have the sound and
photos turned on, and the glossaries. I then go back and re-read, turning on
the activities and the circle facility.
These
are currently $8.99 each on iTunes.
'Explore
Shakespeare', which gives a taste of each of the plays and allows you to
experiment with the way the app works, is available as a free download.
Recommendation: I've downloaded these for my own
pleasure. If you are in the fortunate position of having a class of students
all with iPads, you are probably also in the position to ask students to
purchase an app. I will probably be revealing myself as a luddite, but I think
if I was in such a fortunate position I would still want students to have the
printed text. Accessible though these apps are, I don't think I would be
sending students off to experience the play alone, with the app as their only
guide. I think that I would be wanting to prepare them for a scene and I would
be wanting to make my own decisions about when to pause them, when to have them
ask questions, when to use some of the suggested activities. I'd personally
still want to teach from the printed text, with the app available as support -
both in the classroom and at home. Of course, in an ideal world, where you've
taught Twelfth Night in Year 8, Romeo and Juliet in Year 9, Macbeth in Year 10 and Othello in Year 11 (all with both books
and the accompanying apps), by Year 12 they might be ready to tackle Hamlet on their own. -HS
Chasing
the Valley
by Skye Melki-Wegner. Random House
Australia, 2013. ISBN 9781742759548. 405 pp.
Book 2 is Borderlands (ISBN 9781742759562, 2014, 416 pp.)
Book 3 is Skyfire, (ISBN 9780857981721, 2014, 400 pp.).
Danika
lives on the streets in the city of Rourton in Taladia where the king drops
alchemy bombs on his subjects to subdue rebellion and where young men and women
are conscripted to die in foreign wars. In this world individuals have magical
proclivities that emerge with increasing age. Danika’s ability has to do with
Night while others may exhibit Fire or Water, Earth or Beast. When life on the
streets becomes unbearable, Danika escapes over the city walls and joins a
group trying to find the fabled Magnetic Valley, where people can live safe and
free lives. The group attracts another member, Lukas, a runaway prince. They
are chased by the king’s hunters and stumble upon a plot by the king to destroy
the secret valley they are trying to find. It is with Lucas’s help that they
destroy the king’s airbase and fortress and press on to find the Valley.
In
Book 2, Borderlands, the crew are
still being pursued by hunters and have to contend with the King’s plan B to
invade the Magnetic Valley. As they battle through dangerous terrain and waters
they encounter, evade and are caught by their pursuers, make deals with
smugglers, find an old friend much changed and discover more about their
emerging powers.
Melki-Wegner,
a young Arts/Law student from Melbourne, has created an interesting mixture of
the real and the magical in these fantasy novels. The novels are a quick and
accessible read and Book 3, Skyfire,
promises explosive surprises and terrifying new dangers as they finally enter
the sought-after Valley!
Recommendation:
The first person narrative coupled with the fast pace and exciting action
sequences will appeal to students in Years 7 - 8. -DM
The
Cinderella Moment
by Jennifer Kloester. Penguin Books,
2013. ISBN 9780143568216. 288 pp.
Angel's one ambition is to be a fashion
designer. Her only hope is to win a fierce competition run by one of the most
famous designers in Paris. Finding the money for the materials she needs is not
easy, as her single mother's income is limited, but - despite the difficulties
- she seems to be on track to deliver her entry on time and of a quality that
meets even her exacting standards.
But complications arise. Angel's mother
has worked for many years as housekeeper for a wealthy businessman in New York
and Angel is best friends with his daughter, Lily. Lily is desperate to go to
London to attend a two-week drama school that might give her her chance to
pursue a career in theatre. At the same time, Lily has had an invitation from
the French grandmother she has never met to spend a fortnight in Paris. Lily
persuades Angel to swap identities to allow each of them the best possible
opportunities to pursue their dreams.
There are further complications in the
way of an evil potential stepmother, Margot, and her equally obnoxious
daughter, Clarissa, who has also entered the fashion design competition. Even
more disconcertedly, there's a Prince Charming in Paris whom Angel (pretending
to be Lily) finds very appealing indeed.
This is a fun and uncritical look at the
world of Paris fashion and of the wealthy elite.
Recommendation: This will be enjoyed by girls in Years
7 - 8. -HS
Coming of
Age: Growing Up Muslim in Australia
edited by Amra
Pajalic and Demeter Divaroren. Allen & Unwin, 2014. ISBN
9781743312926. 200 pp.
This is a high-interest collection of personal experiences by well-known and
less well-known Australian Muslims.
Recommendation: This would be
an excellent collection to explore with a Year 9 class. An extended review of
this title will be published soon in Deb's usual article in English in Australia. -DM
Cyberbile and Grounded by Alana Valentine. Currency
Press, 2013. ISBN 9780868199849. 111 pp.
These are high-interest plays by a leading Australian playwright.
Recommendation: These would
be excellent plays to explore with a Year 9 class.
An extended review of these titles will be published soon in Deb's usual
article in English in Australia. -DM
The
Disappearance of Ember Crow
by Ambelin Kwaymullina. Walker Books,
2013. ISBN 9781921720093. 443 pages.
This is Book 2 of The Tribe. Book 1 is The
Interrogation of Ashala Wolf.
This is absorbing post-apocalyptic
fiction. Set many centuries into the future, after humanity was almost wiped
out in an environmental catastrophe, this - like many other titles in the genre
- is set in an authoritarian society where those that do not conform are eliminated.
In this case, the misfits are teenagers who begin to develop 'abilities'. These
abilities are powerful and diverse, covering such things as the ability to
create storms, earthquakes or fire, to fly, to communicate telepathically or -
in the case of the main character, Ashala Wolf - to sleepwalk. Some teenagers
manage to escape. Ashala has become leader of The Tribe, a group of teenagers
living in the Firstwood. The Tribe want to end the tyranny that threatens them.
Book 1 is breathtakingly exciting, as
Ashala is captured by the enforcers and interrogated by the Machine. There are
several totally unexpected and audacious plot twists: nothing is what it seems.
Book 2 follows the same formula but is perhaps not quite as terrifying. This
time the emphasis is on Ashala's friend, Ember Crow, who has disappeared. Ember
is certainly not at all what she seems, and the uncovering of her true identity
takes us much deeper into the origins of this post-apocalyptic world. The
necessary exposition is sometimes a bit too much, but the new characters are
fascinating, especially the despicable and scary Terence, Jules with his
remarkable 'ability' and the intriguing and powerful Leo.
Book 1 is confined almost entirely to one
location - Detention Centre 3 - and takes place over just a few days. Book 2 is
much more extensive, both in time and place. As a result, Book 1 is more
intense, but readers will not be disappointed with Book 2.
What sets this series aside from others
in its genre is the author's decision to draw on her heritage and include the
concept of the Rainbow Serpent as part of the story. The Aboriginal
understanding of country underpins the story. Ashala values and feels herself
to be part of the Firstwood and its giant tuart trees. She seeks advice from her
ancestral spirit, the giant Serpent.
There are discussion notes on the Walker
Books website.
Recommendation: This series has deservedly attracted a
devoted fanbase among readers from Years 7 - 10. Both books are great to add to
a fantasy or a post-apocalyptic wide reading selection. It is useful too to
have something so different from an Indigenous writer. -HS
The
Divergent Trilogy
by Veronica Roth. HarperCollins.
Book 1: Divergent (ISBN 978007420438, 2011, 496 pp).
Book 2: Insurgent (ISBN 978000744298, 2012, 544 pp.)
Book 3: Allegiant (ISBN 9780007534944, 2013, 544 pp.)
This is a high-interest, dystopian series with a film tie-in.
Recommendation: This would be
a good series to place in a Year 8 or 9 wide reading unit on dystopias. An extended review of this title will be
published soon in Deb's usual article in English
in Australia. -DM
The
Dreams of the Chosen
by Brian Caswell. UQP, 2013. ISBN
9780702236051. 376 pp.
This is the third book in the Deucalion sequence. The first book, Deucalion, was published in 1995 and the
second book, The View from Ararat, in
1999, so we have waited a long time for this. But it was well worth waiting
for, and it will be great to see a new generation of readers discover how
satisfying Caswell's science-fiction/fantasy is.
Caswell's fans were always gifted
readers, readers who want something that challenges them - both in the quality
of the writing and in the ideas. However, they want as well what we all want
when we read fiction: believable characters with whom we can empathise and a
plot that keeps us turning the pages. Caswell delivers in all areas.
This third volume is set a thousand years
after Deucalion was settled and many centuries after all contact with Earth was
lost. Deucalion has known eight hundred years of peace and prosperity, a time
during which the abilities of the inhabitants of the
new world have evolved, especially their skill in telepathy. Now an expedition
is to set off to find out what happened on Earth.
It is an exciting adventure.
Characteristically, Caswell moves from one voice to another as well as moving
backwards and forwards in time and space. The cast of characters is large and
the settings diverse. This is a novel that requires a reader to concentrate.
The rewards, however, are great. The expedition discovers an Earth that is
primitive and afraid of knowledge; a violent society ruled by a small group of
powerful families. The members of the expedition find that their technology is
of little help in this ruined world, but they must find a way to save
themselves and the small group of people on Earth who have befriended them.
Most of all, they must ensure that knowledge is preserved.
As always with Caswell's work, this is
about the big questions. Perhaps the biggest question of all is: what makes us
human?
Recommendation: While this can be read as a read-alone
title, it would be wonderful to introduce the current generation of students to
the whole trilogy. The previous two books in the sequence have been republished
with a contemporary look. Bright kids in years 9 - 11 will enjoy the Deucalion trilogy, especially those who
love science fiction/fantasy. -HS
Every
Breath
by Ellie Marney. Allen & Unwin, 2013. ISBN
9781743316429. 335 pp.
Every
Word
by Ellie Marney. Allen & Unwin, 2014. ISBN
9781743316511. 334 pp.
Every
Breath was shortlisted
for the 2014 Inky Awards.
Every
Breath is a compulsive
read: a murder thriller with two intense and interesting protagonists. The
narrator, Rachel Watts, has recently moved to Melbourne after the bank
foreclosed on the family property. She and her family are mourning the loss and
finding life in the city difficult. One of her few friends is the very strange
boy who lives a couple of doors down the street - Mycroft, a seventeen-year-old
with a troubled past and a talent for attracting trouble in the present. He is
also extremely bright with a passion for scientific knowledge, especially
forensics. When Mycroft and Watts find an old tramp that they have befriended
savagely murdered in the park near the zoo, Mycroft is not satisfied with the
police investigation. They set out to solve the crime themselves.
The story is compelling because they are
embarking on a very dangerous path, but it is also a lot of
fun. Mycroft's
knowledge of forensics is intensely irritating to the hapless Detective Pickup
who is in charge of the case. Even worse is Watts' friend Mai, 'a short Asian
chick in a punk anime-schoolgirl outfit' whose knowledge of law outclasses the
detective. Mycroft's capacity for attracting trouble and for alienating figures
of authority keep the action interesting. At one point, a frustrated Watts
yells at him: 'For god's sake,
Mycroft, it's not funny! How can anyone so smart be such an utter moron? What
on earth were you thinking?'
The climactic scene in the lions' den at
the zoo is as funny as it is scary.
Every
Breath was shortlisted
for the 2014 Inky Awards.
Every
Word is the sequel. One
of the interesting things we learnt about Mycroft in the first book is the
trauma he experienced as a boy when his parents were both killed in a car
accident. Mycroft was in the car but survived. He is convinced that the killing
of his parents was deliberate. In Every
Word he hears of a similar accident and leaves suddenly, without even
telling Watts, for England, where his forensic skills again get him into
unlikely places. Watts, worried for him, follows him to England and before long
they are both in great danger.
Recommendation: These are great reads for teenagers.
They will appeal mostly to students in Years 8 or 9. -HS
hosted by Ray
Martin and produced by Blackfella Films. 2014. Rated M.
First televised
in November 2014, this three-part documentary is reality TV modelled on the
successful Go Back to Where You Came From,
which is one of the prescribed texts for Area of Study: Discovery.
The documentary
is presented by well-known journalist Ray Martin. Six Australians were selected
who had little knowledge of Indigenous Australia. Initial interviews with the
six participants revealed not only ignorance but prejudice and racism in some
cases. The documentary is 'a journey of conflict and discovery': the purpose is
to immerse the six participants in Indigenous life and to observe how the
experiences change their attitudes and beliefs. The three episodes take the
participants to very different communities across Australia. The third episode
was followed by Insight, the SBS
current affairs program, where five of the six participants were questioned
about what they had discovered.
The
subject-matter of the documentary is clearly discovery: each participant is
exposed to 'new worlds' and 'new ideas', in the words of the Board's rubric.
The discoveries are unquestionably 'confronting and provocative'. The exposure
leads in most cases to 'new understandings'. This is, however, an artificial
voyage of discovery in some ways, manipulated by the producers of the
documentary. It is reality TV and the parameters of the process of discovering
are strictly controlled. It is the producers who determine which experiences
the participants will have. The discovery is 'carefully planned', but not like
a scientific experiment where the purpose of the planning is to ensure an
objective result: the purpose here is to create good television. The sequence,
for example, showing the reaction to the killing of the turtle for food made
good television footage, with the outrage and disgust of the non-indigenous
spectators. It did very little to address any real questions about the
relationship between Indigenous people and the land that provides them with
their food. -HS
The
First Third
by Will Kostakis. Penguin Books, 2013.
ISBN 9780143568179. 248 pp.
This celebration of family is great fun -
and at times quite sad. Billy's grandmother has explained that life is made up
of three parts: 'In the first third you're embarrassed by your family; in the
second, you make a family of your own; and in the end, you just embarrass the
family you have made.' Billy's Yiayia, who has held the family together for so
many years, is getting old and frail. She gives Billy her bucket list - things
he must do for her before she dies, all involved with bringing the family
together.
The book opens with a traditional Greek
family lunch, a copious spread with much too much food, just like so many other
family celebrations - except that, on this occasion, the banquet is spread out
on Yiayia's hospital bed. As Yiayia is in that bed and inclined to move
suddenly when excited, quite a lot of the food ends up on the floor.
Billy is devoted to his grandmother and
takes her bucket list very seriously, impossible though it seems. There is much
hilarity in his attempts to find a new partner for his mother by impersonating
her on internet dating sites and some sadness as he tries to work out how to
help his two brothers, both of whom are leading miserable lives. Billy is aided
in his project by his best friend, Lucas, who is one of the great characters in
the novel. Lucas is irrepressible; he takes his cerebral palsy in his stride
but finds it harder to deal with the fact that, as a gay man, he might never
find a partner because of his disability.
There are lots of jokes in this novel,
including the ones Billy composes when he has an unexpected stint as a stand-up
comic. A lot of the jokes are aimed at Billy's Greek ethnicity, including his
grandmother's poor English, but they are jokes that celebrate and unite, not
jokes that denigrate.
This
won the 2014 Inky Award and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary
Award: Young Adult Fiction 2014. It was also shortlisted for the 2014
Children's Book Council Award for Older Readers.
Recommendation: This is a great read for both boys and
girls in Years 7 - 8. Humour is always welcome, as are titles that reflect our
multicultural society. -HS
The First
Voyage
by Allan Baillie. Penguin, 2014. ISBN 9780143307679. 184 pp.
Set thirty thousand years ago, this novel explores what it must have
been like for Australia's first peoples to make the journey from what is now
Timor to the shores of what we call Australia. The stretch of water to be
crossed was narrower then than it is now, but it was still substantial, given
the fragility of the boats that were used and the total ignorance of the boat
people as to what might lie at the end of the journey.
The story is told through the eyes of a teenage boy, Bent Beak, from
the tiny Yam tribe. Bent Beak's people have been on the move for some time:
they had lived previously on Long Island, with its huge mountains and 'the
jungle that roared at night', but that had been only a short crossing, made on
a calm day, to an island that was visible across the water. The Yam tribe's
enemies, the much larger tribe - the Crocodile people - had also come from Long
Island, and more of them cross over to Bird Island every day. Bent Beak's
father and other members of the Yam tribe have been killed by Crocodile
warriors, whose spears have sharp flint stones that are superior to the spears
the Yam tribe use for hunting and fishing. The Yam tribe Elder, Eagle Eye,
knows that the only way to save his people is to move on again - to follow the
birds that fly south. In a postscript, Baillie identifies Long Island as the
Indonesian islands where Flores, Lembata, Pulau Alor, Ataura and Palau Wetar
can be found today.
We share Bent Beak's journey, as the warriors cut the tall black
bamboo that they will use to construct their fragile rafts, as they struggle
against the attacks of the Crocodile people, and as the women and children
gather food and water to take with them on the voyage. As their food and water
dwindle, their greatest threat is the unknown: they have no idea how far away
the land that Eagle Eye insists must be there might be. There are five rafts in
the beginning, but they are separated in a terrifying storm. Bent Beak's raft
finally breaks up on rocks on the shore of a land that is bountiful in some
ways - an abundance of oysters and fresh water - but threatening in others,
occupied by giant animals unlike anything the Yam tribe has seen before.
While The First Voyage can
be categorised as historical fiction, it is also a kind of fantasy. This is a
superb imaginative adventure on the part of the author, as he uses his
knowledge of the landscapes and of the sea to picture what the journey might
have been like for Bent Beak and his companions.
We come to know well each member of the tribe on Bent Beak's raft.
Bent Beak himself is an engaging character and we share his concern for the
safety of the girl he loves, The Wind, and of the orphaned Waterlily. The old
man, Eagle Eye, who had the courage to persuade his people to venture into the
unknown, dies almost in sight of land, but a new life, Moonlight's baby, is
born. Distant smoke even suggests that other rafts have survived the journey.
I don't usually reveal as much as that about the ending of a novel,
but the ending is not what is most important here. We know this is a story
about the first peoples coming to Australia, so we are not surprised that some
of them make it. The interest is in the journey - the fascinating detail of the
getting there. Baillie brilliantly imagines those details, especially the
construction of the bamboo rafts.
While the link is never made specifically, the reader can't help but
think of other boat people making perilous voyages in fragile craft to escape
their enemies, as the Yam people fled the Crocodile tribe.
Recommendation: This
short, fast-paced novel offers young people a fascinating insight into what
might have been. It deserves a place in our selection of titles to explore
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures. It will work well
as a class set title with Years 7 - 8. It would be interesting to use the
opening sections of Wheatley's Australians
All alongside a reading of this novel. Wheatley presents the history as we
know it, with some insight as to where our knowledge has come from; Baillie has
drawn on this knowledge but has shaped it with his imagination to give us a
sense of the lived experience. -HS
Flora's War
by Pamela
Rushby. Ford St, 2013. ISBN 9781921665981. 238 pp.
Flora has been
visiting Egypt for years, accompanying her archaeologist father. This year she
is sixteen, school is behind her, and she is looking forward both to helping
her father with his work, which she finds fascinating, and indulging in the
social whirl enjoyed by the wealthy British, Americans and Australians in
Cairo. This year is different, too, because World War I has begun. At first,
this just means that there are plenty of handsome officers to dance with, but
then as the wounded begin to be shipped in from Gallipoli to overcrowded
hospitals with inadequate staff, Flora and her friends become involved in
meeting the hospital trains and transporting the wounded.
It is the
setting - so beautifully researched - that is the novel's great strength. There
are detailed descriptions of the work that is being done to uncover the tombs
from the time of the pharaohs, as well as superb pictures of the wealthy hotels
and the comfortable mansions inhabited by the ex-pats. The descriptions of the
overflowing hospitals and the conditions on the trains carrying the wounded are
just as well researched. Perhaps most memorable is the account of the ward for
men who have been mentally damaged by their experiences.
This was a Notable Book for the CBCA Older Readers' Awards
for 2014.
There are
teachers' notes on the Ford Street Publishing website.
Recommendation: This is a satisfying coming-of-age
novel and a useful addition to young adult fiction about World War I. It is for
readers in Years 7 - 8. -HS
Folger
Luminary Shakespeare apps
available on iTunes.
These are produced by the Folger
Shakespeare Library in Washington, the famous research library that has the
largest collection of Shakespearean manuscripts in the world. Whereas the
Cambridge School Shakespeare apps are designed specifically for a secondary
school audience, the Folger apps are aimed at an adult audience. They would be
particularly useful for tertiary students as you have search, copy, highlight
and note-making functions, as well as the possibility of posting notes directly
to a Facebook discussion group. There is professional audio, with occasional
alternative readings of speeches. Explanatory notes slide open in a tray to the
left of the play text and there is an expert icon that alerts you to scholarly
commentary on a speech or a scene.
Titles available are:
·
Hamlet
·
Macbeth
·
A Midsummer Night's Dream
·
Othello
·
Romeo and Juliet
The price on iTunes currently is $14.99.
Recommendation: The expert notes are particularly
useful if you are teaching a play for an examination. -HS
Fortunately, the Milk ...
by Neil Gaiman, illustrated
by Chris Riddell. Bloomsbury, 2014 (2013). ISBN 9781408841792. 144
pp.
This is aimed at
quite a young audience - as young as Year 3 or Year 4, but it is such huge fun
and Gaiman is so popular with teenagers that it might be worth adding to a wide-reading
selection. It is actually a celebration of the joy of storytelling. Mum's away
at a conference and, although she left Dad with very precise instructions,
things aren't going too well. More specifically, there's no milk in the fridge.
Eventually the kids persuade Dad to go out and buy some milk, but he's away a
long time. His son accuses him of having run into someone and lost track of
time, but Dad defends himself. Something odd happened. Dad proceeds then to
tell the most remarkable tale.
Recommendation: There's a lot to be said to offering
kids books that are just for fun. -HS
Girl
Defective
by Simmone Howell. Pan Macmillan, 2013.
ISBN 9780330426176. 294 pp.
This is a confidently written, very
contemporary thriller. The protagonist, Sky, is anything but confident: she is
the 'girl defective' in a seriously unconventional family. Her mother has left
them some years previously to follow her career as an offbeat artist in Japan;
her father lives in a world of his own, making a precarious living selling old
vinyl records; and her little brother, Gully, has serious emotional problems.
Sky herself feels inadequate and immature, especially when she's in the company
of her friend, Nancy. Nancy, who is four years older than Sky, is worldly and
world-weary, making Sky feel very naive and inexperienced. The novel is at
heart a sympathetic coming-of-age novel as Sky struggles to come to understand
herself, her family, the boy Luke she falls in love with, and the world around
her.
While the plot is intriguing, it is the
characters who make this novel so powerful. Howell is especially convincing in
portraying Sky's immediate family. Gully, who is ten but seems younger because
of his hang-ups, is the star: he hides from the world behind a pig snout mask
that he refuses ever to take off. The reader shares Sky's worry about how
vulnerable he is. Dad, who drinks too much and is generally pretty hopeless,
begins a bumbling but rather sweet relationship with one of the local cops, a
woman from his past. Sky comes to share Luke's obsession with finding out what
happened to his sister, Mia, who has been found dead in the canal.
The setting of the novel is Melbourne's
St Kilda, and it is the gritty side - the homelessness, the prostitutes, the
drug trade - behind the tourist glamour that Howell focuses on. Sky lives in an
area where it is unsafe to walk home alone at night. Teenage parties are broken
up by police. Girls like Mia and Nancy get caught up in the apparent glamour of
the pop music scene, and some of them end up dead.
Howell writes beautifully, with great
economy:
She put on her mirrored shades even though it was night. For
a moment I saw myself reflected. I looked like a small, dark thing. Like a
possum or a raisin. I'd never been kissed, never had a boyfriend. I didn't even
know any guys other than Dad and Gully. Before Nancy I never smoked or drank,
what I knew about sex you could ice on a cupcake.
With the lights soft and everyone's faces all shiny happy I
felt flooded with warmth - it was like we'd been infected with a buzzing,
shaggy, loveliness that I guess meant the best kind of family.
The Scenic Railway would have qualified as an old St Kildan.
It had been around since 1911. Its white wood lattice lassoed the park and made
all the other rides with their Day-Glo and bad murals look crass and eighties.
From the highest point I could see St Kilda's up-down streets, her patches of
green, her apartment blocks like computer monitors stacked on top of each
other.
There
are teachers' notes on the Pan Macmillan website.
This
was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award: Young Adult Fiction
2014.
Recommendation: I can't say that I enjoyed this novel,
but I admired it. I wouldn't use it as a class set, but I would certainly
recommend it to girls in Years 7 - 9. -HS
by Richard Baines. Phoenix Education 2014. ISBN 9781921586798. 163 pp.
This is an entertaining collection of plays written for student
performance. They read well in class but they would be even more fun to
perform. Each takes about thirty minutes, and they all leave lots of scope for
student ingenuity in devising stage sets and costumes. The last play in the
collection, a wonderfully ridiculous rendition of 'Aladdin and the Magic Lamp',
even encourages students to write their own music. Each play is based on a
folktale or legend, although Baines takes plenty of liberties with the
originals.
The title play, 'The Girl Who Ran with The Gazelles', is based on a
Moroccan folktale. It tells the story of a very feisty woman who is betrayed by
the man who was supposed to be protecting her in her father's absence. She
takes a complete and satisfying revenge, going under cover as a local innkeeper
so she can expose the wrongs that have been done to her.
The Persian legend of 'Sohrab and Rustum' is framed by mother-and-son
tourists contemptuous of the statue in the square when they discover it is
honouring a poet. The statue, which comes to life once they have gone, is
indignant. This is fun, although the allusions to Matthew Arnold brought back
awful memories for me of having been bored to death in my second year of high
school by his epic poem. Arnold's version of
the legend may attract greater fame, but Baines' version will go over much
better with your students.
'The Return of Sinuhe' from Ancient Egypt begins and ends with an old man
dictating to a scribe how he wishes to be laid to rest in the midst of the
royal tombs of Thebes. In flashback, we discover the trials and triumphs of his
young life, culminating in a challenge:
OLD SINHUE [to the audience] I suppose you want to see the fight? I thought so. There is always a
fight. At some point you are always pushed to make a stand, are you not? Well,
for me, this was it. It was fit enough, but my opponent was a strong man and a
feared warrior. It was not a question of choice.
Students will enjoy staging the fight.
Recommendation: I would use
these with Year 9. It is often hard to fill the gap between plays suitable for
Years 7 and 8 (mostly dramatisations of novels) and the adult plays we teach n
Years 10 and 11. This - and the companion volume The Black-hearted Bai, annotated above - fill that gap admirably.
Students will enjoy the humour, which is perhaps a bit too mature for Years 7
or 8; they will like the challenge of working out how to stage the plays; and
they will have an opportunity to explore a range of dramatic techniques. -HS
by Neil Gaiman. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. ISBN 9781408859001. 192 pp.
The Graveyard
Book: The Graphic Novel Part 2
by Neil Gaiman. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. ISBN 9781408858998. 176 pp.
These volumes are high-interest graphic novels by a leading British
writer, based on his very successful novel for the Year 5 - 8 age group, The Graveyard Book.
Recommendation: These graphic
novels would be a delight to explore with a Year 7 or 8 class.
An extended review of these titles will be published soon in Deb's usual
article in English in Australia. -DM
Hate is Such
a Strong Word
by Sarah Ayoub. HarperCollins Publishers, 2013. ISBN 9780732296841. 246
pp.
Sophie is in Year 12 in a school in Sydney's Bankstown where nearly all
the students are Lebanese. She is uncomfortable at the prejudice being shown to
a new student, Shehadie, because he has an Australian father and is not
considered to properly belong. She is also stressed by what she sees as
the restrictive demands of her parents on her social life. She is aware that
her parents are clinging to the ways of the village that they left behind in
the 1970s, and she knows that in modern Lebanon cultural practices have
changed, but she cannot get her father in particular to see reason.
Every chapter begins with 'I hate ...' The constant litany is that she is
an outsider, partly because of her parents' restrictions but also because of
who she is. Her fellow students, for example, think that she's strange because
she has decided to research the experience of asylum seekers for one of her
school subjects. A lot of the 'hating' is about the trivia of teenage girls'
existence, but the larger questions about stereotyping and discrimination are
there as well.
This is a well-intentioned book that makes a contribution to the small
group of young adult novels that reflect our multicultural society. Ayoub has
chosen to make Sophie a Lebanese Christian, and the Lebanese-dominated school
she attends is a Catholic one. Sophie's own values (despite railing against her
parents' old-fashioned views) are conservative: she intends, for example, to
remain a virgin until she marries. The novel is in many ways a celebration of
the success of Australian migration and of the contribution of Lebanese
migrants to Australian society.
The novel ends on a very positive note: 'Hate is such a strong word ...
But I LOVE the fact that I'm going to find myself, so that someday I'll stop
using it.'
Recommendation: This is a
good coming-of-age story for girls in Years 7 - 8. -HS
Hattie Big Sky
by Kirby Larson.
Delacorte Books for Young readers, 2008 (2006). ISBN 9780440239413. 289 pp.
This is a Newberry Honour book by an American writer about a
sixteen-year-old girl’s experiences of homesteading in the USA state of Montana
in 1917.
Recommendation: This would be
an excellent novel to explore with a Year 7 or 8 class in a wide reading unit
on identity, challenge and endurance or prejudice.
An extended review of this title will be published soon in Deb's usual
article in English in Australia. -DM
by Justin Fleming. Phoenix Education, 2014. ISBN 9781921586866. 85 pp.
This play opens
at the time of the Cultural Revolution in China and concludes during the period
of student dissent that led to the Tiananmen Square protests. It is in some
ways a very large play in scope, touching on such huge political events and a
considerable period of time, but it is a very personal story in other ways,
centred on the relationship of mother and son. Yang Jia was a talented
musician, as was her husband. They played western classical music at a time
when that was regarded as bourgeois treachery by the Red Guards. The husband
was killed, the piano was smashed and Yang Jia was forbidden to continue to
teach music. Despite this, she secretly taught her young son, Quian Lu, to play
on a keyboard painted on their kitchen table, covered of course by a
tablecloth. While the boy touched the keys, his mother hummed the notes. The
boy grows up to become a great classical pianist.
This is a love
story between mother and son, but it is also a love story across cultures.
Quian Lu falls in love with the Australian girl, Emma, who acts as his
translator. Their relationship is complicated by the fact that Emma is the
daughter of a diplomat who has spent years nurturing the sensitive
Australia-China relationship.
This play is
also a window into the extraordinary changes that have occurred in China in
such a short space of time. There is the brutality of the Red Guards in 1966
and a glimpse of the awkwardness in 1976, when China is opening up a little to
the West and beginning its great commercial march forward but when western
visitors are kept under close and suspicious watch. By 1978 a young Chinese
pianist can play on the stage at the Sydney Opera House, but - like many of the
few who were allowed out to travel - he begs for asylum. By 1988 the Chinese
government is keen to have what they call a 'reconciliation' with the most
famous of the defectors.
The story is
loosely based on the true story of a young Chinese man who won a major piano
scholarship in Sydney in the 1980s.
Recommendation: This is a
very accessible play for junior secondary students. Students will relate to the
characters and be moved by Quian Lu's extraordinary story. The play makes very
clear that huge historical events have impact on the lives of ordinary people.
Try this with Years 8 or 9. -HS
House on Fire
by Debra Oswald.
Currency Press, 2011. ISBN 9780868198880. 44 pp.
This is a high-interest play by a leading Australian playwright.
Recommendation: This would be
an excellent play to explore with a Year 9 class in a girls' school.
An extended review of this title will be published soon in Deb's usual
article in English in Australia. -DM
The
Incredible Here and Now
by Felicity Castagna. Giramondo Publishing Company, 2013.
ISBN 9781922146366. 187 pp.
This is first-person colloquial narrative in the voice of
fifteen-year-old Michael from Parramatta. In very short chapters that are more
like vignettes, it tells Michael's story during the most difficult summer of
his life, the summer his older brother Dom, whom he hero-worships, kills
himself driving recklessly. Dom's death devastates his family and Michael is
left bewildered and directionless.
While this is clearly about the effects of loss and about
coping with grief, it is also specifically about growing up in Sydney's
multicultural western suburbs. It begins by suggesting that 'West' is something
despised by some other Sydneysiders and sets out, I think, to prove that 'West'
is full of real human beings. I had some problems with this. I feel in some
ways it confirms the stereotypes about the western suburbs, but others
disagree. This was shortlisted for the CBCA Older Readers' Awards for 2014 and won
the Prime Minister's Literary Award: Young Adult Fiction 2014.
Recommendation:
While it would not be my choice, this is something that should be looked at if
you are teaching in the western suburbs of Sydney. -HS
In the Shadow
of No Towers
by Art Spiegelman. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2004. ISBN
9780375423079. 42 pp. Hardcover.
This is an extraordinary graphic novel by the internationally famous
American author of Maus.
Recommendation: This graphic
novel would offer much to Advanced students in Year 11 or Extension 1 and 2
students. An extended review of this title will be published soon in Deb's
usual article in English in Australia.
-DM
The Invention
of Lying
directed by Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robertson. 2009. Rated M.
This little British comedy was no huge box office success, but it is great
fun and absolutely perfect to explore the Area of Study: Discovery. It stars
Ricky Gervais as a fat loser with no assets or talents, except for the fact
that he is a really nice, caring human being - something that doesn't rate
highly in his world. It is a world that is much like ours, except that human
beings have never learnt to lie. The concept of a lie is completely unknown.
Not only are there no big lies, but all those little white lies that are so
essential to ordinary human civility are also impossible. A woman says to the
mother of a newborn: 'Your baby is so ugly; it's just like a little rat.' The
television ad for Coco-Cola is delivered by an employee of the company who can
think of no greater inducement than to beg his audience to keep buying Coke so
that he can keep his job. He's already admitted that Coke contributes to
obesity in both adults and children and, when he takes a sip at the end of the
ad, he shudders and admits that it's too sugary. The ad for Pepsi on the side
of the bus spruiks: 'Pepsi - when they don't have Coke.' And the nursing home where
the protagonist visits his elderly mother is signposted: 'A very sad place for
hopeless old people.'
Ricky Gervais plays Mark Bellison, an unsuccessful scriptwriter for a
leading film company. Mark is fired by his boss and is about to be evicted by
his landlord. He knows there are insufficient funds in his bank account to pay
his rent. When the bank teller asks him how much he wishes to withdraw, he has
an epiphany - a Eureka! moment - represented in an over-the-top fashion with
sudden extreme camera zoom in to his forehead and then to his brain. He lies -
and his world is changed forever. This is the 'sudden and unexpected' discovery
of the Board of Studies' rubric leading to 'new worlds and values'.
The world of the film up until that moment of discovery has no deceit, no
flattery and also no fiction. The company Mark worked for was called Lecture
Films, producing totally factual and mind-numbingly boring accounts of moments
in history. The invention of lying allows Mark to tell fictional stories. He
tells his former boss that he has woken in the desert to discover - 'one of the
best discoveries man has ever discovered' - a half-buried chest containing an
ancient manuscript. The story, set at the beginning of the year 1400, contains
giant flying spaceships, robot dinosaurs and nude alien Amazonian women.
Gervais is having fun with the idea that the ability to lie is at the heart of
all fiction.
Lying, however, also brings trouble. Mark is at the bedside of his dying
mother. She is terrified that she is facing 'an eternity of nothingness'. So he
lies, telling her that she will go to a beautiful place where she will be
surrounded by everyone she has ever loved and where she will have her own
mansion - for eternity. The doctor and the nurses in the room are blown away by
this revelation. Within hours, the whole world is clamouring to know what Mark
knows about death. He becomes a modern-day Moses delivering ten important
facts, on tablets made from pizza boxes - truths that have been handed down to
him by The Man in the Sky. This is a terrific spoof on the concept of discovery
as prophetic revelation. Some viewers may find it offensive.
The film uses exaggeration to achieve its humour. Mark's former
colleagues gathered in the boss' s office to listen to the story he 'discovered'
are gobsmacked, as are the people in the crowd outside his house as he delivers
the message from The Man in the Sky. The musical score is used to good effect,
soaring from time to time as if to suggest that something momentous has
happened, contrasting starkly with the sheer absurdity of the situation. But
the most commonly used technique is the use of an extreme close-up on Gervais's
face, as he expresses dawning comprehension, astonishment, delight and
apprehension.
The second half of the film, which develops the love story and the role
of Mark as everyman hero, is fine but much less interesting than the beginning
for the exploration of the concept of discovery.
Recommendation: This is a
great choice as a related text for Discovery as it explores the concept of
discovery in several ways: discovery as a sudden, unexpected Eureka! moment;
that moment leading to the invention of a new way of living; the mythical
unearthing of a treasure from the past;
and the discovery delivered by way of prophetic revelation. It's almost
as if the film had been created especially for the NSW Area of Study. -HS
I Was Only
Nineteen
Words by John Schumann, pictures by Craig Smith. Allen & Unwin, 2014.
ISBN 9781743317235. Hardcover.
This picture book begs for a place in the classroom. Schumann has drawn
on the words of the famous Williamson song to tell the story of a young
Australian who was sent to Vietnam. Craig Smith's illustrations do more than
just illustrate the story. It is from the end papers that we get the context:
at the front of the book, we see a child and an old man looking at photographs;
at the end of the book, they are marching together in what seems to be an Anzac
Day march. Their story continues to be told by the pictures throughout the
book: as the old man asks the doctor about his health on the right-hand page,
we see the boy waiting for his grandfather in the doctor's waiting room on the
left-hand page. Other illustrations are of the grandfather's memories of his
time in Vietnam.
There is an epilogue, which is a letter from John Williamson, explaining
the significance of the song and how it came to be written.
There are teachers' notes on the Allen & Unwin website.
Recommendation: This is a
great way to introduce the history of the Vietnam War to students. The book
will work with any class, from Year 7 - 10. It would be a great related text to
use with the film, The Sapphires. -HS
Jamie Reign: Last Spirit Warrior
by P. J.
Tierney. Angus & Robertson, 2013. ISBN 9780732295196. 385 pp.
This rollicking
adventure for readers in Years 5 - 8 is set in Hong Kong's New Territories. The
setting is a tiny fishing village, untouched still by tourism and following a
traditional way of life. Jamie, who has just turned twelve, lives onboard his
father's tug in the harbour and does the work of an adult man. He has never
known his Chinese mother, but he knows his brutish father, Hector, only too
well. Hector is a drunk, a bully and a racist bigot, who has refused to learn
the language despite the fact that he has lived and worked in Hong Kong since
before Jamie was born.
Jamie is a huge
fan of the legendary kung fu expert, Master Wu, but has always assumed that he is not Chinese enough
to ever participate in the ancient rituals of the Way. Jamie's world is turned
upside down by the arrival of Mr Fan, an old man with surprising powers. To
Jamie's astonishment, the last spirit warrior whom Mr Fan seeks - and who is
needed to save the world - could just possibly be Jamie himself.
Jamie's
adventure takes place in the company of an engaging cast of characters - the
indomitable Wing, who is even worse at kung fu than Jamie, the mysterious and
highly skilled Jade, and the obscenely wealthy Lucy. The presence of such
strong female characters ensures that the book is as appealing to girls as
boys. For girls, there's an extra bonus in the discovery of Jamie's mother's
extraordinary story as a warrior.
There is plenty
of action and the novel moves swiftly, against the well-realised setting of the
fishing village and the dangerous waters around it. Some of the most exciting
sequences occur on the remote island of Chia Wu that is the site of Mr Wu's
warrior school. Jamie at first seems an unlikely hero, but, as the reader
becomes better acquainted with his courage, his selflessness and resilience, we
cheer him on.
The fantasy
elements, including the spirit powers that Jamie discovers, are blended
seamlessly with the realistic details of the setting.
Jamie Reign: The Last Spirit Warrior was shortlisted for the 2014 Readings
Children's Book prize.
A sequel is now
available: Jamie Reign: The Hidden Dragon.
A third book, Jamie Reign: The Lost Soul,
is due for publication in 2015.
Recommendation: This is a great addition to a Year 7 -
8 action adventure or fantasy box of wide reading titles. It would work well
too as one of a selection of action adventure titles with Asian settings. The Jamie Reign titles give more insight
than most of the other such titles into contemporary Asia. -HS
Jandamarra
by Mark
Greenwood and Terry Denton. Allen & Unwin, 2013. ISBN 9781742375700. 48 pp.
Hardcover.
This picture
book is a great retelling of the story of Aboriginal warrior Jandamarra.
Greenwood's very accessible text emphasises the intelligence and
resourcefulness of the young man torn between conflicting loyalties. After
being chained and imprisoned, Jandamarra decides to fight for his people. His
unmatched knowledge of the area and his skills enable him to continually evade
pursuit. Eventually, badly wounded, he is shot by an Aboriginal tracker, who cries
as he takes aim.
Greenwood's text
is beautifully supported by Denton's watercolours. The focus here is on the
magnificent Kimberley landscapes. Denton's paintings are presented in various
ways. They range from a dramatic two-page spread of cattle being driven along
the Lennard River into the huge, rocky ranges to comic-strip style frames, one
group of three showing Jandamarra, standing on the edge of a cliff, shooting
the hat off a startled trooper below. The variety works very well. The
paintings are not just illustrations: they reward close reading.
There are teachers' notes on the Allen & Unwin website.
Recommendation: While most schools will use Jandamarra in Years 7 - 8, it could also
be used in Years 9 - 10 alongside the M-rated television documentary, Jandamarra's War (see annotation below).
It's a worthwhile addition to the resources available for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander Histories and Cultures. -HS
Jandamarra
by Steve Hawke.
Currency Press, 2014 (2008). ISBN 9780868199733. 74 pp.
This is a high-interest play by an Australian playwright about the
Kimberley Aboriginal warrior,
Jandamarra.
Recommendation: This would be
a powerful play to explore with a Year 10 or 11 class. An extended review of
this title will be published soon in Deb's usual article in English in Australia. -DM
Jandamarra's War
directed by
Mitch Torres. 2011. Rated M.
This is a
documentary-drama narrated by Ernie Dingo, with a cast of
first-time actors from the Bunuba/Gooniyandi nation. It follows the life of
Indigenous hero, Jandamarra, from age six until his death at twenty-one at the
hands of an Aboriginal tracker, after a long three-year chase in which he
evaded the might of the white man, determined to punish him for his resistance.
Torres decided to tell the story with documentary footage, including still
photographs and contemporary newspaper extracts, supported by dramatic
re-enactments. The re-enactments include fictional interviews with Jandamarra
himself. The re-enactments were filmed entirely on location on Bunuba country,
around Tunnel Creek, Windjana Gorge, Lennard Flats and the Napier Ranges.
Jandamarra's war on the invaders who were destroying
his country is one of the great stories of Australian history, but it is
unknown to many white Australians.
The documentary is 55 minutes long.
Recommendation: The
film has an M rating but could be used in most Year 9 - 10 classes. Use it
alongside the picture book, Jandamarra. -HS
Joyous and Moonbeam
by Richard
Yaxley. Omnibus Books, 2013. ISBN 9781862919877. 170 pp.
This short
novel for young adults is an engaging read. The story is told mainly through
the voices of the two characters, Joyous and Moonbeam, interspersed with a
series of letters to Joyous written by his Mamma. Joyous tells his story to an
unknown 'mister'; it is only right at the end of the novel that we guess, not
the specific identity, but the likely profession of the man questioning Joyous.
Joyous, a big man aged thirty-three, works in a sheltered workshop. I was a
little unsure of his unconventional use of language at first: 'doopy-do',
'truesome, 'a swish-wash of beer and stinks', 'honkingly', 'kookity'. But the
language is wonderfully expressive and flawlessly maintained by Yaxley, so that
it becomes inseparable from the character. Joyous is visited in the workshop by
an unhappy teenage girl, Ashleigh, whom he names Moonbeam. Moonbeam's family is
falling apart after the birth of a stillborn baby and she is acting out her
sadness by lashing out at home and at school. Moonbeam is recording her story,
on the advice of the school principal who is about the only adult she still
respects. Her voice is very, very different from that of Joyous and completely
authentic. As well as their two voices and the letters from Mamma, there are
some scenes between Joyous and Moonbeam that are told entirely in dialogue.
There are no speech marks, no 'he said' or 'she said', but the voices are so
distinctive that there is never any confusion.
Yaxley
skilfully reveals the stories of each of the characters. Joyous's story is
dark: he has been brutally bullied at school, abused physically and mentally by
his thuggish stepfather, wrongly accused of theft in the shop where he loved to
work, confined to pointless craft work in the sheltered workshop. But Joyous
lives up to his name. His whole life is infused with love for his Mamma and
dedication to the philosophy of the father he never knew: 'All life is joyous.
The good bits are naturally joyous but even the bad bits can be too. You just
have to work them around a little.'
Mamma's
letters reveal a number of secrets: Joyous's story is not quite as he believes
it to be. But his philosophy triumphs over all.
This is a book that lifts the spirits, despite
the brutishness of stepfather Sammy-K and the cruelty of school bullies like
Matthew Berrings. The style - especially the sections in Joyous's idiosyncratic
voice - might seem strange to readers at first, but they will enjoy exploring
Yaxley's success in using distinctive voices to create his characters. The book
is short, with many short chapters, and it moves at a fast pace. I've seen
reviews from some young readers who are disappointed with the ending - perhaps
because they missed some vital clues. The book demonstrates very well the
importance of close and attentive reading.
There are
teachers' notes on the Scholastic website.
Recommendation: This could be an interesting choice for
class set use in Years 7 or 8, or even with a less academic Year 9 class. -HS
Jump
by Sean
Williams. Allen & Unwin, 2013. ISBN 9781743315866. 396 pp.
This is Book
1 in the intended trilogy, Twinmaker.
The sequel, Crash, is now available. It
will be followed by Fall.
This is a
complex science-fiction thriller that has been much praised by sci-fi fans. It
is set in a post-apocalyptic world that postdates the disastrous Water Wars, a
world that has been revolutionised by d-mat, a global teleport system that
allows people to transport themselves instantaneously around the world. Bored
teenagers use the system to 'jump' to exotic venues to party. The main character,
Clair, finds herself at one point on the viewing platform that allows tourists
to see where the island of Tuvalu used to be, before the waters rose.
Clair's best
friend, Libby, is seduced by a promise that she can use d-mat to achieve
Improvement - to change her body so that she will be perfect. Clair becomes
concerned that Libby has suffered serious personality change, and she sets out
to investigate what is going on.
Clair's quest
takes her to all kinds of locations and into great danger. In the company of
Jesse, regarded as a freak at school because he and his father will have
nothing to do with modern technology, she survives bomb explosions, gun fights
and endless chases. Her only guide is the mysterious voice of Q, who speaks to
her through her personal communicator and provides her with information that
saves her life on many occasions.
The novel has
a cliffhanger ending that will ensure readers will want to read the next
volume.
Recommendation: This is well-written and well-executed and
no doubt deserves the huge amount of praise that has been lavished on it by
sci-fi fans. I personally found it difficult to read. -HS
Kindertransport
by Diane Samuels. Nick Hern Books, 2008. ISBN
9781854595270. 112 pp.
This is a fascinating play by a British playwright about the Jewish
children sent by their European parents to safety in the UK before the outbreak
of the Second World War.
Recommendation: This would be
an excellent play to explore with a Year 11 class.
An extended review of this title will be published soon in Deb's usual
article in English in Australia. -DM
by Morris
Gleitzman. Viking, 2014. ISBN 9780670077427. 154 pp.
Gleitzman has
dedicated this to Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse, and to his wife, Clare, acknowledging that Loyal Creatures is inspired by Morpurgo's
book. In fact, Gleitzman's research for the book began with a commissioned
piece from the National Theatre on Australian horses in World War I, as they
prepared to bring their production of War
Horse to Australia. Gleitzman has produced a very accessible novel about
the experiences of the Australian Light Horse in Egypt and Palestine, with his
trademark blend of humour and sadness. The opening page sets the tone:
Nineteen fourteen.
War.
Did I want to go?
Course I did.
Who wouldn't want to choof
off to distant exotic places, give a pack of mongrel bullies what for and have
the sort of experiences you just didn't get in the Cudgegong district.
When I told Dad I wanted to
go, he tried to wallop me round the head with a canvas bucket.
Not too hard, I was bigger
than him. But I was still surprised. Hitting people with buckets wasn't Dad's
style. Plus, since Mum died, me and Dad were a team. Mates. You didn't go round
whacking your mates in the head with work utensils.
Something was going on.
Dad glared at me.
'You and me'll be first in
the trenches,' he said, 'if Germany invades New South Wales. Till then we'll
stay out of other dopey idiots' wars.'
That's such
characteristic Gleitzman. It looks so easy, and yet as exposition it is
masterly. We know already quite a lot about the who?, the when? and the where?
We soon learn more of the why: Dad has promised his dying wife to stop their
fifteen-year-old son from joining up. But that wasn't so easy in World War I,
even if the war was really the business of 'other dopey idiots'; when Dad is
given a white feather, both of them sign up, with their horses.
One important
difference between the British and the Australian horses in World War I is that
the Australian horses could not be repatriated, even if they survived. The
climax of the story tugs at the heart strings in a way that Gleitzman does so
well.
I had some
doubts at first about the title; it seemed rather pompous for a Gleitzman
novel. But it is justified I think by the last brief chapter:
We did our best over there,
us blokes.
But it was never in our
hands. Not completely. Never is in war.
We were just loyal
creatures too, our heads turned this way and that by politicians and generals
and the dark waters in our own souls.
That's what we were, all of
us.
Just loyal creatures.
Recommendation: Use this, as always with Gleitzman,
with Years 5 - 8. It would work too with a Year 9 class of reluctant readers.
Use it in 2015 as a springboard for some wide reading of World War I stories. -HS
by Robert
Hillman. Allen & Unwin, 2014. ISBN 9781743312551. 195 pp.
The book opens
with a scene in the yard of the school where Malini's father is principal.
There are 22 boys and 128 girls. The Tamil Tiger commander has come to recruit
more child soldiers. Although he only takes six boys with him - the youngest
just eleven - he has done this at least twelve times previously, which explains
the fact that there are so few boys among the school's pupils.
The setting is a
Tamil town on the east coast of Sri Lanka in 2009, not long before the end of
the civil war. Malini's father knows that the Tamils are doomed to lose the
war, but that they will fight desperately to the end. The next morning the
soldiers come at dawn for the whole village. The people are to be used as human
shields, herded into a small 'no-fire zone' between the Tamil Tigers and the
advancing Sri Lankan army. In the chaos of the evacuation, Malini manages to
escape with her younger sister Banni. Together they embark on a dangerous
journey of survival through disputed territory to try to reach their
grandfather's village. On their way they are joined by other child refugees,
scarred by wartime experiences.
This novel is
part of the excellent 'Through My Eyes' series, novels that give young readers
(the Years 5 - 8 age group) insight into the lives of children in areas of
conflict. As in other titles in the series, the author is careful to give
readers some hope for the characters with whom they have empathised, while
making clear at the same time that war exacts a terrible toll on civilian
populations - and, especially, on children.
There are
teachers' notes on the Allen & Unwin website.
Recommendation: This is an excellent novel for the Year
5 - 8 age group. It's another worthwhile title to add to a wide reading
selection of titles about the lives of children in other countries. -HS
Man
Made Boy
by Jon Skovron. Allen & Unwin, 2013. ISBN
9781743315132. 368 pp.
This is a great read - one to be savoured at a single
sitting if possible. Among other things, it is both a great coming-of-age story
and a charming and offbeat romance. It is strikingly original, inventive and
funny. The action is fast and the reader is keen to turn the pages to find out
what will happen to this improbable but entirely engaging cast of characters,
particularly Boy - child of Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride. Boy's parents
hide away from a society that would find them abhorrent in a remarkable theatre
in New York, where their fellow monsters and freaks perform amazing theatrical acts
for the public. The acts include performances by satyrs and harpies, an ogre, the
Siren from The Odyssey, whose partner
is the Minotaur, some dancing trolls including their star dancer Liel, with
whom Boy is infatuated, and the diva, Madame Medusa, who occasionally has a
deadly effect on members of the audience. Dad - the Monster - is head of
security, while Mum - the Bride - is a technical whizz who keeps the mechanics
of the theatre running. Theatre manager is Lord Ruthven, the protagonist of The Vampyre, the box office is under the
care of Charon the Ferrymaster and the control booth is staffed by a faerie and
a werewolf.
Unlike most of those who live and work in the theatre,
including his parents, Boy can pass for a human being in the outside world -
albeit an extremely ugly and deformed human being who appears to have survived
some terrible accident. At seventeen, Boy is restless, anxious to see the
world. But he has no intention of going along with his father's plan - to send
him to university in Switzerland where he can board with Frankenstein's
descendants. The Frankenstein family feel some responsibility for their
ancestor's disastrous creation of the Monster and his Bride and want to help
their son, but Boy feels nothing but hate and resentment towards them.
Boy is a computer nerd, with amazing powers as a hacker and
programmer. He is obsessed by the project he is working on to produce a hacker
virus: 'a fully autonomous virus that could assess and understand any new
situation and make its own choices and adapt accordingly based on that
information'. While he hates with a passion Frankenstein for having created the
Monster and the Bride, it never occurs to Boy that he may be replicating
Frankenstein's experiment - bringing a new creation to life that will not only
be beyond his control but that can adapt endlessly. Boy's 'monster' has the
potential to be even more dangerous, but he fails to recognise the threat.
Instead, he feels nothing but pride - 'a first in computing history' - when he
realises that his computer program has done something no computer program
should be able to do - something unpredictable.
Boy's adventures in the wider world and his growing
awareness of the monster (VI) he has let loose are what keep the reader turning
the pages. And the intertextual surprises continue to happen, especially when
Boy meets another descendant from famous literature, the girl who switches from
being Sophie Jekyll and Claire Hyde. At times it seems over the top - when, for
example, the Dragon Lady gives Boy an urgent ride back from California to New
York - but it is such fun that the reader accepts each outrageous new creature
and each new twist in the plot.
The parallelling of Shelley's Frankenstein's obsession to
create new life with a computer programmer's obsession with virtual
intelligence is inspired. Part 2 of Man
Made Boy is prefaced with a quotation from Mary Shelley: Victor
Frankenstein reflecting on 'how dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge'.
Beneath all the outrageous fun, there are some serious issues being explored.
For those who
need to take account of such things, there is occasional vulgar language.
This was shortlisted for the 2014 Silver Inky Awards.
Recommendation:
This might be a little long for class-set use, although it would be a great
springboard for an exploration of all the intertextual references. It would be
great to use it as a core text in Years 8 - 10 and then give students a range
of historical texts to explore: Shelley's Frankenstein,
Stevenson's Dr Jekyll and My Hyde,
Polidori's The Vampyre and Homer's The Odyssey, to begin with. Some
students could read Tony Thompson's Summer
of Monsters to find out about the origins of the Frankenstein story; John
Polidori was there as well, with Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley.
The originality of Man
Made Boy stands in stark contrast to the stultifying plethora of young
adult novels of recent years that feature vampires, werewolves, faeries, sirens
and other creatures in the bizarre setting of American high school life. The
intelligence and energy of Skovron's storytelling may make readers a little
more critical of the sludge they have been served up, including the
near-pornography of the most recent 'must read' - the angel genre. -HS
Midnight Feast by
Slap Harry Larry.
This is a high-interest app about a girl called Roya who is excited to
stay up late for a midnight feast.
Recommendation: This would be
an interesting app to explore another culture with a Year 7 class. An extended
review of this title will be published soon in Deb's usual article in English in Australia. -DM
Midnight:
The story of a light horse
by Mark Greenwood and Frané Lessac. Walker Books, 2014.
ISBN 9781921977718. Hardcover.
This is based on
the true story of Guy Haydon from the Hunter Valley who joined the 12th Light
Horse Regiment, taking with him the horse, Midnight, that he had raised and
trained from birth. It tells the story of their trip to war, their separation
when Guy spent four months at Gallipoli, and then their reunion, serving in the
desert. Guy and Midnight were among the eight hundred soldiers and horses who
stormed the ancient town of Beersheba, held by three thousand Turks. Guy was
wounded but survived but Midnight was killed in the attack.
The story is
told in bold and fairly simple paintings that represent the vivid colours of
the desert. Mark Greenwood's text is spare, with a lot of use of short powerful
sentences: 'Guy braces for the bullet', 'Hours quiver by' and 'Shrapnel kicks
up dust'. There is also frequent use of evocative incomplete sentences such as:
'A jostle of horses and buckling straps' and 'Weeks in the saddle'. The refrain
- 'Coal black. Star ablaze. Moonlight in her eyes.' - occurs at the beginning,
at Midnight's birth, and is then repeated at the end of the book as she dies.
Recommendation: This would be a great support to a unit
of work based on Michael Morpurgo's novel, War
Horse. It could be used at any level. -HS
Much Ado About
Nothing
directed by Josh Whedon. 2012. Rated M.
This is a marvellous film version of the Shakespeare play by the
well-known creator of the Buffy and Firefly television series.
Recommendation: This would be
an excellent film to explore a modern Shakespearean interpretation with a Year
11 class. An extended review of this title will be published soon in Deb's
usual article in English in Australia.
-DM
Naveed
by John Heffernan. Allen & Unwin, 2014. ISBN
9781743312483. 197 pp.
This has been published as part of an excellent new
series, 'Through My Eyes', stories about children living in conflict zones.
Heffernan has written an engaging story about a resourceful and courageous
teenage boy living close by Bagram Airfield, the huge American airforce base in
Afghanistan. Naveed is the sole supporter of his widowed mother and his
irrepressible younger sister, Anoosheh, who - like so many others in countries
that have been battlefields - has lost both her legs after stepping on a
landmine. Naveed makes an uncertain living finding work wherever he can -
making deliveries and stacking the shelves for shopkeeper, Mr Waleed; helping
with the lunch time orders at Mr Hadi's chai house; washing cars. When
desperate, he scavenges at the tip, but the gangs that control the trade there
are dangerous, and he cannot afford a beating that would disable him to the
extent that he could not work. The landlord who rents the family their one-room
hovel will not wait for the rent, and Naveed's mother and sister are dependent
upon him for their next meal.
Naveed occasionally shares the little food he has with
a stray dog. She is a big dog, although starving. His kindness to the dog saves
his life when she defends him against the gangs. From that moment on, Naveed
and Nasera are inseparable.
While the story is told mainly from Naveed's point of
view, there are occasional chapters from the point of view of Jake, an
Australian serving as a dog handler with the military. It is the dog, Nasera,
that Jake first notices; he is looking for Afghans who can become dog handlers
and continue the work of detecting explosives after the Australians and the
other westerners leave Afghanistan. While Naveed is much younger than the
recruits he was wanting, he and Nasera prove to be a formidable team. The
opportunity of a real job and a regular income transforms Naveed's life.
This very readable story gives great insight into the
lives of ordinary Afghans living in desperate circumstances.
Recommendation: This
is a great novel for class study in Years 7 - 8. Students will relate to Naveed
and enjoy the story of his dog, Nasera, and Jake's dog, Stingray. There is
plenty of action and danger, as well as some hope for the future.
The novel Shadow,
by British novelist Michael Morpurgo, is a good companion piece; it is also
about sniffer dogs and Afghan boys. -HS
by Zana
Fraillon. Allen & Unwin, 2014. ISBN 9781743315149. 167 pp.
No Stars to Wish On is fiction based on fact. Zana Fraillon
has written a novel for upper primary/lower secondary readers, based on the
stories of the Forgotten Generation. Fraillon's protagonist, Jack, is typical
of the 'generation': he is removed from his family, along with his sister and
two of his cousins, because his single mother has difficulty supporting them. He
is told that his family does not want him.
The Home in
which Jack is placed is, like most of the institutions at the time, run by the
church. It's an austere, underfunded place, exploiting children in many ways,
including as human guinea pigs to test new vaccines. Fraillon exposes the
reader to the horrors of such institutions, but she does so skilfully in a way
that will anger and sadden child readers but will not traumatise them.
Fraillon tells
the story through Jack's voice, the voice of an innocent narrator who does not
always understand the significance of what he is telling us. Jack remembers
warmly his big, loving family. Mum is the only breadwinner; there is not always
enough to eat, but there is no shortage of hugs. To the authorities, the
children are 'in moral danger' and neglected. Their home is raided at night by men
in boots.
Fraillon has
created an engaging character in Jack. Despite his fear and loneliness, Jack
remains determinedly optimistic, convinced that he will find out how to escape.
Jack has always loved telling jokes. In the institution, Jack clings to his
jokes for comfort. Fraillon uses Jack's jokes - the not-very-funny, rather
corny jokes of a seven-year-old - to mark off episodes in Jack's narrative. No
one smiles in the Home - neither the nuns nor the children - and Jack is determined
to change that. In a triumphant moment towards the end of the novel, he
defiantly shouts nun jokes to the room full of children and sees them laugh.
The narrative is
divided into three different types of text. Jack's first-person narrative
predominates, interspersed with the sections in which he remembers the jokes he
learnt. There is also third-person narrative that focuses on Jack's older
cousin, Amrei. Amrei grieves for the lost children and dreams of recovering
them. The sections of narrative to do with Amrei and her eventual journey to
find Jack are set off from Jack's first-person account by the use of italic
font. The style is very different. Jack speaks in a very simple, colloquial
voice, telling his story in a bare, understated style that reinforces the
horror. The third-person narrative is almost lyrical in contrast. In a
surprising but effective experiment, it also moves beyond the grim realism of
Jack's narrative to a fantasy world that records Amrei's 'Visions' - visions
that lead her to Jack. Jack rejects the nuns' religion and their God but he
shares his family's belief in 'the Spirits', a world of spiritual possibilities
beyond those of the material world. Fraillon's ability to combine so seamlessly
two such different narratives is one of the strengths of the novel.
As well as
exploring the conditions for the forgotten children in institutions, Fraillon
has written a thriller about the fate of one child - the one Jack calls 'the
real Number 49'. The nuns claim that Number 49 ran away, but slowly Jack - and
the reader - piece together the clues about a terrible crime that has been
committed.
The novel has
been likened to Louis Sachar's Holes,
partly because of the blending of realistic narrative and fantasy but also
because of its success in exploring injustice. No Stars to Wish On will make young readers angry, as Holes does. Both books make readers
question a world in which the young are powerless against the system.
Comparisons have also been made with John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Both Boyne and Fraillon handle very
confronting and painful material. Both reveal the truth while carefully
negotiating the narrative so that young readers are not traumatised.
There are teachers' notes on the Allen & Unwin website.
Recommendation: This is a novel that begs to be shared
with readers. It may be just a little young for high school, although it will
suit some Year 7 or 8 classes quite well. It's a perfect class-set novel for
Years 5 - 6. -HS
by Neil Gaiman. Headline Publishing Group, 2014. ISBN
9781472200341. 272 pp.
Not many authors can segue from a duck
pond to the beginning of the world in only 103 words but Neil Gaiman does so on
his first page of The Ocean at the End of
the Lane. And what an extraordinary beginning it is to this marvellous and
frightening novel.
The first-person narrator has returned to
his hometown for a funeral. In driving to his sister’s house he turns down an
old lane and comes to the Hempstock farmhouse, a place he thinks he visited
when he was young. He has vague memories of Lettie and her duck pond. Lettie
isn’t there but old Mrs Hempstock tells him where the duck pond is and he
remembers that Lettie called it her ocean. ‘I remembered that, and remembering
that I remembered everything.’ The return triggers a wave of recollections: a
terrible birthday party that no-one came to, the killing of a kitten and a
suicide by a lodger in the family car that opens the way for an evil presence.
Standing against that presence are the remarkable Hemstock women: grandmother,
mother and eleven-year-old Lettie. It is at their farm with them that the
narrator finds comfort and support. But when he and Lettie set out on what
seems to be a simple task, they both find themselves in terrible and fantastic
peril.
Gaiman’s prose is simple and
unsentimental; as the blurb suggests it’s ‘as delicate as a butterfly’s wing,
as dangerous as a knife in the dark’. He evokes the modest pleasures of warm
porridge and fresh milk from the cow and also delivers the primal horror of the
hunger birds. He puzzles and delights us with his creation of the Hemstocks.
Are there really three of them? Why don’t they age? He imbues them with such
toughness, matter-of-fact power and wisdom that it takes your breath away.
Gaiman says he plundered the landscape of
his childhood to write this adult novel. It’s deeply rooted in the real-life situations
of childhood that blend, both prosaically and terrifyingly, into a fantasy
world. In both worlds Gaiman explores betrayal and sacrifice. It’s such a
potent book that it stays in the mind a long time after you finish it; it’s
undoubtedly one of the best books I read in 2014.
Recommendation: Students in Years 9, 10 and
11 will be eager to discuss the mesmerising qualities of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. -DM
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