Presentation at ETANSW Conference
November 2013
Text Choices for the Australian
Curriculum
These are notes from my presentation at the NSW English
Teachers' Association Conference: Innovation on 23rd November 2013.
I presented with Deb McPherson. Some of what we presented
was inspired by Ernie Tucker.
Deb's reviews are followed by - DM. There is one review from Ernie - ET. Mine are -HS.
For any queries, please email me at
hsykes@me.com.
10 Futures
by Michael
Pryor. Woolshed Press, 2012. ISBN 9781742753768. 229 pp.
In the world of
2100, robot technology has been developed to such an extent that daily life is
managed by household robots. These robots, such as the much-loved Portia, are
not only unfailingly efficient and knowledgeable but have developed pleasant
human-like personalities. But what if the artificial intelligence they have
acquired has evolved to the point where the machines have become human? As well
as Artificial Intelligence, Pryor explores in this anthology such issues as the
consequences of a global financial collapse, of global warming and of
overpopulation, the impact of a pandemic, the ethical dilemmas arising from
cloning and genetic selection, and even the mixed blessings of medical science
ensuring vastly increased human longevity.
The stories are
linked by the use of the same protagonists in each story. This is an original
and interesting idea. There is no suggestion that Tara and Sam, who have 'been
best friends forever', live for more than a century. In every story they are
approximately the same age. Pryor is signalling that he is writing metafiction:
not only is he asking 'what if?' about his science fiction scenarios, he is
asking: 'What if I place these two characters that I have imagined in each of
these very different worlds?' Not only does this use of the characters provide
the anthology with a satisfying sense of unity, it offers the reader an
opportunity to empathise, as these are warm and engaging characters. Tara is
bright and feisty, a thinker, prepared to challenge authority if necessary, at
some cost to herself. Sam is more cautious but loyal and protective; much
quieter than Tara, he is an artist who loves working with his hands.
This is not the
kind of science fiction that proposes lots of wacky future technological
inventions. These future worlds are firmly based in our world today and simply
explore the consequences if certain current trends develop further. Every story
throws up ethical questions. For example, if human life is reduced to
subsistence living after a global financial collapse, what do you do with a
member of the community who is not doing his share? If neighbours with young
children beg you to take them in but they may be carrying the virus that has
killed billions around the world, how do you respond? If your life and the life
of your best friend depend on betraying an innocent man, what do you do? These
are unquestionably worthwhile questions for readers to explore.
These are
well-written stories, not all with neat endings. There are interesting motifs
repeated throughout, adding further to a sense of cohesiveness, such as Sam's
casual use of expressions from both Mandarin and Hindi, in the same way as
twentieth-century teenagers adopted Americanisms. Readers can learn a lot about
the nature of the short story by looking closely at what Pryor has done here.
Recommendation:
Most people seem to be
recommending this for class study in Years 9 and 10, but it is well within the
reading capacity of many students in Years 7 and 8. As always, it depends on
the abilities of the class you are teaching. Wherever you use it, it will allow
you to tick off the Australian Curriculum requirement for a text that explores
the concept of 'sustainability'. In fact, I can't think of a better text for
this purpose. As suggested above, it covers as well the 'ethical understanding'
general capability and it would be easy to cover as well 'critical and creative
thinking'.
The new syllabus
recommends that students experiment with others' imaginative texts by changing
aspects such as place and characters (Stage 3 Objective C). This text provides
them with an excellent example of characters being transposed into different
settings. As well as providing a model for students' own writing, Pryor
provides opportunities for in-depth discussion of the nature of fictional
characters.
Short story
anthologies that work well in the classroom are fairly rare. This is a very welcome
addition to the resources available to the secondary English classroom. It is
highly recommended. - HS
The Accident
by Kate Hendrick. Text Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781921922855.
260 pp.
The second voice is that of Will, also in Year 12. Will
feels completely overshadowed by his much more assertive sisters - older sister
Lauren and younger sister Morgan. Mum, a writer, has effectively withdrawn from
family life after her husband walked out on the family. The children mostly
fend for themselves. Will is concerned but helpless about the family
dysfunction and especially worried about the uncommunicative Lauren, who has
recently and unexpectedly returned home, after having left abruptly some time
previously.
Eliat, the third voice, is the eighteen-year-old mother
of two-year-old Tash. Eliat, who has spent her entire life in a series of
unsatisfactory foster homes, has been taken in by Rose-Marie and Terry, a
childless well-to-do couple, who are supporting Eliat at school and taking on
most of the burden of raising Tash. Eliat, who is anything but the
stereotypical teenage mother (one of her Year 12 subjects is Maths Extension 2),
has learnt not to care about people. She is often impatient with school, bored
that she already knows everything covered by the Biology syllabus, and resents
Rose-Marie, who is irritatingly perfect. Torn between love for Tash and an
addiction to risk-taking behaviour, she rebels against Terry and Rose-Marie's
attempts to restrict her wild social life.
All three characters are complex and interesting, and
they are supported by a cast of minor characters who also come to life. Part of
the success is Hendrick's skill with dialogue, including the representation of
the first-person voices. The voices are quite distinctive: Sarah describes her
Art teacher as 'reassuringly scatty', while Eliat calls her Biology teacher 'a
cow'. Will, who wants to be a writer, is much more self-reflective than the
other two. The story is told in 33 short chapters, alternating from Sarah's
voice to Will's and then Eliat's. But it's more complex than that. Each chapter
is headed:
before
after
later
and, each time, one of the words is in bold type. Each
chapter is not only a different voice but it's in a different time - before,
after or later than the pivotal accident. Sarah and Will are both doing Year 12
at the same school, but Will's is the 'after' story and Sarah's is 'later':
Will is in Year 12 the year before Sarah changes schools. Sarah never meets
Will, but she becomes friends with his sister Morgan as they work together in
the darkroom in the school's art department. There is a further connection:
Will's other sister Lauren had been in a relationship with the doctor that
saved Sarah's life on the night of the accident - the night he and Lauren ended
their relationship. We know from Will's story that Lauren is troubled; it is in
Sarah's story that we learn why. So there are both several connections between
Will and Sarah, and yet at the same time no direct connection. The connection
between Sarah and Eliat is in contrast very direct and totally random: Eliat
just happens to be on the scene on the night of Sarah's accident and helps the
doctor to stop the bleeding.
Hendrick begins the novel with Sarah's voice. We find it
easy to identify with her but, initially, Will is less sympathetic and Eliat is
antipathetic. We hardly notice as we read but gradually Hendrick shifts our
perceptions, so that by the end of the novel we understand Will and our heart
bleeds for Eliat. One of the strengths of the novel is undoubtedly the
characterisation, but I was even more impressed with the narrative structure.
Hendrick pulls together the different strands of the narrative and the
different time frames with an effortlessness that is impressive.
Recommendation: This
is highly recommended for class set use for a comprehensive Year 8-9 class. Students
will engage with the very different ways Sarah, Will and Eliat deal with the
difficulties in their lives. It's ultimately a very positive book, offering
glimmers of hope while shunning easy happy endings. - HS
Amina
by J. L. Powers. Through My Eyes series. Allen &
Unwin, 2013. ISBN 9781743312490. 192 pp.
This is the
second title in Allen & Unwin's valuable new series 'Through My Eyes',
novels about children living in conflict zones. The first book was Rosanne
Hawke's Shahana, set in Kashmir.
Amina's father
is targeted and kidnapped by al-Shabaab because he is an artist. Her brother
Roble is snatched off the street by a truckload of rebel soldiers looking for
new recruits. Amina is left alone with her seven-month-pregnant mother and her
frail grandmother. Neighbours are frightened or unwilling to help; the
neighbour most able to offer support is suspected of having betrayed Amina's
father to the rebels. The family have no income. Amina and her grandmother make
one perilous journey to the market to try to sell one of her father's
paintings, only to be ripped off by a conman who steals the painting.
The story is
told in the third-person, through Amina's eyes. Amina is an interesting
character. Like her father, she wants to be an artist and she wants her art to
make a statement about the future of Somalia. At great risk, she draws with
charcoal on the walls of abandoned buildings, including lines of her own poems.
She leaves in the ruins what would be called in Sydney 'art installations',
created from a variety of found objects. All her work is signed. Before he is
kidnapped, her brother Roble had argued that her artwork was putting all their
lives in danger. She replies: 'Our lives are always in danger.'
This is a
survival story. The family suffer near-starvation and there are grave fears for
the expected baby. Young readers are given a satisfying resolution, as the
situation improves for the family and Amina's artistic talent is recognised,
but it is no cheap happy ending. Amina's father is almost certainly dead and
brother Roble's whereabouts are unknown.
Recommendation: As well as allowing students to see the
world through the eyes of someone living daily with danger and starvation, this
gives worthwhile insights into the life of a devout Muslim family, whose values
conflict with those of the extreme fundamentalists who control the streets.
This novel is strong enough to be considered for whole class use. It would work
best with Year 7, preferably a girls' class. It is also a terrific title to
include in a selection of titles about children in other countries. - HS
Australians
All: A History of Growing Up from the Ice Age to the Apology
by Nadia Wheatley, illustrated by Ken Searle. Allen &
Unwin, 2013. ISBN 9781742370972. 281 pp. Hardcover.
Wheatley chose to tell Australia's history through the
stories of individual children and adolescents. Some are people who grew up to
have a place in more traditional Australian histories but many are unknowns,
offering a diverse range of insights. The diversity is important: this history
includes the lives of women, the lives of Australia's Indigenous people and the
lives of some of the many migrants who have built this nation. The stories are
mini-biographies, most just a page long. They are illustrated with Ken Searle's
paintings, as well as historical photographs and drawings.
The greatest strength of the history in my opinion is the
story of our Indigenous peoples - especially of the traditional way of life
that 'provided a healthier diet and much more leisure time than the lifestyle
endured by the peasant farmers of Europe'. Wheatley records the stories of a
number of Indigenous children whose families returned each year to homes that
provided a rich supply of food in the right season.
Wheatley suggests that the way to approach this book is
to browse at random. I began that way but was so impressed with the quality of
the writing and the amount of information that I did not know that I soon
turned back to the beginning and read the book, including the introduction,
from beginning to end. I read quite slowly, savouring the insights. I can see
myself re-reading quite soon.
The book has an appendix that gives us information about
what happened to the children and their families in later life. There is also a
glossary.
If you are buying Christmas presents for 8-14-year-olds,
put this on your shopping list. I'm not claiming that their eyes will light up
in the same way as if you give them the latest Wimpy Kid or teenage paranormal
title, but this should be in every home. Many kids who begin to browse will be
drawn in as I was.
Recommendation: You
probably won't use this directly in your English classroom but make sure that
there are several copies in the library and send students to it regularly for
research purposes. There is much here that is relevant to the national
curriculum cross-curricular priorities.
Note:
Wheatley conducted a great many interviews during her research for Australians All. She collected her
interviews with Indigenous Australians in a book called Playground (Playground: Listening to stories
from country and from inside the heart compiled by Nadia Wheatley,
illustrated by Ken Searle, with Jackie Huggins as consultant. Allen &
Unwin, 2011. ISBN 9781742370972. 97 pages). We included Playground in our ETANSW conference presentation in 2011 and
recommended it strongly as a resource for study of Indigenous and Torres Strait
Islander histories and cultures. - HS
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life,
death and hope in a Mumbai slum
by Katherine
Boo. Scribe Publications, 2012. ISBN 9781921844638. 288 pp.
Katherine Boo, an American journalist,
spent several years interviewing and getting to know
people who live in the
Annawadi slum close to Sahar International airport in Mumbai. The slum lies on
airport land behind a concrete wall with a series of advertisements extolling
the wonders of Italianate floor tiles that are promised to be ‘beautiful
forever’. The contrast with slum life is extreme and savage. While this is an
adult non-fiction text, its distinctive narrative and its insight into a major
country in our region and in the world are invaluable.
Boo has adopted
a novelistic approach despite constructing a work of non-fiction and her cast
of characters is extensive. Three families predominate in the text. Asha is a
woman who wants to be the slumlord and her daughter Manju helps run a school
for slum children. Young Abdul is an expert garbage collector and recycler and
helps support his family while earning the envy of a neighbouring family. Fatima
hates the noise associated with her neighbours’ improvements to their hut. In
an act of self-destruction she burns herself and blames Abdul. This incident
creates a catalyst for madness and horror as Abdul is arrested for her murder.
The incident serves to illustrate how corruption appears to be an integral part
of the political, social and economic fabric as the police, neighbours, lawyers
and organisers all work to get the most out of the situation.
Recommendation: Boo’s empathy and attention to detail
enable the reader to share the experiences, hopes and despairs of a range of
people. The deaths, prejudices, tragedies and inequalities Boo describes are
confronting and globalisation looks very different when you are looking at it
from a Mumbai slum. But that is the point – this text offers many Australian
students insight into a poorer and very different world, an opportunity to walk
in other people's shoes (if they had them). While students might read it and
weep, it’s a book worth reading. Recommend it to mature readers in Years 10 and
11. - DM
Big
Thursday
by Anne Brooksbank. Puffin Books, 2013. ISBN 9780143567165.
256 pp.
There are lots of novels about kids living in
dysfunctional families or in difficult social circumstances, but novels about
kids from comfortable backgrounds suddenly being plunged into a quite different
lifestyle are rare. Brooksbank depicts very well the increasing strains on the
family, especially when Luke's mother decides to take the children to live for
a time with her parents in Tasmania. Nat misses his best friend Sam, the girl
he likes - Grace, and the surf, but most of all he worries about his father's
state of mind. Brooksbank gives us a resolution that offers some hope but no
easy answers.
Recommendation: If you
have kids that love surfing, this is a must-read for them. There are two
terrific sequences where Nat and Luke fight the ocean. If you are located on
the northern beaches of Sydney, this is also a terrific choice: there is
something special about a book set in a familiar location. For other readers,
this is a satisfying story of a boy facing difficulties in his life. It would
work as a Year 7 class novel. Add it to wide reading selections of titles about
families or about father-son relationships. - HS
Butter
by Erin Lange. Faber and Faber, 2013 (2012). ISBN 9780571294404.
345 pp.
Some of the best class set novels over the years have
been books about bullying. Nothing quite get
kids so fired up as injustice.
Every kid knows what it feels like to be bullied, and quite a few know what
it's like to bully others. This novel asks them to think about another
situation: what's your position if you don't actually participate in the
bullying, but you are aware of it and just look on? What makes that question
especially relevant is that this is a very contemporary novel. It is set in the
world that adolescents actually inhabit these days but that few writers of
adolescent novels have yet fully caught up with: a world lived online. This is
the world of nonstop text messaging and of Facebook. We've had a few books
about cyberbullying, and there has been considerable discussion about the
effects of anonymity on behaviour. But this goes a lot further. This is a world
in which a lonely outcast can have an online romance with a girl from the
popular set and where the school freak can be transformed overnight into a
media star on the web. It's a world where spectacle dominates to the extent
that normal moral conventions and human empathy are lost in the excitement of the
moment. It's a world in which ordinary, good kids can condone evil.
Butter is
narrated in the first person by a very intelligent, self-deprecating voice.
Butter is his nickname, one that was conferred on him by the bullies in a very
cruel moment that is one of the memorable scenes of the novel. It's not until
the last line of the novel that we discover his real name. In his teens, Butter
is excessively obese - about 420 pounds or 190 kilos or more than 28 stone. His
doting mother fluctuates between plying him with food as a token of her love -
'pecan waffles, Canadian bacon, and poached eggs' for breakfast - to trying to
persuade him to try one of the latest diets. His father seems defeated,
probably not even aware that it is a very long time since he has spoken
directly to his son. Butter's conviction that he is an embarrassment to his
father is just one of the bitter facts of his life. At school he is a freak and
a loner. His only consolations are his music - he is a talented saxophonist -
and his online, anonymous relationship with Anna. Anna and Butter have never
spoken; she is falling in love online with the charming and witty, 'JP', the
pseudonym Butter has adopted. He has built up a profile for his online identity:
a popular and sporty boy from the private school across town.
We learn a lot about Butter from his relationships with
some of the adults in his life, particularly Doctor Bean, the doctor who
manages his diabetes, and the Professor, the music teacher at his college. As
readers, we like and care for Butter, sympathise with his hopeless infatuation
with Anna, appreciate his humour and intelligence. His fellow students see only
his size.
In a moment of despair Butter sets up a website and
declares that, on New Year's Eve, he will eat himself to death on webcam. That
declaration transforms his life. Students are divided about whether he is
serious or not but all of them are fascinated. Butter, from being a complete
loner, is adopted by the in-crowd and is caught up in a social whirl. There is
huge interest in what Butter will eat at his final meal. As a diabetic, Butter
realises that he actually can kill himself by eating the wrong things; a severe
allergy to strawberries is an added bonus.
The tension in the story depends of course on whether or
not Butter will go through with his threat - and whether any of the students
who have followed him on his website will try to prevent the suicide.
Recommendation: This
is a high-interest, well-written novel that keeps readers turning the pages. Like
a lot of the best books, it's both very funny at times and heart-wrenchingly
sad. It's a great class set novel for Years 8-9, raising a wealth of ethical
questions about bullying and about social values. While it will be a success
with any class, try it with one of those lower-stream classes where most kids
don't really want to read: this will get them in. - HS
Crow Country
by Kate
Constable. Allen & Unwin, 2011. ISBN 9781742373959. 252 pp.
No one likes to
be uprooted from a familiar and comfortable home and taken to another
environment. Thirteen-year-old Sadie is definitely not happy when her mother
moves the two of them from the city back to Boort, the country town where she
grew up. The Boort community appears to harbour out-dated views; black/white
relationships are subject to censure and Sadie’s friendship with Walter, an
Aborigine, attracts derogatory comments. Sadie finds herself in the middle of
generational tensions and prejudices; she is attracted to Lachie Mortlock, but
there are old conflicts between their families. But the most perplexing thing
is that the crows keep talking to her! When Sadie time-slips back two
generations, old secrets come to life. A stone circle exposed by the drought
creates a focus for the conflicts in the novel and Sadie must find a way to
make peace and return sacred items to an Aboriginal elder.
This time-slip
novel has echoes of Playing Beattie Bow.
Kate Constable is the author of the powerful Chanters of Tremaris trilogy. Crow
Country was the winner of the Children's Book Council Australia, Book of
the Year (Younger Readers) 2012 and of the Patricia Wrightson Prize for
Children's Literature in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards 2012.
Recommendation: The Indigenous relationship to country
is an important theme in this novel. Students in Year 8 should enjoy exploring
this well-crafted novel and the text lends itself to addressing the cross-curriculum
priority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ histories and cultures. - DM
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
adapted by Simon Stephens, based on Mark Haddon's novel.
Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2013 (2012). ISBN 9781408173350. 100 pp.
This playscript of Haddon's famous novel
was first performed in London in August 2012. A
slightly adapted version was
transferred to the Apollo Theatre in March 2013. The play has played to
rapturous audiences in London and has won more Olivier awards in 2013 than any other
previous play, matched only by the musical Matilda.
As English teachers know, a play that is a
huge success in performance does not necessarily translate into a script that
works in the classroom, especially for students who have limited experience of live
theatre. It is obvious from accounts of the 2013 London performance that the
director has made innovative use of both visual and sound techniques, but the
script stands up very well on its own, read silently or read aloud
collaboratively in the classroom. Nor is a knowledge of Haddon's novel
necessary; while some teachers will want to use the novel and the play side by
side, to explore the ways in which different media tell the same story, the
play can be read and appreciated on its own.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time tells the story of Christopher, a teenage boy with
behavioural difficulties. While his behaviour has many similarities to that of
people who suffer from Asperger Syndrome, Mark Haddon has always insisted he is
no expert in mental illness and the play is not about any particular condition.
Rather, it is about difference, about seeing the world quite differently from
most other people. The novel used first-person narration with disconcerting
success to allow the reader to view the world through Christopher's eyes. The
triumph of the play is that it uses all the resources of theatre to achieve the
same effect. The play is a powerful emotional experience, capturing
Christopher's bewilderment in a world that makes no sense. It is both very,
very funny and achingly sad.
The play is non-realistic in style. The
stage directions at the beginning inform us that all actors remain on stage
throughout, unless prescribed otherwise. They go on to inform us that:
There is also a dead dog. With a fork sticking out of it.
As with the novel, the language is often
offensive, reflecting the violent frustrations of the adults in Christopher's
life. The first few lines of the play, as Mrs Shears reacts to the sight of her
dead dog, are shockingly offensive. Students need probably to be forewarned,
but it would be sad if students in Years 10 and 11 are not mature enough to
cope with the use of such language in context.
Scenes run into one another at a very fast
pace, making this an enthralling read (and, I'm sure, a compelling theatrical
experience). You will want to read it straight through with your students
first, just for the story, even if they know the novel. The emotional impact is
strong. Later, you can experiment with ways in which certain scenes could be
presented. One of the most interesting is the scene when Christopher goes to
the railway station when he decides to seek out his mother. There is a painful
speech in which he explains the laborious way in which he gets there and then
we have five voices, which the stage directions tell us should be pre-recorded:
Voice One Customers seeking access to the car
park please use assistance phone opposite, right of the ticket office
Voice Two Warning CCTV in operation
Voice Three Great Western
Voice Five Cold beers and lagers
Voice Two CAUTION WET FLOOR
Voice Four Your 50p will keep a premature baby
alive for 1.8 seconds
Voice Three Transforming Travel
Voice Five Refreshingly Different
Voice One It's delicious it's creamy and its only
£1.30 Hot Choc Deluxe
It's an aural and visual bombardment of
station announcements, spruikers outside some of the shops at the station and
the many, many advertisements, signs and notices. It runs on for two pages of
script. It's appalling over-stimulation, a panic-inducing nightmare. In amongst
it all there comes the announcement:
Voice Three Dogs must be
carried
and then again:
Voice Three Dogs must be
carried at all times
Christopher interprets everything with terrible literalism.
Will he panic because he doesn't have a dog to carry?
The mindless litany ends by repeating:
Voice Three Dogs must be
carried at all times
It's no wonder at this point that a
policeman, alerted by the lady at the cafe, comes up and asks Christopher if he
is all right.
Students can have fun experimenting with
the way this scene, which runs for a couple of pages, would be played and how
the sense of intense panic is created. They might like to consider as well what
the effects might be of lighting (perhaps strobe lighting) and sound.
Just as a scene like this is non-realistic,
there are lots of moments in the play when the illusion is deliberately broken.
For example, Christopher objects that the policeman is too old - 'too old to
play a policeman'. The illusion is completely broken at the end, where
Christopher - who is an extremely talented mathematician - is not allowed to
explain his mathematical proof:
Siobhan You don't have to tell us how you
solved it.
Christopher But
it's my favourite question.
Siobhan Yes, but it's not very interesting.
Christopher I
think it is.
Siobhan Christopher people won't want to
hear about the
answer to a maths question in a play.
Look
why don't you tell it after the curtain call?
When
you've finished you can do a bow and then
people who want to can go home and if anybody
wants to find out how you solved the maths
question then they can stay and you can tell
them at the end.
So the final scene, after the curtain call,
is 'A Maths Appendix' - which the stage directions say is to be delivered: 'Using
as much theatricality as we can throw at it.'
Recommendation: This is
highly recommended for use with Years 10 or 11. The play itself is highly
engaging, but I love the fact that it allows lots of opportunities for exploring
the fact that a playscript is a skeleton to be fleshed out in performance. The
Bloomsbury edition of the play includes quite extensive teaching ideas. There
is a youtube clip showing the cast at
the National Theatre in London working on the play at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2bV75ITXJw.
A performance of the play was filmed and has been shown in some Australian
cinemas under the National Live program. - HS
The Debt series
by Phillip Gwynne. Allen & Unwin, 2013.
Catch the Zolt: 1. ISBN 9781742378442.
275 pp.
Turn off the Lights: 2. ISBN 9781742378435.
265 pp.
Bring Back Cerberus: 3. ISBN 9781742378596.
279 pp.
Fetch the Treasure Hunter: 4. ISBN 9781742378602.
349 pp.
Yamashita's Gold: 5.
ISBN 9781742378619. 388 pp.
Take a Life: 6. ISBN 9781742378626. 467
pp.
The story is based on an improbable premise about an
ancient Calabrian feud that resulted in 'The Debt' - a deadly dangerous
obligation that must be met by each elder son as he turns fifteen. The Debt
cost the protagonist's grandfather, Gus, a leg - which put a definite stop to
his promising career as a runner. The representative of the next generation,
the protagonist's father, seems to have paid the debt and has become an extremely
wealthy businessman. His son, the protagonist, Dom Silvagni, lives a spoiled
and expensive life in Halcyon Cove, a gated community on Queensland's Gold
Coast. He attends the exclusive Coast Boys Grammar, which I hated immediately,
where he is an indifferent student but a star of the running team.
For me, one of the strengths of the writing is the social
satire. Gwynne is merciless in his attack on the idle and corrupt rich and on
the pretensions of elite schools. For the intended audience, the strength that
they will appreciate is the black humour, which includes what can only be
called the 'yuck factor'. There are lots of pooh jokes as well, but there are
also stomach-churning details such as the requirement that, as each instalment
of the debt is paid (there are always six), the teenager is branded on the
inner thigh with a hot branding iron, spelling out progressively the letters of
the word PAGATO, meaning 'paid'. Dom's father has the full word branded into
his flesh; his grandfather's branding is incomplete. Dom will have to accept at
each stage of a successfully completed instalment a similar branding; the only
alternative, if he fails like his grandfather to deliver the payment, is that
he will lose a pound of flesh.
Each instalment of the debt presents a different and
seemingly impossible challenge. In the course of accepting each challenge, Dom
finds himself in a variety of extremely risky situations in a range of
different locations, accompanied by some very odd characters, including a very
dodgy private detective, a couple of street kids, a seventeen-year-old escapee
from the law known as the Facebook bandit, and a South American taxi driver who
mysteriously turns up over and over again just in the nick of time. There are
countless shoot outs, car chases, breathtakingly dangerous boat trips,
helicopter rescues and landings in light planes with unqualified pilots. Most
of the locations are on the Gold Coast or in northern Queensland but Instalment
Four involves a trip to Rome and a very scary excursion to Calabria.
You may have noticed that the page count increases with
each book or 'instalment'. This series is designed to get kids hooked as
readers, and I think it will work well with some. The plot is compelling, with
some major surprises reserved until Instalment Six.
I usually read the first book in a series and then sample
one or two others, but it's rare for me to read my way through a series. I'll
confess that I enjoyed these enough to read all six of them.
Recommendation:
Include these in a wide reading selection of action adventure thrillers for
Years 7 and 8. - HS
Evan’s Gallipoli
by Kerry Greenwood. Allen & Unwin,
2013. ISBN 9781743311356. 216 pp.
Kerry Greenwood
takes us behind enemy lines in this engrossing account of the Gallipoli
campaign from the point of view of a young non-combatant. Fourteen-year-old
Evan Warrender has sailed to Gallipoli with his evangelical father to help
support the Australian troops with supplies and prayer. As the terrible impact
of trench warfare starts to send his father mad, the pair stumble behind the
lines and are captured by the Turks. With some help from the enemy they escape,
and it is Evan who increasingly takes responsibility for their fate. The pair
are aided by a range of kind strangers as they struggle to return home.
Friendships are formed and Evan discovers much that binds people together even
when separated by race or religion or nationality. They cross Turkey, Thrace
and Bulgaria until they finally reach Greece. After more obstacles and a
crushing moral dilemma, Evan is able to secure a passage home where a final
twist brings the story to its conclusion.
Kerry Greenwood
has used the diary form convincingly in this well researched, complex and
absorbing novel.
Recommendation: Evan's
Gallipoli will provide an enriching text for Year 7 students to explore. - DM
The Farm
by Emily McKay. Penguin, 2012. ISBN 9781405909259. 424
pp.
Recommendation: Multiple narrators and the sexual
tension between Lily and Carter will keep students engaged and there is a plot
twist at the end, but be warned: this is only the first of a series. The Farm would be a popular text for
Years 8 or 9 as part of a post-apocalyptic wide reading unit. - DM
Forget
Me Not
by Tom Holloway. Currency Plays, 2013. ISBN 9780868199696.
80 pp.
Whenever I go to the theatre, I am looking for plays that
might work in English classrooms. Sadly,
very few are appropriate, even when
they're good. This one, which was performed at Belvoir Theatre in 2013, will, I
think, work in Year 10 or Year 11 classrooms.The language is a bit
confronting but appropriate to the context, and I think most senior classes
will cope with it. It tells the terrible story of a child taken from Liverpool
when he was aged three and sent with many other children to a new life in
Australia. It is based on detailed research about the more than 3 000 children
who were shipped to Australia from England as orphans between the end of World
War II and 1970. Gerry, now around 60, has always believed he was an orphan. He
was brought up in a brutal Australian institution and was severely damaged by
the experience. His life has been unhappy and often violent. It is his
daughter, Sally, who insists that he contacts the authorities and try to find
out who he is.
The play is non-realistic in style and is not arranged chronologically. The most gripping scenes are those between an inarticulate Gerry and the frail old woman, Mary. It is a while before we realise that Mary is, in fact, Gerry's mother, mourning for the child she gave up because she was persuaded by the authorities that he would go to a better life. It takes even longer to realise that the scenes between Gerry and Mary are imagined. By the time Gerry and Sally get to Liverpool, Mary is dead.
The play is non-realistic in style and is not arranged chronologically. The most gripping scenes are those between an inarticulate Gerry and the frail old woman, Mary. It is a while before we realise that Mary is, in fact, Gerry's mother, mourning for the child she gave up because she was persuaded by the authorities that he would go to a better life. It takes even longer to realise that the scenes between Gerry and Mary are imagined. By the time Gerry and Sally get to Liverpool, Mary is dead.
I try as often as possible not to disclose endings, so I
apologise for that. However, I don't think it will spoil your appreciation of
the play.
There are of course a lot of other resources about these
stolen children, including documentaries, some fictionalised accounts written
for young adults, and David Hill's autobiographical account.
Recommendation: If you
are wanting a new play for Years 11 and 12, this might be worth considering. - HS
by Melina Marchetta. Penguin, 2011. ISBN 9780670076086.
608 pp.
Quintana of Charyn
by Melina
Marchetta. Penguin, 2012. ISBN 9780670076246. 528 pp.
Melina Marchetta may be better known for
her realistic novels such as Looking for
Alibrandi but she also writes wonderful fantasy. These two novels complete The Lumatere Chronicles that commenced
with Finnikin of the Rock. Good
fantasy requires a believable world and realistic characters and Marchetta
certainly delivers in those areas, as well as supplying a complex political
struggle.
In Froi of the Exiles the curse on Lumatere
has been lifted and Froi, the loyal follower of the Queen, is sent on a secret
mission to the Kingdom of Charyn where he starts to discover more about his own
origins amid a country in political turmoil. Quintana, the princess of Charyn,
is thought to be half-mad, but she and Froi find a rapport and it is Froi who
saves her and
helps her to escape.
In Quintana of Charyn the princess is on
her own as Froi is recovering from multiple arrow wounds. The book has six
different narratives, including those of Froi and Quintana, that weave together
and twist apart as Marchetta brings the complex threads of her ambitious plot
together.
Recommendation: This is passionate, intricate and
violent fantasy. Savagery is part of the landscape and rulers and followers alike
have their humanity tested. The series would be an excellent anchor in a wide
reading fantasy unit about authority, revenge, politics and the power of
friendship. While the books are long, they are gripping and rewarding to read.
Year 9 students should enjoy their excitement and inventiveness. - DM
The Girl from Snowy River
by Jackie French. Angus & Robertson, 2012. ISBN 9780732293109.
343 pp.
French brings together a wide variety of different
elements to tell Flinty's story: stories of the soldiers of World War I and of
the traumas they brought back with them; stories of the nurses on the
battlefields; the very different experiences of Australia's Vietnam troops; Banjo
Paterson's ballads, including the legend of Clancy of the Overflow and of a
wild ride to round up mountain brumbies; the struggles of small farmers in a
bleak environment; French's own personal experience of crippling back injury.
Part of me believes that it shouldn't work, but French is a magic storyteller
and as usual she engages her readers. The element that is most unlikely is the
presence, in 1919, of the ghost of a Vietnam veteran; Nicholas, who has lost
both legs in Vietnam and is in a wheelchair, belongs fifty years into the
future and - most oddly - is acquainted with the rather formidable old lady
Flinty will become. Nicholas (from the future) and the seventeen-year-old Flinty
become friends and confidants; she encourages him to try the artificial limbs
that might allow him to walk again and he reassures her that, while life will
be hard, happy times are ahead. By juxtaposing Nicholas's experience as a
Vietnam veteran alongside the experiences of returned soldiers from World War
I, French is able to explore ideas about the wastefulness of war.
This is a grand, sweeping story with some nail-biting
moments, especially the two terrifying horse rides. It's an excellent
historical novel, vividly evoking both time and place, but its strongest appeal
is the character of Flinty. Girls will empathise with her courage and
resilience and will rejoice in the eventual happy ending when Sandy admits that
he has never stopped loving her.
Recommendation: Like so many of French's novels, this
could work as a class set - for girls in Years 8 or 9, although it would not be
my first preference from the very impressive body of work that French has
produced. Make sure to introduce it to your girls; add it to a selection of
historical fiction, or love stories, or stories about resilience. - HS
Greek
Myths: Stories of Sun, Stone and Sea
by Sally Pomme Clayton and
Jane Ray. Frances Lincoln Children's Books, 2012. ISBN 9781847802279. 77 pp.
Hardcover; paperback - ISBN 9781847804938 - due for publication in
December 2013.
This is a lavishly illustrated
collection of some of the best-known Greek myths, including that of Pandora,
Perseus and Medusa, and Orpheus and Eurydice. The narration is very accessible
and would be great to read aloud. There are brief notes at the end of each
story, linking the myth to the modern world: the Temple of Delhi is still
there; you can walk through the Lion Gate at Mycenae, just as Agamemnon did;
Mount Chimera in Southern Turkey still burns. There is also an appendix with a
useful list of Greek gods and goddesses.
Recommendation: This is an excellent addition to your collection of traditional
stories. In paperback, it could be worth considering as a class set purchase,
allowing a unit of work specifically on Greek mythology. - HS
Indo Dreaming
by Neil Grant.
Allen & Unwin, 2005. ISBN 9781741141795. 264 pp.
There’s humour
and peril in the novel. Goog goes shark fishing, drinks the local water against
his mother’s advice with foreseeable consequences, loses all his stuff, finds a
girl and then loses her too, gets wrecked at sea and surfs to safety. It
appears his whole trip has been manipulated by the enigmatic Jasper, a people
smuggler and master scammer, so that Goog will meet up with his father and
Niagara’s ‘Uncle’ Max who are fighting for some villagers against the
Indonesian army. The plot certainly lacks credulity but the overall feeling of
being a stranger in a strange land is well established. Jasper is as
controlling as the puppet master in the Wayang puppet performances that Goog
sees.
Recommendation: With Heart of Darkness references and powerful surfing descriptions, Indo Dreaming could appeal to students
(particularly boys) in Years 9 and 10. It would have a place in a wide reading
unit focused on Asia and Australia’s engagement with Asia. - DM
Jandamarra
by Mark Greenwood and Terry Denton. Allen & Unwin,
2013. ISBN 9781742375700. 48 pp. Hardcover.
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.
Recommendation: This
is aimed at an upper primary-junior secondary audience but you could use it
with any year. It's a worthwhile addition to the resources available for the
Indigenous cross-curriculum priority. - HS
Korea Unmasked: in search of the Country,
the Society and the People
by Won-bok Rhie, translated by Jung Un
and Louis Choi. Gimm-Young International, 2005 (2002). ISBN 9788934917717. 234
pp.
Many schools are
looking for interesting texts to support their exploration of the cross
curriculum
priority, ‘Asia and Engagement with Asia’. Korea Unmasked will certainly provide a fascinating look at that
country and its graphic format makes it immediately accessible. I am grateful
to Corrina Hawke from Wagga Wagga High School who told me about this text. She
has done extensive work on its use (and that of other related texts) in the
classroom.
Professor Rhie
acknowledges in his forward that the book represents his subjective view or
‘mind map’ of Korean society. The text is very engaging and manages to convey
dense information and attitudes about Korea and its neighbours, China and Japan,
in a most engaging way. Areas covered are Korea’s difficult relationship with
those invading neighbours, the Korean people, their successes and tribulations
and the long and difficult road that has to be followed if unification is ever
to occur.
Comparisons and
contrasts with European experiences help the reader/viewer to understand more
clearly Professor Rhie’s analysis.
Recommendation: There is much to be gained for students
in Years 9 and 10 from an exploration of this text, while keeping in mind that
the Professor brings his own preconceptions and biases with him. As he says in
his introduction: ‘I expect there may be some who disagree with my views.' Any
student exploration of Korea and other Asian countries will benefit from
seeking to engage with a range of different texts. - DM
Light
Horse Boy
by Dianne Wolfer,
illustrated by Brian Simmonds. Fremantle Press, 2013. ISBN 9781922089137. 119 pp.
Hardcover.
Jim serves at Gallipolli, where he sees his best friend Charlie blown to bits, and then on various battlefields in the Middle East, in both the medical corps and the veterinary corps. He is severely wounded in Palestine and returns to Australia believing that he will probably be blind for life.
The story is
told mostly in letters between Jim and his sister Alice, supported by other
documents, and interspersed with some short passages of conventional historical
narrative. The text is enhanced by the dramatic black and white sketches and by
many photographs from World War I.
Recommendation: This will work as a class set text in
Years 7-9. It could be used as a companion text to Michael Morpurgo's War Horse, as both are well-researched
fictional accounts of the part played by horses in World War I, or it could be
used alongside Lighthouse Girl. Lighthouse Girl uses the same narrative
technique of telling the story through a range of different kinds of text, both
written and visual. There are a number of direct connections between the two
books, including the fact that it is Fay's lighthouse on Breaksea Island off
Albany that is the first thing that Jim sees when he tentatively removes the
bandages from his eyes. Both are beautifully told, exciting and often moving
stories of the experiences of Australian young people in World War I. - HS
More Than This
by Patrick Ness.
Walker Books, 2013. ISBN 9781406331158. 480 pp. Hardcover.
The first
sentence is typically present tense and shocking: ‘Here is the boy, drowning.’
On page three of this prologue: ‘He dies.’
In chapter one, he wakes (?) naked, except for bandages, in a grey cold place that he fears is a morgue, but he gradually comes out of some of his confusion to identify his name, Seth Wearing, and his childhood home in England, not his current home in Washington State USA. As he tries to orient himself, he dreams or has sudden flashes of memory about his American school friends, Gudmond and Harold and Monica, having fun stealing a baby Jesus statue from the neighbour’s Christmas illuminations. Next his family and younger brother Owen appear in a normal breakfast scene that nevertheless leads me, the reader, to wonder what happened to Seth and Owen in that English house with the prison walls just beyond the back fence and what happened on that beach in Washington before Seth went into the sea and drowned.
In chapter one, he wakes (?) naked, except for bandages, in a grey cold place that he fears is a morgue, but he gradually comes out of some of his confusion to identify his name, Seth Wearing, and his childhood home in England, not his current home in Washington State USA. As he tries to orient himself, he dreams or has sudden flashes of memory about his American school friends, Gudmond and Harold and Monica, having fun stealing a baby Jesus statue from the neighbour’s Christmas illuminations. Next his family and younger brother Owen appear in a normal breakfast scene that nevertheless leads me, the reader, to wonder what happened to Seth and Owen in that English house with the prison walls just beyond the back fence and what happened on that beach in Washington before Seth went into the sea and drowned.
These are the
first of many questions as Ness takes Seth, aged sixteen, nearly seventeen,
into the dusty tropical heat of his utterly deserted English town, where he
searches and scavenges for intact food and drink tins to survive like some
futuristic Robinson Crusoe. Ness is also the master of the cliff-hanging
chapter ending, so I am not going to reveal much more about this story that
thrives on a reader-writer partnership. I am shocked when Seth finds a steel
coffin in his old bedroom and deduces that he was in it and that this is his
own lonely hell.
In another
memory flash or dream, Seth remembers his love for Gudmond and how he is the
only one he could tell a little about what happened to Owen, but when Gudmond
takes a phone photo of the two of them in an embrace on his bed, only from the
shoulders up, ‘just for me’, I am filled with foreboding.
The past and
future stories interweave and are further complicated by the stories of two
other survivors or ‘accidents’, twelve-year-old Polish migrant Tomasz and
African-English girl Regine, who also had traumatic deaths. Lest you think that
the plot is too grim, Ness uses some soothing humour with Tomasz’s self-taught
English and his contrasting, young-boy’s perceptions of their relationships and
the danger they face. The trio suffer not just from past memories but present
dangers, as they are hunted by ‘the Driver’, an immensely powerful and cunning
humanoid or robot. Their situation is always questioned by Seth, who wonders if
they are just part of some huge program, while Regine asks whether two parallel
lives are possible. The mystery deepens, twists and turns as they try to find
meaning in their stories and wonder if they are being manipulated in some more
powerful story with an unknown beginning or ending and are just suffering an
inexplicable present in some abandoned, future world.
I enjoyed
puzzling out an interpretation as the action swept me along, with the title
becoming more significant in the traditional way of speculative fiction. There
is questioning of current social values and practices: our online world, there
has to be more than this or, more hopefully, there’s always more than this,
even when we feel trapped in what we think is our own lonely hell.
Recommendation: This superb novel might not be quite as
powerful as Chaos Walking but Ness
set himself a formidable standard there. It is very accessible for readers
fourteen years and older and if parents, librarians and teachers who might
worry about the two sexual references read it, they will be re-assured as well
as rewarded with a great read. - E.T.
Murder at Mykenai
by Catherine Mayo. Walker Books, 2013. ISBN 9781922077943.
389 pp.
This is a lively and entertaining story about the
friendship between teenage boys, Odysseus from
Ithaka and Menelaos from Greece.
Set a decade before the beginning of the Trojan War, it's a fast-moving account
of weapons training, wrestling, chariot racing and general teenage-boy
risk-taking, against a dangerous political background that includes the
assassination of Menelaos's father. Odysseus is a particularly appealing
character, bright and mischievous, with that self-confidence that comes from
knowing that you are loved and supported by your family: his parents, Laertes
and Antikleia, are positive, forward-looking characters. Menelaos's life has
been much less fortunate: well into adolescence he has been confined to the
women's quarters because of tragic family secrets. He is forced to flee Mykenai
when his father is assassinated and ends up in the brutal care of a tutor,
Palamedes, who both rapes and flogs him. Menelaos survives largely because of
the loyalty and persistence of his friend, Odysseus.
This is a terrific action novel from a first-time author
from New Zealand. There are some very funny scenes, including the opening
sequence when a runaway and very angry ostrich disrupts a ceremonial
procession, but there are also some dark moments. Odysseus and Menelaos find
themselves in a violent and treacherous world. Menelaos is so despairing of his
humiliation by Palamedes that he deliberately puts himself in the way of a
spear when hunting with Odysseus.
Recommendation: Most
students in Years 7 and 8 study Ancient Greece and it's surprisingly hard to
find good fiction that helps students to visualise the world they are learning
about in their history classes. You could use Murder at Mykenai as a class novel, especially with a class of
boys, in Year 8 while they are studying Ancient Greece. Be warned, however,
that the rape and violence might be disturbing to some readers. It would be fun
to explore the way the author combines knowledge about Ancient Greek life in
the bronze age with Greek mythology. It would also be fun to explore
connections with Homer's telling of the Trojan War. I especially enjoyed the
young Menelaos's infatuation with the beautiful young Helen. - HS
New Guinea Moon
by Kate
Constable. Allen & Unwin, 2013. ISBN 9781743315033. 288 pp.
Recommendation: There are few texts available which can
increase our knowledge of our nearest neighbour. Kate Constable grew up in New
Guinea, where her father worked as a charter pilot, so she is well acquainted
with the country. Her previous novel, Crow
Country, won the Children’s Book Council of Australia award for younger
readers in 2012. Students in Year 8 or 9 will find much to appreciate in this
finely developed narrative. - DM
I was
particularly interested in the behaviour of the Australian ex-pats, some of
whom identify fully with New Guinea and have no wish to leave it after
Independence, while others have arrogant colonial attitudes. - HS
Part 2 follows in next post.
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