eighteen: Black Glass by Meg Mundell

Black Glass 

by Meg Mundell
Scribe Publications (2011)
Review published February 2012 at M/C Reviews 
Meg's response on Facebook : Alison, I think I love you...thanks Ramon for pointing me to this ace review


.. the story is fragmented, like broken glass...

If fiction reveals our cultural journeys, speculative fiction confronts us with dystopian visions of where we could be heading. Debut Australian novelist Meg Mundell shines with her layering of Big Brotherly surveillance and alienated citizenry over the culturally-rich first-world city of Melbourne.

Tally and Grace are sisters seduced by the mythology of the big city. After years of being continuously covertly relocated across the Regions, the sisters are plunged into homelessness when their father’s meth lab explodes. This first explosion rips the sisters’ world apart. Physically apart at the time, they escape separately to the city, each believing the other dead, but holding on to the hope that has long sustained them.

Black glass is a barrier, a means for one group to spy on another. It is the concealed surveillance cameras, the one-way glass at the casino and the health club, the reflective glass of the tall inner-city buildings. It is a thematic device used to effect in Black Glass. The story is fragmented, like broken glass, in its narrative viewpoint shifts, its fragile relationships, and its subversive government-monitoring style headings.

Mundell’s rich use of fragmentation in scene, dialogue and form evokes strong feelings of paranoia and emptiness. Characters are inter-related, but must chart their courses alone. The sisters’ separate entries to the city are documented, ironically as they are ‘undocs’; unverified and unregistered citizens. They spend the majority of the story apart, but are determined to find one another again. The odds, in this disturbing quest novel, are against them. 

Decadent, dirty and dangerous, Melbourne emerges as a shady character in a future-shocked world. It’s all ‘thick coils of heat’ and ‘filthy cracks’. Its ‘tea-brown’ (47) river is choked with plastic, its fountains dry. Streetkids live in her tunnels, and everyone is drawn to the spectacle that is the carnival.
Tally meets Blue, an indigenous undoc in the south interzone, and he teaches her the streets. They get involved in a little illegal marketing which ensures Tally gets around town to look for her sister.Grace doesn’t make it easy for her. She believes Tally dead and any thought of her gets pushed deep down. In her blind quest to make it as an actress, mirrored in today’s desperation for fifteen minutes of reality fame, Grace is targeted by low-rent sex workers in record time and is surrounded by deviancy her whole time in the city. She changes her name and her appearance and fools herself well. While Tally is flashing her one digital image of Grace around, Grace is becoming someone else.

Someone else being creative with the truth is Damon Spark, hack journalist, purveyor of journotainment. He’s there, being subversive and morally indignant in turn, at the climax; the undoc uprising that’s coming as the police cleanse the streets to create an illusion for visiting dignitaries. Sadly Damon’s protestations are more for his perceived integrity than for the fate of the city’s underclass.

The most original character is Milk, a moodie. His migrant father had a lawyer son and a dentist son, and... Milk who spends his waking hours manipulating the mood of the room on a much higher level than a DJ at a nightclub. He is a magician who can control and alter moods with colours, lights, sounds, and edge-of-awareness scents. His work is observed by government operatives who hire him under the pretence of spring-cleaning the city, injecting harmony and goodwill. He is deceived by the perceived respect, he’s a ‘government consultant’ (215), and ignores the sinister intent in which ‘the public just needs a nudge in the right direction’ (213).

‘There are those who make a positive contribution to the city, and those who do the opposite. They’re just a drain on resources and they don’t portray the place in the best light (213).’

Cue the destruction and fallout of character lines intertwining as undocs and sympathisers protest at the security summit. As the city explodes with sirens wailing, ‘bodies mown down like weeds’  (277) and ‘flames gobbling like a mass of hungry tongues’ (273), the story’s denouement is subtle and fast and hardly a solid conclusion, but it works.

seventeen: August by Bernard Beckett

August by Bernard Beckett
Published by Text
Review published in Fiction Focus: New Titles for Teenagers 25 (2) 2011, pp. 52-53
and online at CMIS


I reviewed August for CMIS (review to come), and felt uncomfortable because I wrote a less than glowing review about a highly publicised new book. The author's last book had won awards!
I was underwhelmed by the story, and put off by the rehashing of (I thought) overused and boring stereotypes. Women as the spawn of the devil, that sort of thing...
And I found the characters one dimensional.
So, vindication arrived in the form of a review by Lachlan Jobbins in March's Bookseller and Publisher (p31).
Lachlan wrote that 'August has barely any plot and almost no characterisation... Its characters are little more than ciphers for ideas, or pawns to move the story along.... a contrived work of speculative fiction.' !!

I don't like every book I read, but reviewing it in a constructive way is a good challenge. But I'm more looking forward to the next book I'm reviewing, Meg Mundell's Black Glass. It's action packed and well written speculative fiction. August has always been a nowhere kind of month...


Dystopia. Age 15+. Set in a dystopian world, featuring religion, philosophy, bigotry, the idea of love, and an upturned car, August ends as it began with two strangers 'floating, tumbling together in a machine not made for tumbling, weightless and free.'
Tristan has crashed a stolen car. He and his passenger fall down the cliff. Many characters have died throughout literary history, but few have died leaving such little empathy in readers' hearts. Their fate is suspended in the last paragraph, but I found myself pleased to be free of them.

The cover blurb raises expectations of a dramatic play-like text: two injured protagonists trapped in an upturned car. The relationship dynamic could have been compelling.

The story unfolds in alternating chapters in third-person-limited point of view, covering both characters' stories. This restricted viewpoint limits the reader's ability to develop empathy because their viewpoint is not reflected by other characters. August has been described as complex, as its core philosophical discussion is about the nature of free will and this involves some surprising but foreshadowed twists.


Set in the City of God, with charismatic priests who have no compassion for outsiders, August may provoke discussion in Religion and History classes when studying the change place of women in society. Readers may also be alienated by tired stereotypes. Tristan's first encounter with a girl comes in a situation controlled by the rector. She is naked and he is forced to look. 


Even mothers were not permitted to visit. Augustine himself had taught that woman was temptation, the devil's lever.


From this point Tristan can think of no-one except the girl he will eventually come to know as Grace. She in turn imagines him as her angel. Grace's poverty forces her into prostitution, a situation in which the Church is complicit. Setup is vital, because Tristan could not have picked her up in a stolen car if she was not working on the streets.


Tristan and Grace do not quite intersect in each other's lives for some time, each elevating the other on a pedestal. 


'There was never a time I stopped loving you.' 
'Not me,' Grace countered. 'Your idea of me.'


The idea of each other is all they ever have, because once they finally meet, Tristan exercises his free will with little thought for Grace having the same rights. 

bookable

sixteen: Rebel by R J Anderson

Rebel by R J Anderson

London, Orchard, 2010

Review published online at CMIS Resource Bank and in Fiction Focus

Age 12+.  An adventure featuring humans and Oakenfolk united against the evil cult leader faery, The Empress.

For teenagers who still want to believe in faery folk, but want a bit of edge, a bit of attitude, this series is a standout. Comparable to Justine Larbalestier’s How to Ditch Your Fairy, the faeries in this series are far removed from the fluttery creatures of Daisy Meadows’ series that readers may have devoured when younger.

The quadrilogy (Faery Rebels, named for US audiences) includes Knife, Rebel, Arrow and Swift (latter two to be published 2011/12), but the reader doesn’t need to have read the prequel to appreciate the storyline of Rebel.

Anderson employs vivid sensory descriptions, including a drone faery with ‘blond hair worn poet-length’ (p. 171) and the human aroma as a ‘thick meaty smell pungent with chemicals and salt’ (p. 169).

The viewpoint varies, focusing first on Linden, a young Oakenwyld faery blessed by the dying Queen as ‘our people’s greatest hope’ (p.12). Linden’s quest is to seek out the Children of Rhys to beg for a share in their magic, as her people’s magic was exhausted years before.  Without magic and glamours after the Queen’s death, the Oakenwyld faeries will die.

Rebel’s viewpoint undertakes a dimensional shift when Timothy, a human teenager, arrives at Oakhaven on suspension from school and is drawn to the oak, ‘a lonely titan shivering in the cold’ (p. 27).Timothy runs away to London unwittingly with Linden in his backpack. When he and Linden come to the attention of The Empress, Timothy is forced to believe in faeries and reluctantly joins Linden’s quest.

Timothy’s isolation as an English schoolboy from Uganda (child of missionaries) is replicated by the Oakewyld faeries isolation from others of their kind (they’re all female and confined to the Oak). Timothy and Linden become friends in this adventurous coming-of-age story.

fifteen: in the playhouse

i feel that i never get to enough plays, so to have eight in one hit puts my annual total up a bit. this is the weekend i was waiting all year for, since i moved here.
the north queensland festival of one-act plays over two nights at the civic theatre was as good as i'd hoped. i don't know which play or performances won yet (didn't stay for the decision) but i know which ones i liked. i remember going to either the first or second festival years ago when wendy was teaching drama at st margaret mary's (this was the 17th) and the audience was much larger.
i was disappointed with the size of the audience this time. hardly any young people and possibly lacking in many of the local school drama departments' students and teachers (although the weekend clashed with groovin the moo at murray, so maybe that was where they all were?)

my pick for best play: jabberwocky by ken cotterill with community theatre.
my pick for best actors (several): emma davis in sorry wrong number (as well as several of the operators) by columba catholic college and both esme mullens and lyn tarring in townsville little theatre's garbage by helen wyngard.
no idea about best direction (there were many good elements).

synopses:
mitch and miranda (community theatre) - effective use of breaking the fourth wall, and repetition with a twist in the end that i did not see coming.

lee (kumcom theatre) - interesting use of old film to introduce the play (subject - who really killed jfk?) but it went on too long. the man and lee were very powerful characters.

heedless spirits (pimlico state high) - good cast (4 f, 2 m) but the synopsis didn't match what i saw in the end - while i heard that julia was no longer in love with dave, when he came to sit next to her at the end (in a very smooth move), she looked bashful rather than indifferent. the interaction between the girls was brilliant though.

jabberwocky (community theatre) - excellent absurdist theatre! i absolutely loved the woman who was not there, especially her rhythmic spoken word dance act -  he beats her / every night / bam / bam (cheryl maddox). the poor man! he eventually gave in to 'the force from outside' and staggered off stage at a 45 degree angle. the waitress was good too with line delivery.

 the shed (townsville little theatre) - clever, a one act play with two sets.

sorry wrong number (columba catholic college) - excellent lighting and direction. mrs stevenson was in bed, only used her upper body, only ever used the telephone. no walking, just lots of talking (and shouting and one very effective scream). each telephone operator was stagelit at their turn at one side of the stage. there were some very funny accents and mannerisms. it was very dial m for murder. the sound of the train and the deep-voiced man at the end were very chilling. lovely to see mrs stevenson alive after curtain fall to come in to the audience for the next play!

garbage (townsville little theatre) - strong audience support from tlt members. lyn tarring as florrie probably had the most heartrending stage speech of the festival. as both florrie and sniffy left the stage (at different times), i would have probably made a point of writing that both of them had left their homes or once had homes. it was a point made for florrie, but i don't remember it for sniffy. mags, who liked the open space never left the stage.

three brilliant performances coming up in the year for the school's program too.
the gruffalo, an adaptation of the picture book by julia donaldson and axel scheffler.
special delivery, a visual comedy.
and something i highly recommend (i saw these performers at out of the box 2006) - tashi!! two tales from imaginary theatre and anna and barbara fienberg's tashi stories.

thanks, townsville theatre community! [first published on http://the-storyspace.blogspot.com/, May 2010]

added notes 5.5.10: Results published so far
Congratulations to Columba Catholic College students involved in the Townsville Festival of One Act Plays held over the May Day Long Weekend. The play “Sorry, Wrong Number” won the award for the Best Production – Junior Section; Best Director – Junior Section; and Best Crew – Festival.

fourteen: the black book of colours by menena cottin

The Black Book of Colours by Menena Cottin

London: Walker, 2010

Review published 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank

The Black Book of Colours captivates everyone who gets their hands on it. Ask yourself on finishing: do you really see our world, or have you become blind to its brilliance?

Thomas is blind, but that doesn’t mean he misses out on the rich rainbow of colours that fills our world. His mother has worked with him to identify the smell and feel of colours, the taste and the sound of colours. The Black Book is presented from Thomas’ third person viewpoint, incorporating Braille text with white typeset text on the left of each completely black double spread, with raised black line drawings on the right.

Evocative text describes colours through sensory imagery to allow sighted readers to understand how blind and low vision people may experience colour.

Red is sour like unripe strawberries and as sweet as watermelon. It hurts when he finds it on his scraped knee.

The Black Book will have many applications in the classroom, from disability awareness to history (of Braille), art class and English. Students may make their own sensory picture story books or use vivid imagery to describe colours. Scratch and sniff strips, siren sounds, fluffy feathers and sandpaper are found in various tactile toddler books to link words and senses. The Black Book uses descriptive language to bring those senses to life. It targets sighted people to develop understanding of a blind or low vision person’s life experience. On a more complex level, tolerance of others’ viewpoints could be taught – we all see things differently.

Readers may begin to imagine what it is like to read by touch, but decoding these line drawings is surprisingly difficult. Their structure is not truly tactile as outlined by IFLA.

For futher literacy extension, students may develop their own black boxes in the style of Vision Australia’s Feelix kits. Such kits may contain the storybook with typewritten and Braille text, an audio version (or the children may read to a visually impaired student), and a variety of tactile props to support the story. Props for The Very Hungry Caterpillar could result in quite a feast!

thirteen: the river by libby hathorn and stanley wong

The River by Libby Hathorn & Stanley Wong

Curriculum Corporation, 2001

“The story is about a treasure!  You’ll see…”

What is Xian’s treasure, and what does it mean to Hong?  Stanley Wong’s design expertly sets the scene with his brushstroke title, Chinese lettering and faithful depiction of scrolls, furnishings and landscape.  Single spread illustrations cover each page with the two interwoven stories differing in layout.  The use of frames for today’s indoor urban scenes is perhaps a metaphor for its controlled nature, where Hong’s father is single-minded:

“Hong! You haven’t done your homework… get on with your duties!” 

Rural China (of 50-60 years past) is depicted in sprawling landscapes that reach the edges of each page.

Children enjoy The River for its adventure and introduction to Chinese culture.  Insertion of three panels within the larger illustration (p. 30) cleverly shows action essential to the plot.  The blue and white pot (of the past) is placed near the blue and white iMac computer on the next to last page suggesting a coming together of past and present (as is the theme of Xian’s treasure).

Libby Hathorn clearly has a strong interest in presenting Asian stories.  Notes mention the Vietnamese story on her website which readers will want to explore.  In this book, Hong is gifted the story of The River and the reader shares it with her. 

Xian’s remembrance of home, “Keep to the river. Remember, it’s your friend,” sets the linear path that she must follow from her old life (when her mother dies) to the future with her grandparents. 

Two notes of incongruity in this family tale concern Xian’s father not being mentioned, and

the incident with the boy and girl which happens in her grandparent’s village, her safe haven.

Hathorn presents a good adventure, but it did not flow as strongly as the story’s river.  More exploration into Hong’s family life would have served the story better.  We are left wondering why Ming gave her story to Hong and not her own granddaughter.

If the reader can ignore these small points of discontent, they will indeed have found a treasure and will perhaps be inspired to ask about their own family’s stories.

twelve: end of the alphabet by fleur beale

End of the Alphabet by Fleur Beale,

Auckland : Random, 2009

review published 2010 online at CMIS Resource Bank

Ruby Yarrow, the girl least likely to succeed, is a naïve fourteen year old New Zealander struggling to find her place in a blended family. Her younger step-brothers are piled on top of her in the smallest bedroom while her other brother Max (aged about 13) rules the house with his selfish behaviour. She is made to feel ashamed of her learning difficulties, but with her best friend’s intervention she begins to stand up for herself – that’s when the trouble begins.

Through first person narrative readers witness Ruby’s small acts of defiance that challenge Max as he leaves domestic duties to her and disengages himself from family. He’s the smart son, but lazy and surly, while Ruby struggles each day as a cleaner for the shopkeeper Mr Vine to finance a school trip-of-a-lifetime.

Her pay dispute with Mr Vine leads to her threatening union involvement, while her dispute with her mother over privacy leads to a domestic strike. Ruby’s learning difficulties appear to be given scant attention at school, while her mother openly derides her options in life. With a new friendship, Ruby begins to learn Portuguese.

Max is so threatened by Ruby’s personal growth he absconds to Australia, which is where the novel shows its plot holes. Max and Ruby’s estranged father, Hayden, who they haven’t had contact with for nearly thirteen years, pays for Max’s plane ticket and makes a place for him in his new family. Has Max a passport or visa, and why did Hayden not contact Max’s mother to arrange the move? This is an unfortunate example of a deus ex machina for a situation that could have been solved differently.

This is a light read, with stronger texts available to encourage adolescent self-belief. Readers will find other Beale novels and characters more engaging.

eleven: Australia Dances by Allan Brissenden and Keith Glennon

Australia Dances: Creating Australian Dance 1945-1965 by Allan Brissenden and Keith Glennon,

Wakefield Press, 2010

review published 2010 at M/C Reviews

The country’s dance is a totality, and there is still scope for the development of a national perspective to evaluate and more liberal means to foster contributions to the whole, a perspective based on a greater understanding of the values of dance to individual and social life. (Brissenden and Glennon, 2010, p 4)

Dance enthusiasts will find much to explore in this beautifully presented hardcover book with a gazelle-like William Harvey on the cover.  Ostensibly spanning the twenty-year post-World War Two era, Australia Dances provides a strong in-depth portrait of dancers and dance companies from across Australia, and illuminates the layers of creativity leading to this pivotal time in history. Around eighty years ago Louise Lightfoot and Misha Burlakov presented a two-act version of Coppelia, at Sydney’s Savoy Theatre. Their progression from community concerts to amateur and then professional company is a tale of international collaboration and strategic planning. While Miss Lightfoot covered production and costume design, operational concerns posed a constant dilemma; that is, from where to source musical scores, and how to obtain performing rights from overseas publishers. Ensuring availability of a venue posed problems as Miss Lightfoot remarked, “We always had big studios in buildings which were threatened to be pulled down.” (Brissenden, 2010, p.83)

This post-war period abounded with dancers performing, teaching and creating companies; enhancing the dance culture and its development as an artform. Readers can trace the performance histories of dancers, productions and companies, including David Lichine’s The Nutcracker, Ray Powell’s The Lady and the Fool for the Australian Ballet, Robert Helpmann’s Elektra and Joan Halliday’s Theseus and the Minotaur for The Sydney Ballet Group.

While major groups such as the Borovansky Ballet enjoyed successful seasons, dance flourished across Australia, with companies and groups such as The Sydney Ballet Group and Australian Dance Theatre gaining strong reputations internationally.

Australia Dances is richly illustrated in colour and black and white with many photographs never previously published. These images capture dancers in elaborate costumes and intimate poses. Constable’s costume sketches for the 1951 Borovansky production of Petrouchka capture vibrance (p.15). Aboriginal theatre is represented, as are travelling companies including The Arts Council of Australia. While in this period dance received little government subsidy, its productions built upon one another to become recognised at the national level.

Brissenden notes (p.4) that “the relationship (of dance) with ethnology can lead to a greater historical awareness and closer understanding of other peoples.” It is this global understanding which underpins the development of dance in this country.

Brissenden’s coffee-table book is generously indexed as well as being categorized by state, and will be a rich resource for researchers and dance lovers alike.

ten: the winds of heaven by judith clarke

The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke,

review published by Allen and Unwin Teachers Reviews, 2009 online

The sound you hear as you reach the end of this story is the wrenching tear of your heart breaking. The Winds of Heaven is a story filled with imagery which the reader can smell, taste, hear, see and feel. We hear the tinny sound of Johnny Cash on the radio, and feel the cool linen cloth as Clementine does.

The rural setting at Lake Conapaira in the 1950s, with frustrated teenage sexuality and poorly

treated Aboriginal Australians, is reminiscent of Julia Lawrinson’s Bye Beautiful. Both novels

utilise a dichotomy between two girls (in this book, cousins) with a peripheral Aboriginal

character. In The Winds of Heaven, Fan’s elderly Aboriginal friend remains off stage. We

learn that he has taught Fan his language and culture, and this connection gives the story an

earthy depth. Fan teaches Clementine his words like bilirr (cockatoo) and gindaymaidhaany

(sisters), but Clementine remains stuck fast in her traditional Sydney lifestyle.
The suggestion that Fan’s storytelling friend was run out of town by racist townspeople is

subtle; he may have simply moved on. His absence uproots her.

The cousins are drawn as opposites, but see strengths in the other that they perceive lacking in themselves. There are the dichotomies of wealth and poverty, nuclear family unit and broken home, educated and uneducated, nurtured and abused, with Fan emerging the poorer each time.

The cousins’ emotional closeness contrasts with the chasm between their mothers who are

sisters. One married well. Rene, Fan’s mother, however, is a vicious, bitter woman whose

husband deserted her for Gunnesweare (Clementine eventually works out she is screaming

‘God knows where!’). Rene physically abuses her youngest daughter, that little madam, while

her scream got into things and made them weak: you felt that if you picked up your cup it. Rene’s moral failing is offensive to her sister, and because of their place in history she abandons Rene. In this act she also abandons Fan to her fate.

Fan’s downfall is drawn out, beautiful like shattered stained glass, and tragic. As a librarian I

found Judith’s library scene excruciating. I wanted to find her poem for her and give Cash a

bag of picture books to take home. The fact that this is Fan’s breaking point, when she is

stripped of her identity as Yirigaa (morning star), is so sad.

Clementine, who is Everywoman, comes through too late for Fan, but redeems herself as an

older woman by establishing a nurturing relationship with Fan’s granddaughter, also called

Fan. Would real life have ended so neatly?

In fiction, teenage pregnancy can go down three equally difficult paths – botched abortion,

loveless marriage or suicide. Lawrinson’s Bye Beautiful tried the loveless marriage while

Winds climaxes with Fan's bloodless suicide. In a classroom reading, readers may discuss how this issue has altered in society. What community support and legal protection would Fan

have access to today? Regarding Australia’s treatment of Aboriginal Australians, how has this

country’s perception of its original inhabitants changed since the 1950s?
What would you have done as Fan’s gindaymaidhaany?

nine: mouse noses on toast by daren king

Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King,

review published in Allen & Unwin Teachers Reviews, 2007 online

Mouse Noses silly title grabbed us, rewarding us with an introduction to Paul Mouse and his wonderful assortment of friends. We met Sandra, the houseproud Christmas decoration, shaggy sheepdog Rowley Barker Hobbs, and the Tinby; a sort of monster, though smaller than a monster and a lot more fun to be around. What happens when they venture beyond their overgrown garden home? Paul Mouse has a cheese allergy; if he stood near a tasty cheddar his bottom would turn blue, the fur would fall out and his tail would curl up like a question mark. Paul is forced to sit on a cheddar chair early on, so spends the book running about trying to hide his bare blue bottom. But Mouse Noses is not all about Paul’s blue bottom, or about how he conquers his allergy. While treating themselves to a posh meal after Paul’s ordeal, the friends discover humans eating a prized dish – mouse noses on toast… with whiskers or without! The mouse population is horrified. The Tinby incites them to action. Mouse Noses to their middle primary classes and discuss political action, belief in a cause, friendship and conquering fears, or they may turn blue with laughter. Mouse Noses will leave readers feeling cheerful and triumphant. But will they eat mouse noses with whiskers, or without?

 

The promise of

These pocket-sized political activists, led by cowardly Larry, march across the restaurant floor chanting protest songs and waving cardboard signs proclaiming ‘Hands off our noses!’ Their crusade takes them to the Prime Minister and out of town to sabotage the Mouse Noses Abattoir. What happens there can only be revealed by reading right to the end. Despite my humanness I was cheering for the mouses! David Roberts’ delightfully whimsical line drawings complement King’s story perfectly. Teachers may read

eight: the peach season by debra oswald

The Peach Season (playscript) by Debra Oswald

Currency Press, Sydney, 2007

review published in VATE Newsletter, no. 4, September 2007

Kieren, the wild, trashy boy from Sydney, bites into a Red Haven peach and gasps, getting a rush. ‘Oh, this is—far out, this is— How come I never tasted anything like this in my life before?’ Like the Red Haven, The Peach Season is raw and exhilarating. Debra Oswald’s tender and confronting script explores love through a concentrated collection of universally significant relationships: mother/daughter, mother/son, brother/sister, man/woman. What begins as a plan to get people in to pick the fruit for market, rapidly bursts into personal territory. The blurb reads…’It’s the best season for five years at Celia’s farm, and the fruit is rotting on the branches for want of pickers.’ The trees go to ruin with daughter Zoe.

This two act drama, first produced by Griffin Theatre Company in 2006, features emotionally engaging dialogue exchanges. Black and white photographs accompany some significant scenes. Actor Maeve Dermody (Zoe) introduces the script, while Oswald illuminates the myth of Demeter and Persephone which subtly underpins her characters’ journeys. The atmospheric dichotomy of rural utopia and urban underworld provides opportunities to elicit student responses about representations of contemporary Australia and the fears consuming our love.

A synopsis of the journey: Zoe feels burdened by her sheltered life, barely alive. Two Sydney ferals seek picking work at her mother’s peach orchard to finance an escape from police. Zoe’s need to sever the relationship with her overprotective mother pushes her to extremes. Captured by the luscious rush of first love, she escapes with Kieren, stumbling in to degradation; drug use, break and enters, sleeping rough. Zoe then witnesses the violent death of another girl. Along the way we experience a mother’s deep love for her child, and the tangle of brother/sister relationships. We are amused confidantes in grandmother Dorothy’s dry asides to-camera, and as a side-dish, we cheer for the rebound love that rejuvenates Joe and Sheena.

This strong Currency Press publication for senior school students features a small cast (4F, 2M) ranging in age. No follow-up activities or notes are included. Perhaps there lies an opportunity. The script contains minimal stage directions. Peach is pitched to a more mature audience than Oswald’s Dags and Stephen Davis’ Juice, but certainly to those who can cope with Nick Enright’s Blackrock. Peach contains more tenderness and humanity than Blackrock, but both contain profanities and exposure of life’s underbelly. Its issues, more complex than those of After January, could be explored in class alongside Juice and Heroin Lies, or in production.

Zoe could be compared to Vicki, the ordinary girl of Heroin Lies who is ‘no troublemaker or runaway, truant or secret smoker, well, not at first.’ Unlike Vicki, Zoe emerges from her Hell; damaged, but stronger.

seven: the tattooed flower: a memoir by suzy zail

The Tattooed Flower: A Memoir by Suzy Zail

Scribe Publications, Carlton North, Vic, 2006

review published in VATE Newsletter, no. 4, September 2007

Suzy Zail has managed what many of us wish we had done, but find it is too late. She asked her father about his life. They were like most fathers and daughters¾ too lazy to ask questions, too busy to listen. Emil then found he was dying. Motor Neurone Disease shocked Suzy and her brothers out of their detachment. Suzy knew her father was born in a small town in Czechoslovakia but couldn’t remember its name. She could see the modest flower tattooed on his forearm, but not what lay beneath.

In 1944, thirteen year old Emil Braun, his family, and hundreds of other Czechoslovakian Jews were loaded onto cattle trains for the chilling ride to Birkenau. Emil tells his story. The chapters of his past are interwoven with Zail’s revealing account of her father’s final five years. Zail’s lovingly produced memoir portrays her father as a good man, able to leave his tragic Holocaust childhood behind to thrive as an adult in Australia. The Holocaust had been an aberration¾a dark, bleak time in history. It didn’t define humanity and it wouldn’t define me.

The Tattooed Flower is a compelling personal account of the Holocaust for History students, to be read alongside others published decades ago. An early Birkenau incident provides a revealing anecdote about Dr Josef Mengele. Concentration camp cruelty on a daily level is exposed. Indiscriminate slaughter, miserable provisions, isolation of family members – how did the oppressors think these acts made them the better people? Students of Religion will find that bigotry tainted Emil’s earliest school days. Those studying immigration issues will find that Emil left his childhood behind when he docked at Port Melbourne in 1950. People looked happy, he said. The first Australian he met was a freckle-faced boy raised on beaches and pineapple juice. I’ve found my future. Dave, a sympathetic Australian tattooist, covered Emil’s camp number with a simple floral design.

In the 1960s the Brauns were a family of five and Emil Braun Jewellers the biggest diamond-ring-mount manufacturer in Australia. Emil was founder and chairman of the second largest Jewish social club in Australia, and served as Mayor of the City of Caulfield from 1988. Flower is also a creditable introductory biography of a significant Australian. Although the Australian years are not fleshed out, perhaps because Emil chose to remain silent about his achievements, Zail has the scrapbooks to show what kind of man her father was. You wanted to know who I am, Mr Braun said. I’ve talked for nine nights but I can tell you who I am in less than a minute: I’m a man, loved by a beautiful woman, graced with incredible kids. A lucky man.

An insightful memoir.

six: the secrets of eromanga by sheryl gwyther

The Secrets of Eromanga by Sheryl Gwyther

Lothian Books (Lothian Junior Fiction), 2006

review published in VATE Newsletter, no. 3, June 2007

Middle school readers will enjoy their ramble through the fields of Mitchell grass and fossil digs with twelve-year-old Ellie in Sheryl Gwyther’s Secrets of Eromanga. Savage dogs, kidnappers and dirty tricks abound. This adventurous dual narrative charts Ellie’s holiday fossil hunt alongside the life journey of the small ornithopod dinosaur in north-western Queensland. Although separated by millions of years, both females face challenges and uncertainty in their lives on the Eromanga Plains. Their shared courage delivers a thrilling conclusion to Queensland author Gwyther’s first novel.

Ellie, crazy about fossils and dinosaurs, is excited to be joining her Dinosaur Club friend Tom and his palaeontologist parents on a fossil dig north of Winton. The first intrusion to her plans comes in the form of a more sophisticated girl - an old friend of Tom’s – on leave from boarding school. Peta is a spiky, indulged character who hinders Ellie’s plans to forge a closer friendship with Tom. Peta’s actions, from Ellie’s viewpoint, are selfish and vain. But Secrets digs beneath the surface to reveal the bones. Ellie realises she has judged Peta harshly and feels remorse over her apricot face cream prank. Even the villains discover that anything worth having has to be mined layer by layer, not taken with subterfuge and force.

As in many well-loved young adventurer stories, adults are peripheral characters. The girls are left alone at Lark Quarry despite reports of interlopers, and Ranger Joe turns up after the action is all over. Themes explored include friendship and personal fortitude. In the end, the ornithopod is sacrificed, allowing her siblings to escape, and Ellie shows bravery (and dog chews) to escape the villains. Their shared adventure and passion for fossils cements the girls’ friendship at last.

Gwyther’s descriptive text illuminates our landscape. The ox-bow lake had low sandbanks, allowing smaller creatures to wade out into the shallows away from the churned-up muddy edges. She provides a fascinating insight into palaeontology as the young people dig in their quadrat and record fossil finds. Older readers interested in Ellie’s scientific discoveries could be directed to Bronwyn Blake’s Carrie’s Song from Lothian YA fiction – in which the female protagonist studies desert mammals in the Northern Territory.

As actual events in our rich Australian history are layered with a fictional tale, media reports could be sourced to extend a class study. With its uncomplicated style, the text would be well placed on a wide-reading list. In a connected curriculum it could accompany studies in Australian history, prehistory, desert areas and places of geological significance. Secrets’ rugged cover features a photograph of an ornithopod’s footprint from the Winton Shire. Young readers will follow the stampede to uncover the Secrets of Eromanga.

five: the runes of odin by ben julien

The Runes of Odin (The Runes Saga I) by Ben Julien

review published in QWC Writing Queensland, issue 164, July 2007,

and online at the author's website: Ben Julien

Join the Thegn’s housecarls in a jar of ale, warm your bones, and read on. The Runes of Odin is an adventure fantasy set in the arctic Northern Lands where Norsemen plunge the Isles into a brutal war, and two young people unite to protect their homeland. Author Ben Julien deftly draws Lena and Calum toward their shared destiny with an action-packed multi-focal narrative. Ben Julien, also an adventurer, toured Norway’s fjords on a replica Viking ship. Authentic research!
Lena is an Isles girl raised in the Norselands after being captured in a raid. Calum, raised in the Isles by his foster father, comes to believe he is Norse. He accidentally discovers his ability with runes, which he must learn to control. His initial experiments are erratic and dangerous. Lena’s peasant destiny is dramatically transformed when the mysterious vala chooses her as an assistant. Alongside this blue-cloaked seeress, Lena commences her instruction in the ancient power of the Runes of Odin.
‘Runes are the keys to the elements. They are triggers that unlock the powers of the wind, and the water, and fire.’
This is Norse history and mythology layered with runes magic. The two displaced protagonists meet over a runes invocation just as the invasion begins. They must cast the runes together to save themselves and the Isles people.
Runes’ narrative balance between Lena and Calum ensures appeal to both genders. Other dual contrasts are presented; Norse and Islesmen, peace and war, family and outsiders, city and country, blonde hair and red hair, free and bonded – each illustrating the separateness of the main characters from others. Interestingly, a contrast has been broken down for me. I thought you could either be a fantasy reader, or not. Runes drew me in.
Runes will appeal to advanced middle school readers (years 6-10). In a connected curriculum it will complement studies in Viking culture, north European history and myths and legends. Strong themes emerge, including displacement, identity, courage, fortitude and cultural conflict. Jacaranda provides accompanying worksheets.
Regarding design; the cast of characters and runic alphabet are welcome additions, but I would have liked to have seen them placed at the front of the book with the map. I found the strength of the fantasy woven around Norse mythology gripping, and realise I can’t stop with one. Who wouldn’t want to have magical powers? I have to find out how Lena and Calum fare in their subsequent quests in The Legacy of Odin (2007) and The Iron Throne (June 2007). I’ve warmed to fantasy.

four: the legacy of odin by ben julien

The Legacy of Odin (The Runes Saga II) by Ben Julien

John Wiley and Sons, 2007

review published in VATE Newsletter, no. 3, June 2007

All warriors seek glory and riches, but The Legacy of Odin is not such a prize. The seeress foresaw Lena and Calum as ‘Odin’s legacy to the Norse’. The young protagonists join the Jarl in the battle against chaos. Chaos, in this saga, reveals itself as goblins, thug trolls and Ymir the frost giant slaughtering all in their path. This gripping fantasy combines Norse history and mythology layered with runes magic.

Legacy’s setting is the arctic Norselands where men are warriors. Jarl Björn Burrison returns after waging brutal war on foreign shores in The Runes of Odin. Sympathies quickly shift from the outmanoeuvred Isles people to embrace the heroic Jarl’s quest. Lena encapsulates this feeling: ‘A part of her thought she should hate him, for his killing … (but) the Jarl was impossible to dislike. He was a terrible enemy, and a loyal friend.’

Readers are pulled swiftly along on warships heading north-west. Legacy’s action-packed narrative bestows more depth on its characters and invokes more lyrical language than its predecessor; lending itself to slightly more mature readers. Our duelva and vala realise that runes are more than rudimentary carvings. Their power can be felt and shared. Healing Svein the Lucky’s knee, their rune connection could be a metaphor for their growing personal connection. Although separated for a third of the book, when Lena smiles at Calum with ‘that beautiful smile she had’, Calum knows that she is the one person he would not live without. This simmering undercurrent coincides with Calum’s discovery of his origins and of himself as a young man. A narrative balance between the two servants of Odin ensures appeal to both genders.  

With our culture of celebrity, readers can relate to the Norse warriors’ obsession with word-fame. Svein initially wants ‘to carve his own name into the sagas’ as Stuttering Arne’s does for Björn in his history-songs. Svein eventually becomes a Hauldr, a leader, feeling blessed then because he finds something greater than himself. Calum is an anomaly; a Norseman who ‘gets seasick and doesn’t like fighting’, nor the fame trailing his power as a duelva. His self-depreciating humour, inner strength and gallantry ensure he will have an eager real-world following.

The Runes Saga will appeal to advanced middle and secondary school readers. It will enhance studies in Viking culture, north European history, myths and legends. Strong themes emerge, including friendship, loyalty, identity, celebrity, fortitude and cultural conflict. Jacaranda Online provides accompanying English/SOSE worksheets for educators. Each book includes a map and glossary, adding to its appeal. What further quests will Lena and Calum face, and where will their relationship head, in the final story The Iron Throne?

three: no place like home

No Place Like Home: Australian stories by young writers aged 8-21 years, edited by Sonja Dechian, Jenni Devereaux, Heather Millar and Eva Sallis.

Wakefield Press, 2005.

Review published in API Review of Books, Curtin University of Technology, W.A.
issue 44, July 2006, online

'This is my retelling of a great man who lost everything to a silly colour believing.'¹

Silly colour believings have had an enormous impact on so many lives, and in No Place Like Home young voices reveal the scars of these assaults. This anthology started life as a competition when Australians Against Racism encouraged young writers to submit stories of 'refugee or Indigenous Australians, displaced peoples from recent times or from the distant past'.² The resulting work captures almost forty young writers' explorations of exile and survival and of the rebuilding of their concept of 'home'. Collectively they have recounted 'small journeys and unimaginably huge journeys' on the road to belonging. Every voice builds a foundation for believing in the 'importance and irreplaceable nature of each human life and experience'.³ This book follows Dark Dreams: Australian Refugee Stories by young writers aged 11-20 years in what is hoped will become a series. Displacement and concepts of home are recurrent themes in editor Sallis' own work, including her recent Fire fire. Too confronting to be devoured at one sitting, these narratives should instead be reflected upon at regular intervals.

Each heart-rending story detains the reader with tales of persecution by authorities, exile, and the lengths the displaced will go to rediscover a sense of belonging. With the recent World Refugee Day and debates occurring over the Migration Act, this anthology is a timely reminder that displaced people are more than news items and more than the misinformation spread by comfortable citizens over their laden dinner tables. They are people among us, they may be us. Jasmina writes that 'the footprints follow her in the same way that her experiences will throughout her life'.⁴ These stories reveal people who make a home in Australia with aspirations formed by their experiences.

Comfortable citizens mock, 'If these people want to come on dodgey [sic] boats...'⁵ but are quietly challenged by harrowing personal narratives from Afghanistan, Lebanon, Vietnam, Germany, Iran, China, Sudan, East Timor and Australia. As these writers recount persecutions, rapes, concentration camp atrocities, bullying, bribes, family separations, bombs, landmines, screaming and beatings, there is belief throughout that they will survive; they will rebuild their lives in this paradise land.

Many Australians speak indignantly about the lack of humanity in other countries, but can they be so ignorant of this country's history? No Place Like Home tells of the relocation of Aboriginal children, asylum seeking children imprisoned for months and returned soldiers snubbed. Sam writes 'I left Iran with my family because we were persecuted for having a different religion', and the reader must question -- is Australia so different?⁶ Andri notes the ignorance he found, 'The other students say that refugees have had it easy ... they do not know what it is to starve'.⁷

After facing atrocities in their homeland, young people had their hopes dashed at Woomera Detention Centre. With despair Yusra writes, 'We were in a prison... it was one of the most painful experiences of my life'.⁸ Various publications offer statistics of child detention in Australia. These real-life stories represent the people behind the parading statistics -- the people to whom we must listen so as to try to understand the heartbreak, the confusion, the determination and hope. A Just Australia, discussing the infamous 'Pacific Solution', implores us to consider that 'the more we seek to deter asylum seekers and refugees through harsh treatment, the more Australia comes to resemble the repressive nations from which they flee'.⁹ If more Australians could read this collection and absorb its meaning, more displaced people may find this country the paradise they expected.

Not all stories feature refugees. A simple story of exile is Nicholas Cooper's The wheat fields: Michael Booker's story where a boy is forced off his farm to attend boarding school. His quiet determination wins through as he returns to his beloved fields.¹⁰ The rhythmic language of the Aboriginal people's stories gently questions behaviours and policies that displaced these people in their own land. An old digger proudly tells his story in A man in green, guiding readers to look beyond the legend to see the person within. In the face of disrespect on his return from New Guinea, Sergeant Upton still finds that 'there's no place like home'.¹¹

Amelia Easton's Eyes closed: Gashka's story invites readers to open their eyes to Gashka's experience. An orphaned Albanian girl separated from her sister and beaten by the matron found humanity in a refugee camp. Amelia recounts an innocent's discourse to take the reader from hope to despair, journeying through betrayal and degradation. Her dispossessor is represented over and over throughout these stories; as the Taliban, Hitler, Hussein, the Khmer Rouge, unnamed soldiers, rebels and ordinary people. Gashka's story builds with fierce strength; tracing her displacement to Italy and new life in Australia. Far from broken after her betrayal, Gashka works to regain her dignity and reclaim her life. Her story reveals a compassionate Australia (not shown too frequently in this collection) with visual symmetry; Gashka opens her eyes, no longer needing to hide.¹²

Australians Against Racism has produced another fine anthology of young people's work. Future opportunities to contribute must be embraced so that more Australians can be exposed to fresh voices in this critical area. Such an illuminating collection should be read far and wide in this sunburnt country so that a little of its spirit may enhance the soil on which we grow; a viewpoint visually expressed in Abbas Mehran's Aboriginal themed cover. As Irene Guo tells us, 'Treasure your life ... there are many people out there struggling to live on in hell'.¹³
Notes
1 FR Hann, 'Hal Hart's story' in S Dechian, J Devereaux, H Millar & E Sallis, (eds), No Place Like Home: Australian stories by young writers aged 8-21 years, Wakefield Press, Kent Town, SA, 2005, p 8.
2 Australians Against Racism, Projects: 2004 'There is No Place Like Home' schools competition, last updated 15 June 2005, viewed 20 June 2006, http://www.australiansagainstracism.org/code/projects.html
3 E Sallis, 'Foreword' in No Place Like Home, p 2.
4 J Kevrick, 'Long road to happiness', ibid, p 19.
5 Australians Against Racism, TV commercial: Negative responses, last updated 15 June 2005, viewed 20 June 2006, http://www.australiansagainstracism.org/code/tvc_response.html
6 Sam, 'A bit of my life' in No Place Like Home, p 27.
7 A Dao, 'Vuot Bien -- the search for freedom: Huong Thi Nguyen's story', ibid, p 61.
8 Yusra, 'The unforgettable moments', ibid, p 56.
9 A Just Australia, 'Treatment of asylum seekers and refugees' in Refugees and Asylum Seekers, The Spinney Press, Thirroul, NSW, p 22.
10 NJ Cooper, 'The wheat fields: Michael Booker's story' in No Place Like Home, pp 104-6.
11 H Upton, 'A man in green', ibid, p 78.
12 A Easton, 'Eyes closed: Gashka's story', ibid, pp131-34.
13 I Guo, 'Injustice -- when you can't tell: Linda's story', ibid, p 18.