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.

two: platypus deep by jill morris and heather gall

Platypus Deep, by Jill Morris & Heather Gall
Greater Glider Productions, 2006
Reviewed in Aussie Reviews, June 2006 online

Having recently met the author, and having seen much of her work collected together, the abiding regard she holds for Australia’s native wildlife became vividly apparent. Along with many talented artists, Jill has brought the bush to young readers with such characters as golden wombats, fig parrots, crocodiles, geckos and platypuses. In this she could be compared favourably with another Queenslander, Narelle Oliver.
Platypus Deep follows Orni the platypus as he searches for a deeper home. It is this search that shows both platypus and reader how important the creek system has been to many animals over millions of years.
Orni’s journey visits the familiar imagery of Jill’s books – native animals facing nature while living in a world dominated by humans. The author lives in Maleny where non-fictional platypuses have recently experienced the disruption of human intervention.
A reading of this lyrical narrative suggests a quiet creek setting with just the trickle of a waterfall and FLIP FLOP of Orni’s flippers to rustle the peace. A carefully measured repetition of sounds and the appearance of echidna hunting for ants leads to a beautifully balanced book. It is hoped that Platypus Deep will continue to introduce this curious animal to children, and not be the only remaining evidence of its existence.
(For children aged 3-10)

one: bertie and the bear by pamela allen

Bertie and the Bear by Pamela Allen
Penguin, 1990

Review published in Aussie Reviews, April 2006, online

Rambunctious, vivid, active and full of wonderfully repeatable words – this could be said of any of Pamela Allen’s picture story books, and is true of Bertie. No wonder she is often in the awards lists and her books are in library bags everywhere.

Allen’s colourful illustrations ‘above the line’ suggest movement from the first endpaper. Her use of white space focuses the eye on her characters. Bertie is being chased by a bear (who I think is really his friend) so the Queen steps in to shoo the bear away. The others join the chase for the fun and the opportunity to make a lot of musical noise (trumpet, gong, horn, flute, drum and voice playing BLAH! BLAH! and BONG BONG-NG-NG and OOOOOH! etc).
Impossible to read quietly, children in the three to six year old age group love to imitate the sounds and stamp and twirl with the characters. Allen has used handwritten crayon text within the illustrations to emphasise sounds. Her words are expressive with onomatopoeia used infectiously. The whole story is like a very active musical and movement piece (which could be printed on a scroll) fading gently to a pom pom at the last. As Bertie and the Bear so vividly conveys, children enjoy music and movement and this makes storytime fun!

review'd (by publication)

ArtGaze Magazine
Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall by Will Ellsworth-Jones, 2012, at ArtGaze Magazine
Tarcutta Wake by Josephine Rowe, 2012, at ArtGaze Magazine

CMIS Fiction Focus (print) and CMIS Resource Bank (online)
August by Bernard Beckett, 2011 at CMIS Fiction Focus 25 (2) 2011, pp. 52-53
Slice: Juicy Moments from my Impossible Life by Steven Herrick, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
The Worst Thing She Ever Did by Alice Kuipers, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
Rebel by R.J. Anderson, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
The Black Book of Colours by Menena Cottin, 2010 at CMIS Resource Bank
After by Sue Lawson, 2010, available online at CMIS Resource Bank
End of the Alphabet by Fleur Beale, 2010, available online at CMIS Resource Bank

M/C Reviews: Words 
Black Glass by Meg Mundell, 2011, available online at M/C Reviews
Australia Dances: Creating Australian Dance 1945-1965 by Allan Brissenden and Keith Glennon, 2010, available online at M/C Reviews

Allen and Unwin Teachers Reviews
The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke, 2009, available online
Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King, 2007, available online

Writing Queensland, QWC
The Runes of Odin by Ben Julien, issue 164, July 2007, p20.

VATE Newsletter
The Peach Season by Debra Oswald, no. 4, September 2007.
The Tattooed Flower: A Memoir by Suzy Zail, no. 4, September 2007.
The Secrets of Eromanga by Sheryl Gwyther, no. 3, June 2007.
The Legacy of Odin by Ben Julien, no. 3, June 2007.

API Review of Books, Curtin University of Technology, W.A.
No Place Like Home: Australian stories by young writers aged 8-21 years, edited by Sonja Dechian, Jenni Devereaux, Heather Millar and Eva Sallis, issue 44, July 2006.
Available online

Aussie Reviews
Platypus Deep by Jill Morris, June 2006. Available online
Bertie and the Bear by Pamela Allen, April 2006. Available online

review'd (by title)

A

After by Sue Lawson - CMIS Resource Bank and CMIS Fiction Focus

August by Bernard Beckett - CMIS Fiction Focus

Australia Dances by A Brissenden and K Glennon - M/C Reviews

B

Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall by Will Ellsworth-Jones - ArtGaze Magazine

Bertie and the Bear by Pamela Allen - online Aussie Reviews :1

The Black Book of Colours by Menena Cottin - CMIS Resource Bank

Black Glass by Meg Mundell -  M/C Reviews

E

End of the Alphabet by Fleur Beale -  CMIS Resource Bank

L

The Legacy of Odin by Ben Julien - VATE Newsletter : 4

M

Mouse Noses on Toast by Daren King -  online at A & U Teachers Reviews

N

No Place Like Home: Australian stories by young writers aged 8-21 years, edited by Sonja Dechian, Jenni Devereaux, Heather Millar and Eva Sallis - online API Review of Books : 3

P

The Peach Season by Debra Oswald - VATE Newsletter : 8

Platypus Deep by Jill Morris - online Aussie Reviews : 2

R

Rebel by R.J. Anderson -  CMIS Resource Bank

The Runes of Odin by Ben Julien - Writing Queensland, QWC : 5

S

The Secrets of Eromanga by Sheryl Gwyther - VATE Newsletter : 6

Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham - CMIS Resource Bank

Slice: Juicy Moments from my Impossible Life by Steven Herrick - CMIS Resource Bank

T

The Tattooed Flower: A Memoir by Suzy Zail - VATE Newsletter : 7
Tarcutta Wake by Josephine Rowe - ArtGaze Magazine: 21 

W
The Winds of Heaven by Judith Clarke - online A & U Teachers Reviews
The Worst Thing She Ever Did by Alice Kuipers -  CMIS Resource Bank