Twisty tale from home: ‘Girl Falling’ by Hayley Scrivenor
A new crime novel by an author I enjoy, set in my home region of the Blue Mountains of NSW. How could I resist?
Hayley Scrivenor’s debut novel, Dirt Town, received well-deserved accolades (my review is here.) I was looking forward to her next book and was delighted to learn that it was set amongst the sheer cliffs and amazing views of the Blue Mountains.
The thing I enjoy most about crime fiction are the characters and emotions, plus of course a well-drawn setting, and Girl Falling doesn’t disappoint.
The title is well chosen, as it can imply both the physical act of falling (in this case, from cliffs) but it can also be an emotional plunge for characters – in this case, pretty much all the characters.
The premise is intruiging: two high school girls bond over the shared trauma of losing a sister to suicide. Now young adults, they have grown inseparable – until one of them meets and falls in love with someone else.
There is a lot in here about youngsters trying to find their way in life, moving beyond childhood trauma, and also toxic relationships and coercion that can take many forms.
There is a twist that I truly did not see coming – and I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about it.
For all these reasons, Girl Falling is a crime novel that stayed with me well after I had read the final page.
Girl Falling was published by Pan Macmillan Australia in July 2024.
She Married a Murderer: a short story
I entered this story in the 2024 EM Fletcher Family History Writing Award, an annual award presented by Family History ACT. The award aims to encourage story writing on a family history / genealogy theme. I was lucky to win this competition in 2021 with my story The Bitterness of their Woe and this year, was shortlisted from the 90 entrants from across the country. I thank Family History ACT for their continued support of this competition, unique in Australia for the broad range of genres and styles of writing that it encompasses.
She Married a Murderer is fiction: it is my reimaging of the experience of my 3 x great-grandmother Margaret Houghton, known as Ann.
She Married a Murderer
Campbell Town, Tasmania, 1862
She thought it all spiteful gossip, vicious rumours from people who did not like her or know Tom as she did.
If only she had listened.
Ann knew something of her new man’s past. A Ticket-of-Leave convict, transported from Ireland for theft of a sheep. Being Irish herself that never troubled her; so many of her countrymen and women had worn the broad arrow.
She’d lost Michael after he was trampled by a horse, the mangled mess brought home on a stretcher unrecognisable as the husband she’d loved. The memory of it haunted her for the next five years, spent alone.
When Tom arrived in Deloraine to work on Coulter’s sheep farm, they caught each other’s eye under the balcony of the Deloraine hotel where she was housemaid. He had no money to speak of, and a rough way with him, but none of that troubled her. Being poor, she was used to grimy hands, muddy boots and curses. She hoped for better times with a man around again; in six weeks, they were living as husband and wife.
Tom had kissed the blarney stone more than once—honey could drip from his tongue. He’d tell a tale to have her in stitches, then quick as lightening, tell a sad one to make her weep. She was happy to come home to him after a long day washing floors and making beds at the pub. Tom gave her laughter and loving, and then two wee boys: the first named for him, followed by Hubert two years after. A grand little family, she thought.The whispers started when young Tommy was learning to walk, his pudgy thighs trembling, him grinning with astonished delight. Her heart squeezed with love for him as she walked to the grocer, Tommy on one hip and a basket on the other, to buy vegetables for a stew.
As she dropped the goods into her basket, she heard low voices from the corner and glanced across. Two women, who fancied themselves Deloraine’s better sort of ladies, deep in hushed conversation. She caught: his poor first wife, beaten and life sentence, before they saw her looking and their murmuring ceased.
Walking home she puzzled over what she’d heard. Were they talking about Tom’s first wife? She’d died, Ann already knew that. But beaten to death? And by who? Surely not Tom. The women said the killer had received a life sentence—Tom had his Ticket, wasn’t serving life. Whatever had happened to his wife, Tom had no part in it. Besides, he wasn’t a violent man, had not lifted a finger against her or the baby.
But that night she slipped in a question as they lay together in their narrow bed.
‘What was your first wife’s name, Tom?’
There was a brief silence. Then: ‘Catherine.’
‘How did she die?’
‘Met with an accident.’
‘The same with my poor Michael! What sort of accident?’
The blanket was dragged from her shoulders as Tom sat up. ‘What are all these questions for? I don’t pester you with questions about Michael. All that’s in the past. Leave it there.’
She lay very still until he slid down and she could pull the covers over her cold arms. Try as she might, she couldn’t halt the thoughts that bucked and spun in her mind like that panicky horse that had killed Michael. She had a sudden pang of longing for her first husband and for their lost years together.
The whispers did not stop that day. She heard them many times, always quickly swallowed when she came near or turned to look directly at the speaker. The same words repeated: first wife, killed. She began to hear new ones: murder, trial, mercy.
She never again asked Tom about the manner of Catherine’s death. But she couldn’t stop herself from questioning him about her: what was she like? Where did they marry? When did she die? It was a strange compulsion to learn about this woman who had once shared his bed.
He gave up snippets, small nuggets that she stored away to consider later. She learned that Catherine had been Irish, and a convict like him. She learned that they’d married in Launceston in March, 1851, but not had children.
Hubert was four in 1859 when Tom and Ann wed, in Saint Michael’s Church. A bright day, spring blossom everywhere as they stood outside, greeting well-wishers. Widower and widow, united by God as part of His holy plan. So she thought.
By then they’d moved to Campbell Town, leaving behind the rushing sparkle of the Meander River for the gold of wheat fields and brown of sheep paddocks. Here Tom found work on local farms and they settled into a small cottage, just one room and a sleepout at the back, but comfortable enough.
After the wedding Tom’s behaviour towards her began to change. He disliked it if she spoke to others, especially men. He cut short conversations at the hotel or the grocer. She couldn’t understand his jealousy—she had no interest in flirting or gazing at other men. He was all she needed, but as his manner became more abrupt and suspicious, she gradually became aware that she’d begun to be a little afraid of him. He had never hit her. He didn’t need to. His size and strength, the ugly glower on his face when he was displeased, his unpredictable temper— all told her to take care, to never give him reason to strike out.
She was happy when she made a friend in Campbell Town. They met at the store. Their children were similar ages; they all shyly regarded each other over stacks of newspapers. The woman picked up a copy and began to read from the front page.
‘There’s a conference of Temperance Societies in Launceston this week,’ she said as she paid for her purchases. ‘What do you think of the Temperance aims?’
Ann stammered, knowing nothing of Temperance but not wanting to show her ignorance.
The woman continued, ‘I support their objectives. So much grief comes from drink. Not just from men’s drunkenness, either. Do you remember the case from some years back in Launceston, a woman beaten by her husband when he found her drinking with other men? He killed her. Was sentenced to life, but that helped his poor wife none.’
Ann’s chest tightened. His poor wife. All those whispers. Before she could stop herself, she had grasped the other woman’s arm.
“Do you know her name? The murdered woman?’ The word murdered fell heavily from her tongue.
The woman thought. ‘Tipping was her last name, I think.’ She gave a small smile then looked closely at Ann. ‘Did you know her?’
‘No, no, I don’t think so.’ Ann went to gather the boys and leave, but hesitated. ‘Do you live near?’ she asked.
‘Yes, the blue painted house; it’s not far.’
‘I’m on the corner. Would you like to come to mine? I’ll make tea and our littlies can play. My husband is at work.’ She didn’t know why she felt a need to say that last bit.
‘Lovely! We’ve not been here long; I don’t yet know many neighbours,’ the other woman replied.
Over tea Ann learned the woman’s name was Martha, that her family had moved from Launceston but returned there often to visit her elderly parents, and that she was a staunch supporter of the Temperance movement, which she explained was about combatting the evils brought about by the demon drink. The two women became firm friends.
Ann tucked away the new nugget of information that had stopped her in her tracks in the store. A murdered woman in Launceston. It lay in her mind along with the others she’d secreted there, the whispers she’d heard. They gnawed away, troubling her as she went about her day and disturbing her dreams at night.
After months of this, she asked Martha if she knew of more about the dead woman from Launceston.
‘No, but we are visiting my mother there next week. The Examiner has its office in town; my husband is a friend of the Editor. Perhaps he can find a back issue with a report on the trial.’
‘Please don’t go to any trouble.’ Ann was beginning to regret asking.
‘No trouble.’ Martha tilted her head. ‘But I think something is troubling you.’
After a long hesitation, the dam wall of worries broke and out they poured. Tom’s harshness and jealousy. His first marriage in Launceston. The whispers. The murdered woman.
Martha’s expression changed and she said, ‘If you are correct, you could be in danger. Keep things calm at home until I return. Don’t question or upset him.’ Her tone was urgent; Ann promised she would try.
Two weeks passed. Long days in which she tiptoed around Tom, careful of word and deed.
When Martha finally knocked at her door, Ann could scarcely wait for her friend to take off her hat before asking, ‘Well?’
Martha sat down heavily, withdrew a paper from her pocket.
‘Edgar copied it from the news report. The killing happened in April and the trial in June, 1851. Eleven years ago.’ She made to pass it to Ann, who shook her head.
‘I can’t.’
Martha took it back and began to read.
‘Thomas Britt, convicted of murder, was brought up for sentencing. Catherine Britt came by her death from a kick given by him, but she was drunk, and he had reason to suspect her of other immoralities…His Honour said due allowance should be made for the excited state of his feelings; a manslaughter verdict would have been more proper. Mercy recommended.’
Ann felt sick.
Martha said, ‘I’m afraid there is more. The report on the inquest held after Catherine’s death gave more detail as to what happened. Do you want me to read…?’
At a mute nod from Ann, Martha continued,
‘Britt was inflamed by jealousy…he used revolting language towards his wife, swore he would do for her that night. On the way home he subjected her to most brutal assaults. A witness…placed himself between them but Britt knocked his wife to the ground and stamped violently on her head as she lay…she never spoke again and died the next day.’
Ann gave a choking cry. Murder. Those women had whispered the truth, after all. Why had no one told her to her face about Tom’s past crime? Would she have listened? She no longer knew, no longer felt sure of anything. She’d married a murderer, a man who had killed in a most brutal way. Would he do the same to her? Or her boys? Horrible visions engulfed her, the lads lying bloodied while their da stamped on their little heads. She buried her face in her apron, shuddering.
Then another horror as she remembered that Tom and Catherine had married in March, 1851. He had murdered his new bride within a month of their wedding! And the judge had recommend mercy? Where was the justice?
She would never be safe again.
She looked up at Martha, jaw clenched. ‘What can I do? I can’t leave; I’ve nowhere to go, not with two lads.’
She gave a half sob, half laugh. ‘My da would say: You make your bed; you must lie in it. Seems he was right.’
Ann had no more words for her despair and fear. She’d walked unknowingly into a trap and now she must live there, caught in a vice that only her death would release.Postscript:
Friends of Ann Britt of Campbell Town are respectfully invited to attend her funeral on 12 June 1862, at the Roman Catholic cemetery.Inspiration: My 3 x great-grandfather’s murder of his first wife brings into sharp focus the devastation of family violence, which continues to this day.
Marriage registration of Thomas Britt and Catherine Tipping at Launceston, Tasmania, 1851 
Launceston Examiner, 23 April 1851 Connections: ‘The belburd’ by Nardi Simpson
The new novel by award-winning Yuwaalaraay singer and writer Nardi Simpson is tricky to describe. It is unlike any book I have read.
There are two narratives within the book, seemingly disparate but actually closely connected. There is the story of Ginny, a young poet trying to make sense of her world and her place in it. She writes poems and ‘plants’ them around her environment, literally planting them with some soil and a little water as she moves around her neighbourhood.
Then there is the being whose experience as a birth spirit is told in first person. ‘Sprite’ is rolling around in Eel Mother’s belly, meeting other spirits who are waiting to be born, and those who did not make it or do not survive.
The two narratives connect when we realise that Sprite and the other birth spirits see all. From this, we can perhaps understand that everything and everyone are connected, from times past into the future.
It is a fascinating way to introduce readers to a view of the world and the spirit that is very different from mainstream Western thought and traditions.
For this reason, it is a book to come to with an open heart and an open mind, and let the ideas and language wash over you, absorbing their meaning without trying to.
The belburd is published by Hachette in October 2024.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for an early copy to review.
It’s complicated: ‘Germania’ by Simon Winder
This is not a new book: first published in 2010 and one of a trilogy of books about Central Europe, Germania is described as a personal history of Germans ancient and modern.
Why did I pick up a fourteen-year-old book about Germany?
Because, in my investigations into my family tree, there is one individual about whom I know very little: my mother’s 3 x great-grandfather, Christian Uebel.
In a tree made up of mainly English and Irish branches, Christian Uebel is an outlier, on a branch of his own. He emigrated from the Rhineland region of the country we now know as Germany, arriving in Australia in the 1860s. I realised that I knew so much more about British history and culture and almost nothing about Germany, so Germania was my first step to correcting this.
I quickly realised that the history of central Europe is much more complicated than I had imagined. I knew that the German nation did not exist until the unification in 1871, and in the centuries leading up to that, there were endless squabbles between and about the many, many small and large states that made up the German-speaking parts of Europe.
Germania traverses the history of this region from the days of the ancient tribes in the forests, all the way up to 1933, when the Nazis took power. I wondered about this timeframe until I realised it was for an entirely sensible reason. The dark shadows of WWII have so dominated German history, that apart from the first World War, many people know very little about what came before it.
This is not simply a book about history, although of course that is an important theme. It’s also a travelogue of a particular kind; one where the author indulges his pet loves – and hates – about a country and culture, and describes these in a very amusing – even humorously disrespectful – way.
Here’s an example: in discussing the appearance of a particular abbey, which gives a sense of an ancient and brilliant culture, but whose main interior unfortunately looks as though something has gone horribly wrong involving a collision with several trucks filled with icing sugar, having had an extreme rococo makeover to mark its seven-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary. (p65)
There are plenty of gems like this, along with more serious discussions of the ups and downs of German history. On this, we are told that there were three points at which it was the worst time to be alive in central Europe’s past: the 1340s (famine and plague), the 1630s (the Thirty Years War) and the 1940s.
No prizes for guessing why that last one is on the list.
I was grateful for the map of Germany and its neighbours in central Europe at the front of the book, flipping frequently back and forth in my quest to learn more about this fascinating and (to me anyway) somewhat bewildering region.
Winder’s analysis of the themes and movements, great and small, of European history is thoughtful and thought-provoking:
But, as with so many aspects of Central European history, there is such an amazing spread of unintended consequences that only a form of political paralysis can substitute for the actual kaleidoscope of decisions which generate the oddness of European history – a small, bitter and crowded landscape somehow incapable of (indeed allergic to) the broad-ranging uniformity of the Chinese Empire or the United States. It is unfortunate that what seems in many lights so fascinating about Europe should also, as a spin-off, be the basis for so much rage and death.
Germania p273
Germania was published by Picador in 2010.
Austria in WWII: ‘The Secret Society of Salzburg’ by Renee Ryan
This historical fiction book opens with the arrest by the Gestapo of acclaimed and loved Austrian opera singer Elsa Mayer-Braun, on a stage in Salzburg in 1943. So, an early heads up of what one of the two main characters has to deal with.
From here the narrative weaves back and forth in time, and also across the English Channel, from the Continent to London, where we meet the other protagonist Hattie, who works in a dull civil service office, but longs to paint.
An unlikely pair of women to put together, but that is what the author does, as a chance meeting develops into a deep friendship between the two. Hattie travels to Austria with her sister to see Elsa perform and the sisters become stalwart fans of Elsa and her operas.
But of course war is coming and once their nations are at war, everything changes – except the women’s determination to carry out the secretive work of smuggling Jews out of Austria to England. Both Elsa and Hattie will not stop these life-saving rescue missions, despite the ever-increasing danger involved.
While Hattie’s artistic career takes off and Elsa travels Europe to perform – including singing for some high ranking Nazi officers – their secret missions ramp up.
As the tension mounts the reader is left guessing: is Elsa’s husband a threat or an ally? Who is the art dealer who supports Hattie’s artistic success and may just be falling in love with her? Will Elsa’s deep secrets be kept hidden or discovered by the Nazi heirarchy?
I loved that this story was inspired by real-life English sisters, civil servants who learned of the persecution of Jews through a freindship with an Austrian conductor and his wife. In my view, the best kind of historical fiction is that which touches on real people or events.
The Secret Society of Salzburg gives an insight into the experiences of Austrians in the lead-up and the early years of the war and Nazi occupation. It’s an engrossing story, well told.
The Secret Society of Salzburg was published in November 2023 by HarperCollins. My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.
The unforseen and sometimes hilarious consquences of lies: ‘The Too-Tall Tales of Alma T Best’ by Katherine Collette
What fun this novel is! Book One (‘Out of Bounds’) in what promises to be a captivating series for middle-grade readers, it offers plenty of genuine laugh-out-loud moments and also genuine insight into the insecurities of this age group as they transition from childhood to the teens.
Alma is twelve years old and six foot tall. She feels too-tall all the time. And she hates basketball and even more, hates being asked if she plays it.
When she begins Year 7 on a scholarship at the presitigous Holy Grace High School, she tells one little fib about where she lives. Rather than admitting she lives in Shellsville (a tiny town in the middle of nowhere and home to the district sewage treatment plant) she lets her new classmates believe that she lives on a farm – a peach farm.
A harmless little fib, right?
Except that this lie develops at shocking speed into a snowball, racing downhill at breakneck speed and threatening to demolish Alma’s whole life – and the network of subsequent lies she must tell to stop people discovering the truth about that first, harmless little fib.
She suddenly finds herself on the Holy Grace basketball team and committing to provide dozens of jars of peach jam for the school fundraiser.
The result are very amusing encounters with jam theft, basketball shoes, the bucket shot, mud masks and other assorted situations that she finds herself in. It’s a lovely tale of friends, family and fitting in.
Along the way Alma learns about lies:
The truth might be harder to tell initially but once you were through the difficult bit – and maybe parts were more difficult in your head than in actuality – it was easy, there was nothing to keep track of. Lies were the opposite: easy in the beginning and then hard. You saved face but drowned in complication. On balance, the truth seemed preferential.
The Too-Tall Tales of Alma T Best – Out of Bounds p261
Out of Bounds is published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in September 2024.
My thanks to the publishers for a review copy.Re-peopling history: ‘Dirrayawadha – Rise Up’ by Anita Heiss
I read this book with a sorrowful heart, knowing that the resolution could not be a positive one, even with the strong threads of family, love and strength that are twined throughout.
Historical fiction, it is based on the early conflicts between the Wiradjuri people of the central west of NSW with colonial settlers. These became known as the ‘Bathurst wars’ but were part of a wider, escalating series of violent encounters and retributions that today are more accurately referred to as the ‘Australian wars.’ Yes, folks, Australia has indeed had armed warfare on its soil.
The novel tells the story of Windradyne, a Wiradyuri leader, who refuses to submit to the ‘white ghosts’ who are attempting to take over his country and force his people into subjection. Windradyne is a real figure from history, a freedom fighter, though of course at the time the colonial authorities and many settlers regarded him more as a terrorist.
Along with Windradyne we meet his sister, Miinaa, who is living with some of her family at the property of the Nugents, Irish settlers who arrived free to the colony and have taken up land to farm. Of course the Nugents are part of the colonial mission and therefore part of the problem. However, they are kind people and have some sympathy for the Wiradjuri, and treat their employees, assigned convicts, and Wiradjuri, fairly.
Miinaa misses her extended family and their way of life, as she watches her world rapidly changing, almost beyond recognition. And as the violence surrounding her increases, she worries for her brother and the rest of her family.
Into the picture steps Dan, an Irish political prisoner transported to NSW as a convict. Dan can see the similarities between the British subjugation of the Irish, and the situation faced by the Wiradjuri. As Dan and Miinaa fall in love, he starts to understand more of the Wiradjuri world view, their cultural and spiritual practices and how Country is at the centre of it all. He is not alone but definitely in the minority among his fellow convicts and most white people, in his empathy with the Wiradjuri.
The outcome of this novel is not a happy one. How could it be, knowing how real history played out – and how First Nations people across Australia continue to suffer from generations of inherited trauma and dispossession?
There are some moments of hope and happiness, though. The strong bonds that unite and support Wiradjuri as they face an existential threat. The ability of some characters to reach across the racial divide and find things that connect them with each other.
As I often do, I checked out the historical facts that this story is inspired by, and was heartened to learn that the Nugents were based on a real family who did indeed employ (and shelter) Wiradjuri people, and maintained strong friendships with them across several generations. And Windradyne did not meet his death at the hands of the ‘white ghosts.’
The one aspect of the novel that jarred a little for me was the language used by characters, Wiradjuri and white, especially that of Dan. In his attempts to get his fellow-convicts and local settlers to understand the shared injustices faced by Wiradjuri and Irish, his dialogue includes many terms and expressions that I doubt would have been used by a young man at that time, such as ‘civil liberties’ and ‘plight of the dispossessed.’ Perhaps a well-educated Irish political activist may have done so, but I’m not sure about a man such as Dan.
However, the author uses these for a reason – to put the concepts into a modern-day perspective. In doing so, she blurs the boundaries of historical context a little, but makes the ideas and themes in the novel more accessible to many readers.
One of the many things I enjoyed about the book is the liberal use of Wiradjuri words and phrases throughout. This is a noticeable trend in books by First Nations authors and I love it! There is an extensive glossary provided but after reading through it, I found that simply immersing myself in the story and encountering repeated uses of words allowed me to absorb the meanings without feeling like I was taking part in a language lesson.
Use of Wiradjuri language also allows readers to glimpse some of the important concepts for Wiradjuri people, both in the past and today. It is no coincidence, for example, that the words I ‘learnt’ from reading this book included ones for children, Country, respect, family.
Dirrayawadha – Rise Up is gripping, troubling, and insightful and I recommend it to all who want to understand more about Australia’s colonial past. One of blurb comments about Heiss’ historical fiction is that she is ‘re-peopling history’ and I think that is accurate. Books like this bring to life real events in our nation’s past that most would have only a vague idea of, at best. I guarantee you will never visit Bathurst (one of my favourite country towns) in quite the same way after reading it.
Dirrayawadha – Rise Up was published by Simon & Schuster in July 2024.
My thanks to the publishers and to NetGalley for a copy to review.
Familiar place, familiar crime: ‘Pheasant’s Nest’ by Louise Milligan
Louise Milligan will be known to many Australians as an award winning investigative journalist and author of non-fiction books; Pheasant’s Nest is her debut novel. It opens on a stretch of road very familiar to me, and I’m sure to others who have driven the Hume Highway from Sydney to Canberra, or further south to Melbourne.
In this opening scene, the protagonist Kate Delaney is tied up on the back seat of a man’s car heading north from Melbourne. The man has committed a violent sexual assault and kidnapping and is now on the run with his victim.
The rest of the novel plays out as the clock ticks down: will it end with Kate’s murder or with rescue?
The narrative zips between Kate’s thoughts as she lies helpless and afraid in the car, to the panic and fear of her devoted boyfriend Liam and her best friend Sylvia, and to the two detectives in charge of the investigation.
I appreciated this aspect of the novel very much. Hearing what is in Kate’s head allows readers to see her as a person with a career (journalism, unsuprisingly), friends, family and a full, largely happy life. Of course she is terrified, too, because having covered plenty of crime cases as a journalist, she knows there is limited time for police to track down her assailant. Her fear feels very real.
What we also hear are her less serious thoughts: her reflections on her past, her career and colleagues, her lover and her friends. Some of these are actually very funny – unexpectedly in a crime novel like this. I particularly enjoyed the quite pointed but hilarious descriptions of the evangelical church ‘JoyChurch’ located in Sydney’s northwest ‘aspirational affluence belt,’ and the completely fake and probably corrupt couple at its centre.
The PTSD suffered by the NSW detective who has seen too many crimes and too many acts of self destruction also ring very true. He has held onto his compassion despite it all, but at great personal cost. His character speaks to the hard job we give police officers and their need for greater resourcing and personal support.
The other characters are also quite special; Liam and Sylvia as they head north to NSW to be closer to Kate (even though no one is sure exactly where she is) are beautifully drawn, as are some of the minor characters.
It’s a well paced and unfortunately very believable novel. We see too many headlines about women being attacked either by an intimate partner, a casual date, or a random person, to think that the crime at the centre of this story is not all-too-familiar in real life.
The author describes the stretch of road through the Southern Highlands of NSW in all its creepy detail. Anyone who followed the Ivan Milat serial killing cases in the Belanglo Forest there, or is aware of how many suicides have occured at the eponymous Pheasant’s Nest Bridge, will recognise the sensation of vague threat that driving through here can evoke.
Pheasant’s Nest is crime fiction with something important to say. It will be enjoyed by readers who don’t like too much gruesome detail but who appreciate familiar and believable characters and places in their fiction. It is published by Allen & Unwin in 2024.
The wonderful world of children’s literature
Four new books for children have arrived on my doorstep over the last little while – the best kind of mail! I absolutely love children’s literature and some of my fondest memories of my own childhood and that of my son are reading them, having them read to me, and reading them to another.
First off there is an illustrated chapter book by the wonderful Alice Pung, Millie Mak the Mender, a follow up to the earlier Millie Mak the Maker (which I have not read.)
Millie is eleven, and lives with her parents, her toddler sister, and one of her two grandmothers (the Chinese-Australian one) while also spending a lot of time after school at her other grandmother (the Scottish-Australian one.) Immediately we know we are in a world of inclusivity, one that embraces the richness of Australia’s multicultural life.
Millie has a talent, her ‘superpower’, which is her skill in designing, sewing, making and mending things. In the first part of the book she sees first-hand the loneliness of many residents at the aged care home where her mum works. She decides to design and make a warm winter hat for each, hats that are beautifully aligned to each resident’s own individual passions and interests.
A rather bossy and shallow girl at Millie’s school gets wind of the project, steals Millie’s idea and tries to scoop the glory by starting a ‘Hats off for Humanity’ project at the school – one which involves her in a ‘coordination’ role but not actually doing much else. Undeterred, Millie presses ahead with other projects to help her friends and their families.
The upshot of all this is that Millie and her three best friends are invited to be interviewed on a popular TV program for children. It’s all very exciting, but turns out to be a great disappointment because the show’s producers want to showcase stereotypical ‘ethnic children’ in what they think are traditional outfits. They don’t listen to the girls and Millie and her friends are left feeling they have been used.
It’s a hard lesson to learn and along the way they deal with lots of other life issues: ageism, racism, the difference between popularity and worth, the importance of family and of being a genuine friend.
The story is beautifully told, with natural language and everyday scenes, and the black and white illustrations by Sher Rill Ng bring Millie’s world to life.
A gorgeous addition to the early chapter book shelf, Millie Mak the Mender is published in September 2024.
The next three books are picture books.
What Do You Call Your Dad? by Ashleigh Barton and Martina Heiduczek is the next in the What Do You Call…? series (I have reviewed the ealrier titles on this blog.) Continuing on the theme of diversity and the joy of family and language in all their forms, in this one we hear the words for ‘dad’ spoken by children in Hungary, Ireland, Samoa, Nigeria, Portugal and Brazil, to name just a few. Once again the full colour illustrations allow children to be immersed in scenes from other cultures and homes.
What Do You Call Your Dad? was published in July 2024.
Before We Met by Gabrielle Tozer, illustrated by Sophie Beer, also celebrates families. It’s all about the anticipation and excitement that families feel while waiting to welcome a new child. We see all sorts of families as they plan and prepare for their new little person: adoptive parents, same-sex parents, IVF parents, parents far away. All filled with hope and plenty of love to share.
Before We Met is published in September 2024.
And last but not least, a Christmas offering: On the Hunt for Santa by Lesley Gibbes and Stephen Michael King. Three friends – Hare with a honey pot, Cat with a candy cane, and Pig with a plum pudding – set off on a mysterious trip.
Where were they going that snowy day, out in the cold so far away?They encounter all sorts of dangers and have adventures, never giving up, even when they hear the howls of hungry snow wolves on the prowl. Their destination is – of course! – the North Pole where they are greeted by a happy Santa, who clapped his mitts. It was Christmas Day. He was thrilled to bits.
On the Hunt for Santa is a gentle, jolly read-aloud book perfect for Christmas time snuggles, published in September 2024.
The four books are all published by HarperCollins.
My thanks to the publishers for review copies.
