From School Library Journal
Grade 8 Up–Through rich, vivid poetry, Harry Hodby brings readers into his remote Australian town. He documents the mundane and unique qualities of daily life and the quirkiness of the townspeople, and gives a lively sense of locale. Three-dimensional characters come alive as Harry offers his insightful take on their strengths and foibles. A likable, perceptive, sensitive teen, he is intuitive beyond his years. His mother died when he was seven and now he shares his life with an attentive father and a brother, Keith, one year his junior. His father has built a nurturing home for the boys, though some wagging tongues are quick to criticize. Although there are adventures, Harry finds the town boring and yearns to escape for a time some day, but he worries that too many people have left and never returned. He also mourns for his friend Linda, who was swept away when the river on which the town is situated swelled and overflowed its banks. He secretly tends a shrine created in her honor, only to discover later that he is not alone in his admiration of her. This is a beautifully and sensitively written novel featuring a caring, intelligent protagonist.
–Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Gr. 9-12. Australian poet Herrick's contemporary novels in verse have included
Love, Ghosts, and Facial Hair (2003). Here, Herrick applies his terse, shimmering lines and coming-of-age vignettes to a story set in small-town Australia. In 1962 Harry Hodby, 14, dreams of escaping his sleepy, riverside community, but he is held by the memories of loved ones lost in the seasonal floods--his mother and his lively, brilliant best friend, Linda. Herrick's brisk, vivid poetry, filled with precise details, creates a luminous sense of place and character, from the greasy shacks and hot, quiet riverbank to the nosy, colorful townspeople. The wistful nostalgia and languid pace may deter some readers, but the memorable scenes (many of which stand alone beautifully as individual poems) are sly and affecting as they capture timeless adolescent curiosities: his neighbor's sexual conquests, girls, God, his future, and, perhaps most of all, how to move past grief to honor and hold what he loves.
Gillian EngbergCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
