Thursday's Child [Hardcover]

Sonya Hartnett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2002

A stunningly original voice in young adult fiction

Harper Flute believes that her younger brother Tin, with his uncanny ability to dig, was born to burrow. While their family struggles to survive in a desolate landscape during the Great Depression, the silent and elusive little Tin - "born on a Thursday and so fated to his wanderings" - begins to escape underground, tunneling beneath their tiny shanty. As time passes and fate deals the family an especially cruel hand, Harper’s parents withdraw emotionally, and her siblings bravely try to fill the void, while Tin becomes a wild thing, leaving them further and further behind.

With exquisite prose, richly drawn characters, and a touch of magical realism, Sonya Hartnett tells a breathtakingly original coming-of-age story through the clear eyes of an observant child. It’s a loving and unsentimental portrait of family loyalty in the face of poverty and eartbreak, entwined with a surreal vision of the enigmatic Tin - disappearing into a mysterious labyrinth that reaches unimaginably far, yet remains hauntingly near.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Australian author Sonya Hartnett's Thursday's Child is a mysteriously hypnotic literary novel reminiscent of David Almond's dark and dreamy books. The Flute family of seven--including the lively, likeable 7-year-old girl narrator Harper--lives in an abandoned prospector's shack in rural Australia during the Great Depression on land that is "particularly exhausted or maybe simply sullen." With the trials of being undernourished, inadequately clothed, and without real prospects (not to mention a relentlessly crying new baby, a mean midwife, and two parents who seem incapable of improving the situation), there's plenty of reason for the Flute children to want to escape.

Younger brother Tin escapes his family--and his very humanity--into the earth. He is Thursday's child, "and so fated to his wanderings," which happen to be in an elaborate burrow system under the family's house from which he eventually doesn't return: "He was born to the task like a hare or one of those blind hairless moles that comes into the world itching to get its claws into the safety of the ground." The family's problems transcend the oddity of Tin's seemingly impossible existence, and so he is left, pale and wild, to his underground world.

Harper takes it all in, recounting stories of her family's heartbreak in colorful first-person narrative--whether it's about her Da's drinking and dreams, a baby tumbling into a well, or the horrors that befall her older sister at the hands of the sinister neighbor. Harper's cheerful-as-possible, child's-eye perspective and her slow demystification of the world around her form the heart of the story. Hartnett is a masterful writer and storyteller; this is a suspenseful, curiously optimistic, altogether riveting novel you'll want to read more than once. (Ages 15 and older) --Karin Snelson

From Publishers Weekly

Set in the harsh mining outback of Australia during the Depression, Hartnett's (Sleeping Dogs) startling coming-of-age story combines narrator Harper Flute's grindingly realistic account of a family mired in poverty with a more surreal tale of her younger brother, Tin. Gifted with an uncanny ability to dig through the earth, Tin creates his own subterranean world that provides him both escape and a link to his struggling family. Through Harper, Hartnett captures the humanity of her spirited, slightly eccentric and then nearly broken characters as they survive a horrifying series of losses, only to be saved by a gift from the rarely seen Tin. In telling these events, Harper maintains a convincing and lyrical narrative voice, from her first appearance as a seven-year-old until the climax, when she approaches adulthood. She offers insightful and increasingly sophisticated observations: "As I grew older I was starting to realize the world is not one place, but two, and that you move from one to the other only with years." The haunting eloquence and dreamlike weaving of the mythic and the mundane invite comparisons to the works of David Almond. Ages 14-up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 261 pages
• Publisher: Candlewick; 1st Candlewick Press ed edition (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0763616206
• ISBN-13: 978-0763616205
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,073,298 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book beautifully written and a story expertly told., December 20, 2003

By 

Nina M. Osier (Randolph, ME USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thursday's Child (Paperback)

James Augustin Barnabas Flute, otherwise known as "Tin," was born on a Thursday. Which, according to his older sister Harper who narrates this dark coming-of-age novel, fated him to his wanderings. An older Harper looks back on her not quite seven-year-old self and remembers the day when her youngest brother Caffy was born - the day when Tin stopped being the impoverished family's baby, which is also the day when Tin learned how to dig.

The family's story from then on diverges from Tin's, as the small boy slowly transforms into a wild creature whose home is a self-created network of tunnels beneath their shanty. Most of the time Tin is invisible to the others, a person lost - less and less human, as time passes - yet still loved. Still one of their own.

This literary novel's premise borders on speculative fiction, with wonderfully creepy effect. Tin's life intersects with those of his family at crisis points throughout the story, as their already difficult existence becomes ever more so. What will this wild and often frightening child bring his loved ones in the end? Will he be their doom - their salvation - or both?

Despite its darkness, which at times feels extreme, "Thursday's Child" is a book beautifully written and a story expertly told. I recommend it highly, although not to young readers prone to nightmares!

- Reviewed by Nina M. Osier, author of "Love, Jimmy: A Maine Veteran's Longest Battle"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars haunting, September 12, 2007

By 

Janeen (harrisville, ri United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thursday's Child (Paperback)

Hartnett has done a wonderful job again in giving us this haunting story of another dysfunctional family. You can almost hear Tin as he moves about underground, expanding that world as he leaves this one.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well written book, full of meaningful moments., August 6, 2004

By 

Kimmy0189 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thursday's Child (Paperback)

'Thursday's Child' is a good example of a book that is not necessarily historical fact, but brings a beautiful portrayal of a family unit through hard times. Although it can get depressing at times, the darkness is expected (the family is not living in the most happiest conditions) and the story is full of realistic plot that lets the reader really get to know the characters. The only character that remains shrouded in mystery (although the main character, Harper, gives us some insight to his true intents throughout the book of his digging) is Tin, who still remains one of the most meaningful aspects of the book.

An easy, enjoyable read.