The Eagle Trail

The Eagle Trail by Robert Rigby (Walker Books)

PB RRP $16.95

ISBN 9781406346664

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

A dramatic prologue opens the scene for this action-packed war story. It is northern France, August 1940. Three Andorran mountain guides are taking a Jewish family to safety over the Pyrenees top escape internment by the Germans. Business is brisk for these hard men, but no one can guess what becomes of the people they are paid to accompany.

Paul Hansen has returned to Antwerp to his father and mother from an English boarding school. Although there is a night curfew, food is still available and conditions haven’t yet reached crisis point.

When Paul’s father, a senior manager on the docks, is murdered by German soldiers and his mother taken into custody, Paul too faces grave danger. His friend Jos, a member of the Resistance, makes secret plans to move Paul to safety. Twists and turns create nail-biting tension and increase the pace of the story as things go awry.

Traitors are everywhere and no one is who they seem. Paul finds himself swept up in a fast-moving tide of conspiracy and death. Betrayal and murder is all around him and no one can be trusted. The dangerous Eagle Trail holds the only exit, and Paul is forced to travel with the Andorran guides. Will he come out of it alive?

Lots of drama, journeys through changing landscapes and thrilling adventures create an interesting read about the beginning of WW2 and the French Resistance. The characters, seemingly strong and courageous patriots, kept me wondering who the traitors could be right till the end. 

Room for a Stranger

Room for a Stranger by Ann Turnbull (Walker Books)

PB RRP $14.95

ISBN 9781406331059

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

The last book of this outstanding trilogy winds up in 1941. The two older girls have moved out and joined the WAAF. Father has died from lung disease. Lennie now fifteen years old, and the man of the house, works down in the mines, while Mother works screening and sorting.

When the war starts in 1939, and evacuees are billeted out to homes in the countryside, Rhoda Kelly comes into Doreen’s life. Intelligent, questioning and interested in everything, she shares Doreen’s room and eclipses her life.

Rhoda’s mother, an actress, is too absorbed in herself to care about her child. So Rhoda has also learnt to act and pretend, and has become far too confident and capable for a thirteen year old. It isn’t until Doreen sees the other side of Rhoda’s life that she comes to understand that everything isn’t always what it appears to be, and being loved is the greatest longing in every human life.

Here the trilogy comes full circle with the family making a life in whatever way possible to see out the war years. This impressive series was inspired by the local history of south-east London where the author grew up.  The excellent characters, strong narrative and great sense of time and place add credence to the fictional part of the story.  This series comes highly recommended.

My Australian Story: Kokoda

My Australian Story: Kokoda by Alan Tucker (Scholastic Press)

PB RRP $16.99

ISBN 978-1-74362-205-6

Reviewed by Jenny Heslop

Written in diary form, Kokoda tells the story of World War II from the perspective of a young boy living in Townsville. With two older brothers on the battle front – Harold in the 2/14 Battalion, and Des in the 2/39^th Militia Battalion – Archie is updated regularly on the action taking place off Australian soil from their letters home. Des (with Harold’s Battalion joining later) is sent to Port Moresby where his militia battalion has the task of defending the Kokoda Track from the advancing Japanese army.

This is a World War II story with a strong Australian feel. There is much focus on Archie’s life, and what it was like to live in the north of Australia during the war years. Townville was a base for the Americans and many of the local resented this. American soldiers enjoyed comforts local were unable to obtain due to rationing – even water was rationed at times. They lived in fear of Japanese invasion and bombing did occur occasionally in the parts of the Northern Territory and Queensland.

The diary entries show clearly how lack of information caused rumours to run rife. No-one really knew what was happening in the overseas theatres or where family members may be stationed at any given time. All this is recorded by fourteen year old Archie, through whose eyes everything seems a little exciting as well as a little frightening, but he is eager to learn about everything. And throughout the uncertainty of war, home life goes on and he has to deal with school, being the new kid, bullies, and getting a job.

This is a fascinating look at Australia’s war involvement between 1941 and 1942. It touches on peripheral subjects too, such as segregation in the US military and questions whether the Aussies treated Aboriginal recruits any better. It also raises the issues of leadership and what makes a good leader. 

While the focus is on Townsville and the Kokoda campaign, this is set in the context of the rest of the war. Mention is made of the Fall of Singapore, the Bombing of Darwin, Anzac Day services, the Battle of the Coral Sea and other relevant historical events as they happen. 

There are ten pages of historical notes at the end which help to explain the facts the author has drawn on to create this ‘darn good yarn’. Throughout the story, Australian humour, slang and values such as mateship and family shine through.

From the My Australian Story series, this story about the Kokoda campaign and Australia’s battle for the home front is a great tale for any child, ten years and up. The writing is very accessible, easy and entertaining and will suit those interested in war stories, adventure or Australian History. It is an absorbing coming of age journey, particularly for boys.

Creforce: The Anzacs and the Battle of Crete

Creforce: The Anzacs and the Battle of Crete by Stella Tzobanakis (Walker Books)

PB RRP $ 18.99

ISBN 9781742030821

Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Creforce was the name of the Commonwealth and Allied Forces of Crete. This reissue from The Drum series concentrates on the Australian and New Zealand Forces that took part in the historic ten-day Battle of Crete. It also covers the invasion of the Greek mainland, and includes an expansive history of WW2 during those catastrophic times.

  

The Battle of Crete was fought in May 1941, when German paratroopers fell from the sky, with the ANZAC, British and Greek units defending the island. The Germans encountered mass resistance from the island’s population. The Cretan’s knowledge of the mountains and their ability to survive there indefinitely proved to be their greatest weapon against the German invaders.

Lack of food forced soldiers to depend on the charity of strangers. What little they had was shared with the soldiers. Whole villages paid if a person was discovered harbouring an enemy of the Germans. The accounts of the Allied soldiers’ heroic attempts to fight with a shortage of guns and ammunition, in tattered clothing and shared boots, is deeply moving.

The statistics here are amazing. The layout is terrific. Its informative fact boxes include biographies of famous people associated with the Greek Resistance. Archival photos appear throughout the book. Customs, traditions, language, music, and past history of the island form the background of this comprehensive narrative on the invasion of Greece and Crete during WW2.

What Was the War Like, Grandma?

What Was the War Like, Grandma? by Rachel Tonkin (Walker Books)
PB RRP $ 16.95
ISBN 9781922179265
Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

With a new edition of this book - the first published in 1995 - opportunity opens for a new generation of readers to learn about WW2 through Emmy’s eyes and voice.

The announcement in 1939 that Australia is at war sets off the informative text and detailed illustrations that take us through the stages of enlistment, brownouts, blackouts, and the air raids at school which force the children into the garden trenches that would hopefully keep them safe.

There is a reality and urgency in every illustrated scene. The expressions on the children’s faces are cheeky and vibrant as we view the antics in the classroom.  Like a movie, the illustrations blast across the page with the narrative attached, through the daily rituals of ordinary people as they adapt and survive through changing times.

There are joyous scenes of children entertaining adults to raise money for the war effort, while rationing governs their lives and recycling becomes an art. But there are always the cunning that used tricks to get things they wanted and couldn’t normally have, like beer.

We learn about the people who were exempt from joining up because of the importance of their work, and the way that women moved into men’s roles such as tram conductors and the land army.

Australians hadn’t heard of hamburgers before the Americans landed and were billeted with families. Because letters were heavily censored, some soldiers would write the name of the place where they were fighting beneath the stamp, and mothers would steam them off to learn where their sons were fighting.

But what is most obvious is that in no matter what situation children found themselves to be, they would always have fun for their inventive minds created new games from their new situations, and play never stopped.

At the end of the book Rachel Tonkin explains how she resourced her information. This is a great learning and teaching tool for readers of all ages, enhanced greatly by the outstanding illustrations that accompany the text.

Fireshadow

Fireshadow by Anthony Eaton (University of Queensland Press)
PB RRP $19.95
ISBN 9780 7022 3381 4
Reviewed by Jo Antareau

Anthony Eaton began the story with a premise that the biggest battles we fight are the internal ones. We meet Vinnie a teenager who has escaped from his life, camping in a remote wilderness. But he cannot escape his memories, his guilt at surviving the accident that killed his sister – and the possibility that he was at fault.

His solitude is broken by another pair of campers, an old man and his granddaughter. Despite his initial resentment, Vinnie is drawn into their world. Erich, the old man, is dying yet is drawn to the remains of a World War II prison camp in the forest.

Erich’s history is gradually revealed in parallel with Vinnie’s. At Vinnie’s age, Erich was a young German soldier, a man whose pride was shattered from being a POW interred in an enemy land, a man determined to continue fighting a battle in the camp the only way he could – by defying the guards. Yet the elderly Australian camp-doctor recognises something in Erich as he takes him on as his assistant, and nurtures his medical skills. Eaton adroitly portrays how kindness eventually wears-down Erich’s stoicism and he comes to trust the doctor and his daughter, Alice.  But a friendship in a POW camp does not go unnoticed, and Erich soon has other battles to fight.

This is a gripping read for Young Adults. Both Vinnie and Erich need to sever themselves from the burden of their own parents’ baggage as both stories reach a climax. Each needs to make a decision to let go of the past and stare-down their own ghosts.  

This book also portrayed a largely forgotten part of Australian history, that Germans POWs were interred in Australia.

First published in 2004, this book was a CBCA Honour Book for older readers. Anthony Eaton has published eleven books for children, young adults and adults.

Hero on a Bicycle

Hero on a Bicycle by Shirley Hughes (Walker Books)
PB RRP $ 16.95
ISBN 9781406336115
Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Paolo is thirteen years old when the war reaches the outskirts of Florence where he lives with his English mother Rosemary, and his sister Constanza. His father Franco has left long ago to join the Partisans in their fight against the Fascists and the Germans. His whereabouts remains unknown.

Costanza has a close friendship with Hilaria, daughter of the wealthy Albertinis, admirers of Mussolini. The town whispers that their dealings with Black Market suppliers explains how during a time of lack and hunger, the Albertinis still wear expensive clothes and hold elaborate parties for the German soldiers.

Constanza hates the war and the conditions it has imposed on her life. Paolo longs for excitement and spends each night riding his bike through the streets long after curfew. It is during one of these rides that he is approached by members of the resistance movement and given a message for his mother.

Paolo finds himself and his family harbouring Allied soldiers and embroiled in something that grows bigger each day, with suspicion and the word ‘traitors’ shadowing  their lives. But the danger they experience daily only serves to ignite courage and determination in the family. The siblings leave their childhood behind them as the atrocities they witness wipe away their innocence. The allies are moving ever towards them. Can they stay safe until they arrive, and will they ever see their father again?

This is Shirley Hughes’ first novel. It has waited a long time to be written and in the interesting forward, Shirley explains the roots of this exciting and well-written war adventure, and how she moved from picture books to this novel. Fast-paced and full of tension, it exhibits an excellent sense of place and time with historical facts spicing up the storyline.

Taff in the WAAF

Taff in the WAAF by Mick Manning & Brita Granstrom (Walker Books)
PB RRP $16.95
ISBN 9781847804150
Reviewed by Anastasia Gonis

Taff in the WAAF was the winner of the 2011 English 4-11 Award, KS2 Non-Fiction. The writer and illustrator have an impressive folio of published award-winning work and this is the companion book to Tail-End Charlie, shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards.

The story is dedicated to Taff and her friends. The information is accessed through the memorabilia of WAAF Section Officer Paddy Fraser, and archives. It is presented in scrapbook form which has become a very popular method of presenting non-fiction to children of all ages. The visual part is comprised of photos, newspaper clippings, Official documents, certificates, menus, and wonderful framed illustrations with captions.

There are also reproduced sheets of paper of the era, that have explanations about  Morse Code,  Message Forms from the ‘Y’ Service, which was a ’chain of top-secret listening stations that intercepted coded enemy signals’ that were then immediately forwarded to Bletchley Park to be decoded by code-breakers. There is information on the loneliness the women experienced, the entertainment that kept them from desperation, and how they more than capably filled the men’s roles within any area they were needed.

This is a wonderfully detailed, brilliantly produced, and a valuable resource for children on the role of women and girls during WW2.  It has an expansive Glossary for a fuller understanding of terms, abbreviations and specific words used through the book. The text is similar to that produced by an old typewriter which is a perfect touch. It winds up with a double spread of original, single and group photos of WAAFs.

When my name was Keoko

When my name was Keoko by Linda Sue Park (University of Queensland Press)
PB RRP $16.95
ISBN 9 780702 249 747
Reviewed by Jo Antareau

Imagine living in a country that has been invaded by, then taken over by another. All of a sudden, you are no longer allowed to speak your language, tell stories passed down through generations, or even use the name you were born with.  Years before Gangnam Style and K-pop, this was Korea’s reality. A country occupied by the Japanese and its people forced to do whatever Japanese invaders told them to.

Written for children over 9 years, this story is based on events that the author’s parents lived through.  Both sad and funny, Linda Sue Park tells the story of Kim Sun-hee, a girl who never forgot her name even when forced to take on a Japanese name, Keoko. Park details the everyday outrages that were perpetrated on ordinary people, such as when Sun-hee’s brother Tae-yul had to give up the bicycle he painstakingly rebuilt because a Japanese soldier took a fancy to it.

The tone of the novel changes half way, as World War two commences. Koreans were expected to support Japan’s war effort by giving up their valuable possessions. Then Sun-hee’s beloved uncle disappears and although the family suspect he has joined the resistance movement, they have no way of knowing whether he is still alive.

With food and goods scarce, the families of Koreans who enlist with the Japanese army are rewarded with larger rations, older brother Tae-yul (who dreamed of being a pilot) joins up, to the outrage of the family. However Sun-hee never loses faith in him, believing he had a plan to sabotage any mission he took part in. Written in alternating viewpoints, tension mounts as Park drops hints about what Tae-yul feels he must do, and the final twist caught me by surprise.

I found this story well written and engrossing to read. American author, Linda Sue Park won the Newbery prize with her previous novel, A Single Shard.

The Wrong Boy

 The Wrong Boy by Suzy Zail (black dog books, an imprint of Walker Books)
PB RRP $18.95
ISBN 9781742031651
Reviewed by Vicki Stanton

The Wrong Boy is a fictional account of a girl and her family struggling to survive one of history's most horrific events, the Holocaust. It is compelling reading. Written in first person, I felt I was there with Hanna every step of the way as her family is deported from their comfortable middle-class home in Budapest to the atrocities of Auschwitz concentration camp.

As the Mendels arrive at Auschwitz, Hanna, her sister Erika and mother are separated from her father. She never sees him again. Hanna finds solace in her music and eventually finds herself as pianist in the commandant's house. Hanna is ignored by all there. She is the invisible provider of the classical music. She feels the particular disdain of the Karl, the commandant's son, but later discovers that Karl's distance is not due to anti-Semitism but rather his own disgust towards his father and the Final Solution.

Life in Auschwitz is not glossed over: how the need to survive drives divisions within the Jewish women prisoners, the decline in the physical and mental health of Erika, and the relative health of Hannah are marked.

The romance between Hanna and Karl is delicately handled and not overplayed. Internal and sibling conflicts over the relationship simmer throughout. I thought it brave to introduce this element but Zail uses a deft hand and it adds to the poignancy of the story right to the very last line.

The Apothecary

The Apothecary by Maile Meloy (Text)

PB RRP $19.95

ISBN 9781921758171

Reviewed by Nean McKenzie

The Apothecary is a novel for young adults with elements of fantasy, alchemy and adventure. The setting is the early 1950s in a London still recovering from the Second World War and the threat of nuclear weapons now looming. This fast paced and highly imaginative tale has the reader turning pages until the conclusion. Large black and white drawings at the start of each chapter add to the overall appeal of the book.

Janie is fourteen when her parents leave California, under suspicion of being communists. Janie starts her new school in London and quickly meets Benjamin, the son of an apothecary who has been kidnapped. Janie is drawn into a dangerous world where she is pursued by Russian agents anxious to steal an ancient book called the Pharmacopoeia. The kids decipher the Latin in the book and make elixirs to turn them into birds and make themselves invisible. This helps them to allude their trackers.

The Apothecary is also about first love and fitting in. The main character Janie is a brave, admirable heroine and the story exciting. However the events outlined in the story lack credibility in some ways. At the start of the book is a 'note to the reader' from the main character, now grown up. She mentions that she lost her memory and that although she has pieced it all together with the help of her diary, some of what happened seems unbelievable, even to her. Because it is written in first person, the fact that Janie's memory is unreliable could make the whole story less believable for the reader.

The Apothecary has an interesting setting (both time and place) and has likeable, courageous characters. It will appeal to young adults of around ten to fourteen years. 

Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop

Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop by Hazel Edwards, illustrated by Pat Reynolds (New Frontier Publishing)
PB RRP $14.95
ISBN 9781921042706
Reviewed by Vicki Stanton

Sir Edward 'Weary' Dunlop is the second title in New Frontier's Aussie Hero series. There is surely no other Australian who fits the title of Aussie Hero more than Weary Dunlop. Doctor, sportsman and war hero, he was renowned not only for his physical skills and medical expertise but as a man of great compassion, bravery and forgiveness.

Hazel Edwards has clearly detailed Weary's life from a child and through hard work gaining a university scholarship and then overseas to practise as a surgeon. With the outbreak of World War Two he joined the Medical Corps of the AIF resulting eventually in his capture by Japanese forces in 1942. His actions in the Japanese Prisoner of War camps and on the Burma Railway in saving men's lives from disease and brutality is indeed heroic. After the war he was active in veteran associations and building bridges between Australia and Asia, including Japan. After all that he had endured Weary Dunlop maintained his belief 'that all men are equal in the face of suffering and death'.

Pat Reynolds' colour illustrations complement the text throughout, and at times add a touch of humour. A timeline also provides an easy quick reference guide to key dates. Teachers' resources are available at http://www.hazeledwards.com/page/sir_edward_weary_dunlop.html

New Frontier is to be commended for introducing great Australians such as Weary Dunlop to primary school children. This series allows young children to access information about the people of whom we can all be proud. In this way, the achievements of those who have built our society and way of life will be recognised and remembered and will hopefully inspire us to continue their legacy.

The Heroes of the Kokoda Track

The Heroes of the Kokoda Track by Nicolas Brasch (black dog books)

PB RRP $16.99

ISBN 978-1-74203-134-7

Reviewed by Vicki Stanton

The Heroes of the Kokoda Track covers one of most pivotal moments in Australia’s history and one that every Australian should know about. Nicolas Brasch has managed to jam in all the essential information of that four-month long campaign plus the historical background as to the reasons why the world was at war, in Europe as well as the Pacific.  Every aspect of the campaign is covered from why Papua was so important, a brief summary of the fighting, which Australian battalions were involved, the conditions soldiers endured, the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, the Allied command and the Japanese perspective.

The beauty of this book is that it presents all this information in a way as to not overwhelm younger readers. The design and lay-out is outstanding. Text boxes, current and historical photographs, maps and artwork all contribute to the telling of this important event. A timeline covers the period from World War One to the Japanese surrender on 14 August 1945. To me, the most enlightening aspect was the personal recounts from men at the front. That is where the real story lies.

The vast range of primary sources included equips teachers with a valuable resource that can be utilised from middle primary school and up. Part of black dog books’ Our Stories series, this exceptional offering deserves to be in every public, school and home library in the country.