Children's and Young Adult Books of the Year 2009

Maya Linden Amid the proliferation of fiction inspired by supernatural themes, it is refreshing to find several débuts concerned with the more mundane – yet perhaps more pertinent – quests of adolescence. Tohby Riddle’s The Lucky Ones (Penguin) explores a period of change in the life of Tom, an aspiring artist, as he negotiates the purgatory between high school and adulthood. Told in a conversational voice, punctuated with poetic observation, it is a meditation on ‘the faint sadness that seems to underpin all things wonderful’. Dee White’s Letters to Leonardo (Walker Books) uses the confessional letter form to explore another budding artist’s quest for truth, one that leads to the perennial discovery that parents are not infallible. In fact, as fifteen-year-old Matt Hudson discovers, they are the reasons behind his most troubling questions. One veteran author, Sonya Hartnett, deserves applause for Butterfly, a poignant depiction of teenage metamorphosis that exposes the complex dance between cruelty, honesty, selfishness and sincerity in friendships and sexual relationships. Pam Macintyre A knockout début novel by Belinda Jeffrey, Brown Skin Blue (UQP, 07/09), explores seventeen-year-old Barra’s history, as he works on a crocodile boat at Humpty Doo. Barra, in this completely convincing tale, eventually triumphs over past trauma. Next is Swerve (Penguin), part road novel, part love story (between a grandfather and grandson), and beautifully crafted by Phillip Gwynne. The appearance of a 1969 Monaro and its owner – a long-lost grandfather offering a road trip to Uluru – is an adventure that the cello-playing Hugh cannot resist. Richard Harland’s rollicking ‘steam-punk’ adventure story, Worldshaker (Allen & Unwin), is set during the reign of Queen Victoria III. Clever and witty use of history is combined with a radical upending of the class system. In Leigh Hobbs’s Mr Chicken Goes to Paris (Allen & Unwin), the urbane Mr Chicken wonders at the architectural and cultural sites of Paris while the Parisians’ gaze is always towards his giant, magnificent yellowness. Agnes Nieuwenhuizen David Metzenthen’s class act, Jarvis 24 (Penguin), melds work experience in a tired car yard, footy and friend-ship with a delicate, wrenching love story between Jarvis and the gorgeous Electra, headed for track stardom. It is also hilarious. Poet Lia Hills’s fine The Beginner’s Guide to Living (Text, 4/09) features a young man enamoured of philosophy and photography – and a girl named Taryn. Adrian Stirling’s début, Broken Glass (Penguin), is a tense tale about tough lives and times in a country town. Crossover fiction is all the buzz. Margo Lanagan’s 2009 World Fantasy Award-winning fantasy, Tender Morsels (Allen & Unwin), published here as adult but as Young Adult in the United Kingdom and the United States, will be republished here as Young Adult with a dashing Shaun Tan cover. New Zealander Kate de Goldi’s prize-winning, charming and thoughtful The 10 PM Question (Allen & Unwin), about a boy who worries, especially about his agoraphobic mother, has attracted legions of readers of all ages, as should American M.T. Anderson’s superb historical novel The Kingdom on the Waves (Walker Books), Volume 2 of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation. Stephanie Owen Reeder Alison Lester’s sophisticated picture book Running With the Horses (Penguin) tells the inspirational story of a young girl who escapes on horseback from a war-torn city. Stunning montages of photography, drawings and paintings illustrate this engrossing tale. Aaron Blabey’s idiosyncratic picture book Stanley Paste (Penguin) follows the travails of its eponymous hero as he discovers that being different is much easier when you share life’s dramas with those who are similarly afflicted. Blabey is the master of sensitive yet humorous expositions of childhood. There is always a gorgeously wicked twist to the books of Emily Gravett, and The Rabbit Problem (Macmillan) is no exception. Beginning with a single rabbit in Fibonacci’s field, Gravett’s calendar-format book ends with a spectacular pop-up which reveals the inevitable result of keeping rabbits in a confined space! Gravett’s sense of humour is infectious, and the miniature ‘books’ attached to many of the pages are a delicious bonus. Mike Shuttleworth David Metzenthen’s Jarvis 24 made me laugh and then broke my heart. Metzenthen gets under the skin of his characters with great subtlety, creating a novel with broad and lasting appeal. Kirsty Eagar’s fearless Raw Blue (Penguin), a story of regeneration set on Sydney’s northern beaches, is more than just a promising début: this one delivers. Riding the Black Cockatoo (Allen & Unwin), by John Danalis, is a humane and important story of reconciliation. Non-fiction like this is all too rare. Kirsty Murray’s future world dystopia Vulture’s Gate (Allen & Unwin) is also a rattling good story, arguably the best writing of her career. On the lighter side, Just Macbeth! (Pan Macmillan), by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton, is very funny and hellishly clever to boot. Overseas, The Kingdom on the Waves, M.T. Anderson’s concluding volume of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, is a superbly sustained piece of historical fiction – fascinating as it is flawless.

From the New Issue

Woven: First Nations poetic conversations from the Fair Trade project edited by Anne-Marie Te Whiu

The Penguin Book of Elegy: Poems of memory, mourning and consolation edited by Andrew Motion and Stephen Regan

The End of the Morning by Charmian Clift

Like Fire-Hearted Suns by Melanie Joosten

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