A Rose For the Anzac Boys by Jackie French

A Rose For the Anzac Boys has been on my mind again lately, thanks to all the talk about WW1 commemorations.

It's a wonderful story about three young girls, Midge, Ethel & Anne, at finishing school in England. They help with the war effort by rolling bandages...until they hear that Midge's twin brother, Tim has been listed as 'missing'.

The three girls decide they have to be more involved somehow and hit upon the idea of setting up a canteen for wounded soldiers in France.

They're quickly surrounded by the realities & chaos of the war. They are confronted by young men not only suffering from horrific wounds but also scarred psychologically.
Midge is eventually recruited into the ambulance service and ends up helping to prep the wounded before surgery.

French provides a lot of detail and background to this story of every day bravery and courage. However, she doesn't shy away from showing us the dark & desperate side of war as well.

Six years later, I can still recall many of the images and feelings from this story as Midge is confronted with the hell on earth that was the front line.


This is a teen/YA novel with strong, sympathetic female protagonists. Highly recommended for lovers of historical fiction.

This post is part of Lisa's Flashback Friday.

Fire by Jackie French & Bruce Whatley

Fire is the second book that French & Whatley have done together to address the 2 major natural disasters that have affected Australians in the past few years.

According to her afterword, Fire was written in homage to all the hard-working volunteers and professionals who battle bushfires on a regular basis, saving lives, homes and properties, including hers.

Meanwhile, Whatley's illustrations are vivid reminders of the devastating bushfires that traumatised rural Victoria February 2009. 173 people died during a firestorm that is now referred to as Black Saturday. The images from this fire are seared into our memories. Whatley's paintings bring to mind these images again.

French's poem describes the colours, sounds & mood of a bushfire day so clearly that you can almost feel the air being sucked out of you by the intensity of the heat and wind.

"One small spark brought fire awake, 
Winding like a black snake,
Fire flickered, fire crept,
Flames snickered, bushfire leapt..."

Whatley's illustrations are full of the haziness, the dirtiness & the heat of the blaze. It feels dangerous & intense. Combined with French's poem, a very moving and frightening account is portrayed.

The last couple of pages, finally offer us the hope of rain, renewal and regrowth.

Flood was published late in 2011. It detailed events from the awful flooding in and around Brisbane during January 2011.

The story is very moving, especially as it is based on events as told to French by some of her family who lived through the deluge.

"The rain stopped, but the wall of water surged into the river. Hour by hour the river rose. In some places water only nibbled at the bank, but in others it burst across the river bends...up into the streets.
It sounded like a helicopter.
It sounded like a flood."

However, the thing that really amazes me about this book is that Whatley painted the pictures with his non-dominant hand.

He was working on his PhD at the time about 'Left Hand Right Hand: Implications of ambidextrous image making.' He ascertains that we are all better drawers than we think - it's just that we're doing it with the wrong hand. The majority of the population is right-handed which is great for language and words, but using our left hand can open us up to a world of spatial & emotional creativity.

A Day To Remember by Jackie French and Mark Wilson

Jackie French is prolific...ubiquitous even.

It feels like every section of the bookshop has a Jackie French title in it - junior fiction, teen, younger readers, board books, non-fiction, reference, picture books, the novelty section even gardening!

Certainly it wouldn't be a CBCA shortlist without a Jackie French title (or two) in its ranks.

A Day To Remember is a non-fiction picture book written by French and illustrated by Mark Wilson.

It has been shortlisted for the illustrators award so I will try to focus on the pictures. But as with all good picture books for children (fiction or non-fiction) the text and the illustrations go hand in hand.

In various interviews I've read, Wilson has said that he is influenced by Australian Impressionist painters like Frederick McCubbin and Arthur Streeton. You can see this influence play out in A Day to Remember in particular.

There's a classic Australian feel to the landscapes with lots of earthy colours in use. The figures are engaged with their drawn environment. Wilson uses pop out boxes and inserts to highlight important features from the story.

French uses a diary format which follows Anzac Day from its beginnings in Gallipoli to our modern services and ceremonies. She shows us how the various traditions started and she talks about what Anzac Day means to our society today.

This book will become an important part of the history, traditions and community aspects of the primary school curriculum.

Pennies for Hitler by Jackie French

Although I have enjoyed a number of Jackie French books over the years, I haven't thought of her writing as being particularly elegant or sparkling. I usually consider her writing to be more prosaic and deliberate than beautiful.

She writes marvelous historical fiction for children, but there are times when you can see her formula at work.

However, Pennies for Hitler has proven to be a cut above the rest so far.

The story of young Georg fleeing Germany alone, in fear of his life just as WW2 is about to start, is engrossing and at times, almost poetic.

I give you pg 110 "Crashes shook the air - different crashes now, not the dull roar of bombs but long slow crumbles as buildings stopped trying to stand up." 

and pg 147 "and that too high, too blue sky was new as well. A tiny cloud was creeping into it now, looking timid against all that blue."

pg 252 "The war dragged on, dragging the year with it".

Pennies for Hitler is a fine example of Jackie French at her best.
This is not a sequel to Hitler's Daughter. The only link is WW2 and the themes of identity, war and loss.

Nanberry by Jackie French

You know what you're going to get with a Jackie French novel.
Her historical fiction is formulaic, but you know what? It's a formula that works.

Nanberry is true to her usual winning style. It's easy to read, well-paced, with good dialogue.

French finds the human-side to every period of history that she tackles.
This time the historical setting is Sydney Cove during the desperate, bleak time for the white settlement as they await the arrival of the Second Fleet.
It is also a bleak and desperate time for the natives of the Sydney Basin as they are devastated by the small pox.
Nanberry is a young boy who is one of the few survivors in his clan.
He is found half-alive by one of the new colony's assistant surgeons and nursed back to health.

I found the story particularly poignant as a recent walk around my suburb led me to a quiet park jutting out from one of the headlands into Sydney Harbour. A sign there told the story of the local tribes. When the First Fleet arrived there were between 6000-8000 Aboriginal people around the Sydney Basin area. 10 years later there were only 300 left.

This is the story of Nanberry.

A Waltz For Matilda by Jackie French

How much historical fiction is too much historical fiction?

Jackie French's novels for primary aged readers embrace the history, they revel in the history, the roll around in the mud like pigs in love with history...but she does it so well.
And it's not just HIStory - Jackie rights the imbalances of most historical records by making this book HERstory.

Matilda is a strong, level-headed, gutsy protaganist. After the death of her mother and aunt, Matilda is forced to decided a better way for her to live her life. Poverty, factory work and a drunken husband seem the only way ahead. That is until one day Matilda's friend, Tommy, suffers a crushing, painful injury in the jam factory where they both work.

Matilda decides to leave the city in search of her father, a shearer, who had gone bush years before and hadn't been heard from for over year.
This sparks an extraordinary adventure and introduces Matilda to a completely new way of life, full of possibility and hope.

We follow the course of Matilda's early life in the country, finding out the 'true' story behind our national folk song "Waltzing Matilda". She endures hardship, drought, grief and loss. Despite all this Matilda thrives.

This is a wonderful ramble through Federation Australia. Easy to read & enjoyable from start to finish. Highly recommended to mature readers 10+