SCWC 2022 Young Book Reviewer in Residence
The SCWC is proud to announce our first ever SCWC Young Reviewer in Residence: Errinundra Farran!
We’re so pleased to be able to provide this new platform for talented youth who enjoy reading, critical thinking on literature, and writing reviews on their favourite creative works. The SCWC’s Young Writers Program is extremely important to us, and it’s important that young writers and readers know that their perspectives are valued in the writing community.
Errinundra (Errin) Farran is a year seven student at Bega High School. Her favourite subject is English, and in 2021 achieved an Academic Excellence Award, primarily for being the only student to be given maximum marks for her illustrated story book The Land of the Norm.
Errin lives in Quaama with her father and four siblings who are all avid readers. She enjoys swapping between being active and curling up and reading a book. Her greatest influence is her mother who loved to draw, write and sing, and whose book of poems, Annus Poeticus, was published shortly after her death in 2019.
Errin’s Review of: The Road to Gundagai- Jackie French
The Road to Gundagai is set at the time of the Great Depression and begins when a sixteen-year-old girl faces tragedies that leave her living as a crippled orphan. Bluebell Lawrence (Blue) lived a comfortable life until her family were lost at sea and she was caught in a fire. Saved by her maid but severely burned, she receives hideous scarring and blisters on her legs, which sticks them together, crippling her. She stays with relations until running away with the circus. Fooling the police, she starts her life anew, becoming Bert the circus boy and Belle the harem dancer/mermaid. Revelations of lies, murder and deceit become the norm as the circus struggles to stay together after a mysterious murder is revealed. Meanwhile Blue’s demons come back to haunt her from the past, threatening the life she has become accustomed to and ultimately, her own.
Jackie French has created an intriguing story with a plot that thickens and thins like a moving river, with tragedy, secrets, revelations, hidden enemies, love, and a little murder here and there. As it is set four years into the Great Depression, the novel includes a mix of history and fiction, blended to perfection. It also includes some characters who are set on gaining equality for Australians. One such character is Matilda, the eponymous heroine of the Matilda Saga who generously takes care of the circus performers in a time of great need.
The Road to Gundagai is the third novel in this sweeping saga in which the novels contain characters both parallel and overlapping. As books in a saga, they can all be read as separate books, though if you do read them all, you will find each uniquely intertwined with the other.
In The Road to Gundagai, I did not feel very drawn to any individual character throughout the novel but became very sympathetic towards the people, particularly the unfortunate, who lived in that period. Jackie French uses her exceptional knowledge of Australia’s history to equip the characters with enough real facts to make their stories and themselves more believable and to teach her readers about lesser-known aspects of the past. I enjoyed the twists and turns of the story and the way it became more fast-paced and intriguing as it went along, until it reached its pinnacle of excitement and tension and fell back down again to the slow contented flowing of the ending.
I recommend reading this novel because it will take you on a journey through history, while telling a compelling story of a young girl whose life gets turned upside down, flipped and spun around. Even facing death, betrayal, and tragedy she stays strong until the end, even managing to create her own happily ever after.
-Errinundra Farran
