AustLit

' Highly recommended in 'Black in Focus', the only publication which covers all books published in Australia about Aboriginal issues, this is a novel that raises many of those issues, without any didactism. It is the first of two connected novels the other being The Sun is Rising. It is centred around 15 year old Scilla, who goes from the city to spend a year in a small country town, Hogan's Creek, where her father and grandmother live. Hogan's Creek is about to celebrate its centenary--and tensions are rising, because not everyone sees the town's beginnings in the same way. As feelings between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people become charged, Scilla begins to understand that life is full of strange, painful and extraordinary complexities. This novel has been used in many schools to promote discussion on issues of racism and misunderstanding, but it is far more than that. It relies on its characters and on emotional subtlety to carry its message across.' (Sophie Masson).