Besides Hannah’s parents who die near the beginning, there’s our two young protagonists, Becky’s father, his friend Ernie, the “tiger man”, a few other minor characters – and of course, the tigers, named Dave and Corinna by Hannah.Īs in Dog boy, the description of life with the tigers is pretty visceral. The novel has a small cast of characters, which keeps it tightly focused. Eventually they are found, but the process of re-integration is not easy. Meanwhile, Becky’s father, Mr Carsons, is out looking for her. They are taken in by a Tasmanian Tiger pair, and live with them for four years. Set in the late 19th century, it tells the story of two young girls, Hannah (then 6) and Becky (7) who find themselves lost in the bush (oops, forest!) after their boat capsizes in a storm and Hannah’s parents drown. It’s not didactic, and it’s all logical within the framework of the book. This might sound rather mechanistic, but there’s no sense of “ticking off”. Subject-wise it covers some significant ground: environmental issues (involving both the extinct Tasmanian tiger and the whaling industry) and what we’d now call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. There’s Tasmanian Gothic, and there’s also a bit of the fairy-tale about it. There’s the lost child and the feral child motifs (reminding me of Dog boy). But here’s me story and I glad to tell it before I hop the twig.Īnd what a story it is … this novel feeds into several Australian, and wider, literary traditions.
Me first thing is an apology me language is bad cos I lost it and had to learn it again. Me name be Hannah O’Brien and I be seventy-six years old. The first thing to say is that the novel is written in a unique voice. We don’t often do youth literature but every now and then one pops up that we think might interest us … such as a book by Nowra. It was shortlisted for the Young Adult Novel prize in the 2012 Aurealis awards and the Ethel Turner Young People’s Literature prize in this year’s NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. Louis Nowra is one versatile and prolific writer, having written novels, non-fiction, plays and screenplays, essays and even libretti.
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