Kirsty Murray

The Four Seasons of Lucy McKenzie by Kirsty Murray

This book was published in 2014, so it is more recent than most of the children’s timeslip novels which I read. Nevertheless, it certainly feels as if it belongs with the classics of this genre of literature, which includes such wonderful stories as Tom’s Midnight Garden and When Marnie Was There.

Lucy is eleven years old and lives in Australia with her parents and brother and sister. When her older sister, Claire, is injured in an show more accident while studying in Paris, their mother rushes to Europe to be with Claire in hospital. Since her father has important work to attend to, Lucy is taken to stay with her great aunt who lives in a house in an isolated valley in the Australian bush. Lucy has only vague memories of her aunt, and she is not at all happy about having to live with her, especially as the period will include the Christmas holiday. But soon she discovers that the murals painted on the dining room walls, each of which depict a different season in the valley, are no ordinary paintings. On successive nights when her aunt is asleep, Lucy finds that the murals allow her to enter a magical place where she meets her ancestors and plays an important part in shaping the history of her family.

The author unites past and present using clever plot devices, and the Australian bush is vividly described in all its beauty and unforgiving ruggedness. The same river that flows through the valley in both the past and present times symbolizes the relentless flow of time, and is inextricably intertwined with this powerful story of family relationships and the continuity of life. This is magical realism in a most poignant and compelling form. show less

For Callum, a colony boy, Vulture's Gate represents hope. After being stolen from his home in the outback by savage Outstationers and sold on as an attraction in a freak show, forced to perform in a circus for cruel masters, Callum escapes and returns to his outback home only to find his fathers gone, and his home destroyed. The only message left for him, his fathers are waiting for him in Vulture's Gate.

Bo is a girl living alone in the outback. She has been alone for the last six months, show more hunting, foraging and surviving. When one day she rescues a boy on the outskirts of her lands, she finds her once isolated home now set upon by dangerous Outstationers. With her home destroyed and all her family gone she feels lost, but with this boy she finds a friendship and something worth holding on to.

As Callum and Bo travel together across a harsh and desolate land, they are learning that the world they grew up in, and everything they were taught to believe, is not the world that exists before them. Callum always believed girls were extinct; he had been brought up sheltered from the ugliness that exists in the world. Bo, although taught to read, hunt and put together technology, is naive to the world beyond her lands; ignorant to what it is to be a girl.

But it is at Vulture's Gate that Callum and Bo discover the harsh truth of what has happened to the world. There, their dreams are crushed and their futures are left uncurtain, as each comes face to face with the horrors of what it means to live and survive in Vulture's Gate. But once inside are they able to escape?

Vulture's Gate is a provocative and well written story that raises questions of gender and society. In Callum and Bo the male and female perspectives are given, and in the story each sex blames the existence of the other all the ills that have befallen them and the world around them. Society is ruled by dictators with their drones and test-tube babies. Beyond that are the anarchists, religious extremists and Festers with their gambolling, bombs and human trafficking. But underlying all that is the theme of hope presented in the fairytales told by Bo. show less

Ruby and her younger brother Banjo search for puddles after a rain storm in this sweet Australian picture-book. Taking off with their mother and dog, they head for the park, where they finally find what they're seeking, having great fun jumping and splashing. When they finally arrive home again, muddy and wet, the siblings enjoy a warm bath while it begins to rain again. Perhaps tomorrow will be another day for puddle hunting...

Although there really isn't much to Puddle Hunters, story-wise, show more the simple text from Kirsty Murray conveys the pleasure that Ruby and Banjo (and their mother and canine companion) derive from their outdoor tramping in a newly wet wold. The artwork from Karen Blair, which looks to be done in watercolor, ably captures that sense of fun to be found out in the natural world, after a rain storm. Recommended to all young rain lovers and puddle jumpers. show less

A very different book based on a true story. During the turn of the 20th Century, troops of children would travel the world singing and performing shows dressed as adults. This is the story of one such tour that ended in disaster and scandal. Thirteen year old Poesy Swift is thrilled to audition and be selected to be part of the Lilliputian's theatre tour of Asia. She will be away from her family for up to 2 years but the pay is significant and will help her family make ends meet. The other show more main character is 15 year old Tilly Sweetrick who has been with the company in previous years and knows everything that is happening.
This is a story about what happens when adolescents are not given proper parental care and education and instead become cogs in an industry to make money. Instead of having guidance through the emotional changes Poesy experiences as she turns from a naive little girl into a young woman, she is left to guess what is really happening behind the scenes and her innocence is her undoing. For example, one of the 18 year old performers is sleeping with the married director, and the director is not paying the child's chaperone or his stage hands, etc. etc. It all ends up in a rather messy court case held in India.
Bit of a different look at history for older readers due to the "Coming of Age" of the main characters -i.e. groped by old men like benefactors of the tour and courted by "stage door Johnnys" that only want one thing. show less