The Nargun and the Stars
by Patricia Wrightson
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Description
An ancient stone creature threatens the lives of a family on a lonely sheep farm in Australia.Tags
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Member Reviews
A recently-orphaned boy goes to live with his middle-aged cousins on their sheep ranch in the Hunter region of Australia. Coincidentally, the ranch has another new resident in the Nargun, an ancient and quite grumpy, um, boulder-like, thing.
Oh, this one is so good. So. Good. A boy exploring the lovely nature all round him (which includes, delightfully, all sorts of creatures from Australian Aboriginal mythology), parental figures who are loving and absolutely lovable in their gruff-but-kind ways, and all of this set against the cool and relentless scariness of the Nargun. I absolutely love how the Dreamtime creatures are woven into the fabric of the surroundings in a way that makes them perfectly normal and not overly 'magical.' So, show more yes, a fabulous read in all sorts of ways. show less
Oh, this one is so good. So. Good. A boy exploring the lovely nature all round him (which includes, delightfully, all sorts of creatures from Australian Aboriginal mythology), parental figures who are loving and absolutely lovable in their gruff-but-kind ways, and all of this set against the cool and relentless scariness of the Nargun. I absolutely love how the Dreamtime creatures are woven into the fabric of the surroundings in a way that makes them perfectly normal and not overly 'magical.' So, show more yes, a fabulous read in all sorts of ways. show less
This is an Australian children's book, but read it anyway even if you're an adult. Eerie, memorable tale about a boy and the old, old ones that still inhabited the land.
The Nargun isn’t happy and that’s is not good. Men are tearing up the lovely forest and the Nargun will not put up with this. A lovely ecology-minded tale from Australia.
Poetic Australian fantasy. I love it.
one of my favourite books as a kid! scared the day lights out of me
one of my favourite books as a kid! scared the day lights out of me
Ex-lib. Saline Middle School
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Australia's Greatest Books, as chosen by Geoffrey Dutton (1985)
97 works; 6 members
Author Information
28+ Works 1,242 Members
Patricia Wrightson was born in Lismore, New South Wales, Australia on June 19, 1921. During World War II, she worked in a munitions factory in Sydney. She wrote 27 books during her lifetime and entwined Aboriginal mythology into her writing. Her first book was The Crooked Snake. Her books have won many prestigious awards all over the world, show more including an OBE (Officer of the British Empire) in 1977, the Dromkeen Medal in 1984 and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1986. She is a four-time winner of the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award: in 1956 for The Crooked Snake, in 1974 for The Nargun and the Stars, in 1978 for The Ice Is Coming and in 1984 for A Little Fear. She has also won the CBC Book of the Year, Young Reader Honour Book in 1998 for Rattler's Place: Aussie Bites. NSW Premier's Literary Award for children's literature has been named after her. She died of natural causes on March 15, 2010 at the age of 88. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Awards and Honors
Notable Lists
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Nargun and the Stars
- Original title
- The Nargun and the Stars
- Original publication date
- 1973
- People/Characters
- Simon Brent; The Nargun
- Important places
- Outback, Australia
- First words
- It was night when the Nargun began to leave.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 269
- Popularity
- 120,667
- Reviews
- 7
- Rating
- (4.19)
- Languages
- English, Finnish, German, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 17
- ASINs
- 6
