The Castle Corona

The Castle Corona

By Sharon Creech

A gentle slow-moving fairytale, told with warm humour.

Living in the Castle Corona are the very spoiled, and very rich, royal family. Pia and Enzio live in the village below the castle, and are two very poor, orphaned peasants. Eventually, everyone’s lives cross, with Pia and Enzio moving into the castle to become the royal food testers. There’s a mystery to solve, and a thief about, and lots of odd and quirky characters to meet.

It’s all very low-key though, all the traditional rough edges of fairytales have been smoothed over, so for example, there are no great moments of danger, and no wickedly evil characters. Everyone grows and learns something about themselves, and all go on to live ‘mostly happily, most of the time’. In this way, it was mostly a good book.

Blood

Blood

By Alan Durant

Brilliant, brilliant story! Absolutely loved it.

Robert’s parents make the front page of the newspapers – found shot dead in their suburban home. Grief turns to anger when Robert starts to feel the investigation into their murders is going too slowly. He takes on the task himself to find the murderer. His investigations reveal many disturbing family secrets, and Robert’s life and sanity are soon both under threat.

The structure of this story is so very clever, Robert’s first-person narrative a perfectly tuned voice of grief, anger, betrayal, fear and revenge. Durant treats his readers to an intelligent and challenging story that delves deep into the nature of grief, of family dynamics, and of the way the mind copes with trauma.

Thoroughly recommend this well-written, challenging and intriguing story.

The December Boys

The December Boys

Author: Michael Noonan

This title is in the news big-time at the moment – made into a feature movie, it stars Daniel Radcliffe in his first non-Harry-Potter screen performance. Such an amazing choice of roles for him – this adaptation of an old Aussie novel!

The book itself was first published way back in 1963, and was Commended for the Miles Franklin Award. It’s a deeply moving story, tinged with humour and adventure, about four young orphans who have grown up in a Catholic orphanage. The boys are coming to realise that the possibility of them being chosen for adoption is starting to pass them by. They get to spend Christmas at the seaside, a treat that can’t even be diminished by their home-made, flour-sack converted, swimming costumes. At the beach they meet up with a childless couple who are planning to adopt, and the four boy’s bond of friendship is tested by their competition to be the one chosen.

This is a lovely snapshot of this time in Australian history – so many little details giving such an interesting feel to the story. The humour certainly helps to balance out the incredibly sad feeling I had for these orphan boys, so innocent of the poverty of their lives and experiences, and so full of hope and optimism for their futures. At times I found the language and style of the author quite dated, but in context this is not a major concern.

Well worth the read – a coming of age story, exploring themes of friendship, rivalry and belonging.