The Magic, The Mystery

The Age

Monday August 21, 2006

Frances Atkinson

The most enjoyable books are portals through time and space. Frances Atkinson has a quick look at the best of the year.

ALL good books transport the reader. They free us from where we are and give us a glimpse into the past, the present and the future.

A book can be an escape hatch, a rabbit hole, a mysterious door that's always unlocked. It's the cupboard under the stairs, it's the room you've been told you can never go into, it's a ticket to some of the most exciting, frightening or memorable times of your life.

Only a book can pull you away from your classroom and leave you stranded the middle of occupied Poland, searching for your parents, fearing for your life - which is what Once, by Morris Gleitzman does so powerfully.

Ursula Dubosarsky's book The Red Shoes transports us to the 1950s with her gripping tale about the Petrov affair, three little girls and the power of fairytales.

Rachel Tonkin's Leaf Litter shows us the wonder and complexity of nature - the kind that's thriving in our own backyards.

You can almost hear the twigs snap thanks to her highly detailed and realistic illustrations.

In The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate Di Camillo we followed the dramatic life of a vain, self-absorbed rabbit who learns important lesson about forgiveness and loyalty. Bagram Ibatoulline's poignant and dramatic illustrations add a whole other layer to the story.

In The Betrayal of Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty, we met a highly strung, high school high achiever who poured her angst-ridden heart out to her only friend - her laptop.

Still, Bindy should count herself lucky - she wouldn't survive two minutes in 4F For Freaks by Leigh Hobbs where students, Scary Mary, One-eyed Eileen and Feral Beryl terrorise their new teacher Miss Corker (see the wonderful middle page poster today on the work of Leigh Hobbs).

In Scot Gardner's gritty, reality bound novel, Gravity, 18-year-old Adam Prince is on the run - from himself. Overwhelmed by personal burdens, he leaves his small country town and his family, looking for answers to his complicated life.

Jane Godwin's taut thriller, Falling From Grace takes us to a cold wind-swept beach in Victoria where a boy accidentally stumbles onto a mystery.

Annie O'Dowd's gentle Seadogs series takes younger readers on another adventure, this time with Marigold, a little dog afraid of the dark.

The fourth book in Garth Nix's The Keys To The Kingdom series, Sir Thursday, takes us out of this world and sets us back in the Border Sea, trapped and desperate.

Closer to home is Nick Earl's Monica Bloom, set in Brisbane in the 1980s, revealing tender yearnings when Monica's Irish accent "drifts over the fence" and winds its way into the heart of neighbour, Matt.

Paris is just a page away in Just Like Tomorrow by Faiza Guene. Already a bestseller in France, the book follows the life of Doria, an Algerian girl living in a fictional high-rise housing estate kilometres away from the glittering Eiffel Tower.

Each of these books is like a ticket to new places and new experiences, some tinged with humour, some tragedy, all of them exciting, each of them asking the same question: Where will you dare to go next?