A Way Home

For the last few years, I've been neglectful of new children's and YA fiction; I've burrowed into the comfort reading and nostalgia of my childhood and steered away from recently published titles. But my new resolution is to do a bit of catching up, and my means for doing so is to read the current CBCA Notables list. (I'm very well aware that this method means I will miss some gems which the committee don't see fit to include (cough Tumbleglass) -- not that I bear a grudge or anything...;-)

I'm proceeding alphabetically, so the first cab off the rank is Melbourne author Emily Brewin's A Way Home, her first YA novel (she has previously written two novels for adults). Sixteen year old Grace is homeless, sleeping on the streets of the city -- technically, on a ledge under a bridge. Melbourne definitely has a terrible situation with homeless people at the moment, and it was bracing to see them through Grace's eyes, as friends, acquaintances or threats, but always as fully rounded people, not just shapes to hurry past.

Grace finds some solace and kindness in a city library. It's always cheering to see libraries and librarians championed, even though I struggled with the likelihood of the sympathetic librarian being able to hand out casual work to a homeless teenager (and also the non-fiction books being filed alphabetically??) Grace's mother has a serious mental illness, and the story if them losing their home is very moving. Less successful was the sub-plot concerning Grace's father, which ended in anti-climax. Again, Grace sometimes seemed a little young for her supposed age, but I guess this book's intended readership is probably in the early teens. A Way Home is a cry for the power of music, friendship and the compassion of strangers, and while Grace doesn't find a fairy tale ending, Brewin offers a plausible amount of hope.