Review: Pierre's Not There


Australian Children’s Laureate for 2020 / 2021, Ursula Dubosarsky, has penned another absorbing junior fiction tale that embraces imagination and compassion. Dubosarsky’s work is generally infused with wonderment and just enough magical conjecture to keep young minds guessing. Pierre’s Not There is no exception.  

Fast paced and alluring, Pierre’s Not There begins in a harbour side suburb of Sydney. While Lara’s mother is tasked with cleaning the house, Lara explores the grounds and meets a beguiling little lad named, Pierre. His odd dress and exuberant manner does not dissuade Lara from befriending him especially after he reveals his strange and terrible story to her about his family who were eaten by wolves!

Lara is intrigued and moved to help this boy seemingly all alone in the world who proclaims he must find his grandmother. But how? Pierre convinces her to join him in his quest the only way he knows how to, via a beautiful antique puppet theatre. If she agrees to participate in the puppet show, perhaps the both of them will find the way for Pierre.

The allure of a puppet play is all consuming for Lara who is usually relegated to waiting on her mother for company. With little prompting, Lara chooses her puppet character and is immediately transported into Pierre’s story; the story of a lost boy searching for his family.

Incredibly, Lara transforms into the part she is playing; the dog which she staunchly proclaims she is – not a wolf, as she is viewed by nearly everyone else. As Lara and Pierre move through their new world, they encounter disreputable characters and new alliances. It is not always easy convincing strangers that Lara is who she says she is; appearances can mislead and instil fear and prejudice. But she and Pierre persevere, temporarily diverting their adventures to assist a young princess rescue her father from a slumberous ailment.

Their quest takes place over the course of several scenes, written as a theatre script and enacted with all the drama and hijinks of an actual puppet show. However, even after the final curtain falls, Pierre and Lara are not completely out of the woods both figuratively and virtually speaking.

Eventually, Pierre is reunited with his grandmother but the story doesn’t quite end there…or does it? Pierre’s Not There is an intriguing tale that readers of different ages and fields of reference will gain from. Suggestions of magic intermingle with history and our spiritual connections with the past and those who lived it. This story is told through a few different points of view including that of the audience members who are essentially viewing the play as it unfolds. This again will appeal to different children in different ways; some as the only child, some lonely, some grieving, others open to the world of fantasy in order to soothe and explain away anxieties.

Whatever way you choose to interpret or share this story, Pierre’s Not There will entrance and entertain. Delightfully written and enticingly illustrated by Christopher Nielsen, Pierre’s Not There will ignite the curiosity and imaginations of 8 – 12 year-olds.

Title: Pierre’s Not There
Author: Ursula Dubosarsky
Illustrator: Christopher Nielsen
Publisher: Allen and Unwin, $16.99 
Publication Date: November 2020
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9781760525934
For ages: 7 – 12
Type: Junior Fiction

Buy the Book: Allen & Unwin, Boomerang Books, Booktopia

Comments

Norah Colvin said…
Sounds like a very original concept with a fascinating and captivating storyline.
4 November 2020 at 21:09
DimbutNice said…
This it is, Norah! Please do check it out if it comes your way. D x
4 November 2020 at 21:16
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: The Goldfish Boy

Image
Twelve-year-old Matthew Corbin is your regular pre-teen boy living in an unspectacular cul-de-sac deep in British suburbia. The major difference between him and the other inhabitants of Chestnut Close however is the state of his red-raw hands and tortured mind and the fact that he barely steps outside his terraced-home second story bedroom. Matthew is afflicted with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD and can barely function as a result. From his fishbowl vantage point, Matthew keeps track of his neighbours, dutifully recording their every movement, their comings and goings, and their habitual rituals in his notebooks. In this way we are introduced to the residents and their characteristic irks and quirks from the get go in a way that is both intriguing and comical. Matthew’s observations allude to his condition; he is both analytical and detailed in his approach. The orderliness of his notations suggest a mind used to repetition and accuracy, an intense desire to ‘get things r...
Read more

Review: Detention

Image
Tristan Bancks signed my copy of Detention with a note hoping it kept me turning pages . This book lived up to that promise and then some. Packed with page-turning tension and relentless drama, this is one middle grade novel that may cause a few kids to miss their dinner call. Yet despite the raw gritty urgency that suffuses nearly every page and the elevated sense of dread and desperation that keeps your heart in top gear, the pace is never too manic nor too hectic to enjoy the energising mix of edgy excitement and sincere emotion Bancks does so well. Dan is an inner suburban boy living on the outer perimeters of life. He’s classified as trailer park trash because of his permanent residence at the social-economically deprived Midgenba caravan park. It’s a title that comes with an ineradicable smear of hopeless. Deep down though, Dan’s a good kid, a caring kid. The type of kid who’ll risk his own face to save a vicious dying dog, which he does one day after finding Rosco tied ...
Read more

I've got a dream

Image
Almost a decade of moons ago, I made a serendipitous discovery that forever altered the spin of my world. Falling pregnant after so many years of waiting and yearning was nothing short of miraculous (for me) and a life event definitely worth waxing lyrical about. But did I? Sadly, not as much I as wanted to. There are those who find it hard to exist without sharing the contents of their dinner plates with the rest of  the world, then there are others who worry that a beautifully executed birthday cake photo shared on social media will somehow demean the starving populations of the world. I oscillate between the two but tend towards the latter, always fretting over how others will take good news in light of their own current situations and struggles, thus resorting to a severe downplaying of my own good fortune. The pregnancy of my first child should have been a joyous occasion - it was a joyous pregnancy after all - but I was acutely conscious at the time of another family me...
Read more