Review: The Little Wave


This middle grade verse novel is a pure breath of fresh air, both salty and spirited and raw and earthy thanks to Pip Harry who deftly weaves the stories of upper primary school students from a Manly beachside suburb with those from a NSW regional country town far from the ocean.

The main focus is on three different kids: Noah a surfing junkie with sandy hair and refreshing open-mindedness despite his friendship with the school bully; Lottie an entomologist in the making with a huge heart and a bereft father who can't fill the hole left in his by the death of Lottie's mother; and Jack a tough wannabe cricket star who struggles with his dysfunctional family and an inability to improve at school.

It's the lure of the sea that each have in common. Noah can't get enough of it. Lottie loves exploring the lagoons formed by it in search of a new insect. Jack, just wants to experience its vast freedom after only ever knowing the confines of the country and its artificial pools.

Pip Harry's previous narratives often accentuate a clash of natures and situations. This novel is a fine example of the use of verse to reveal emotions and peel back true character. It's also a sensational reintroduction of the art of pen pal writing, something I grew up with but is alien to many first world kids of today. The glib reaction of Jack's teacher to their initial resistance against letter writing raised a smile and quiet satisfaction as the kids slowly yielded and came to love making friends with their city / country counterparts through letter writing.

The Little Wave, like a rising ocean swell, is powerful, fun, and fast paced; surging with hope and the message that nothing can keep asunder forever. A lovely ode about friendship and new beginnings.

Title: The Little Wave
Author: Pip Harry
Publisher: UQP, $16.95
Publication Date: May 2019
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 9780702260476
For ages: 8 – 12
Type: Middle Grade Fiction Verse Novel

 Buy the Book: UQP,  Boomerang Books


Comments

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