An Australian Classic: The Fortunes of Richard Mahony by Henry Handel Richardson

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a 943 page classic and an Australian one at that. It is also a tragedy. The author relentlessly follows the ‘fortunes’ of both Richard Mahony and his wife, Polly (known as Mary later in the book), the ups and downs of their rollercoaster-like lives, the inevitable sadness of their circumstances.

Mahony is an Irish immigrant whose restless nature will never allow him to settle anywhere for very long. Although he is proud and exceptionally thin-skinned, he is at heart a kind man. Mary is originally from England and puts down roots easily. She is loyal, tends to see the best in people and makes the most of circumstances. They are as different as chalk and cheese in many ways but they care for each other and life goes on reasonably well it becomes clear that Mahony will never settle anywhere. 

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony was written between 1917 and 1929 as a trilogy: Australia Felix, The Way Home, and Ultima Thule, but was re-published as one book in 1930. Henry Handel Richardson is the pen name of Ethel Florence Lindsay Richardson (1870-1946).

The book begins during the mid 1800’s gold rush in Ballarat where Mahony works in his store selling supplies to the miners. He had originally qualified as a medical doctor before emigrating to Australia but set that aside for the lure of the goldfields. He meets Mary on a trip to Melbourne when he is in his late twenties and she is only sixteen. They marry soon after meeting and she comes to live in Ballarat.

With his wife’s encouragement, Mahony takes up medical practice again and does very well but his restlessness makes him miserable.  He insists that life in England would be much more suitable for them, culturally and socially. So off they go only for Mahony to find that the grass is not as green as he had thought. Doctors were still not much higher in the social scale than barbers in this 'slow-thinking, slow moving country.' 

‘Long residence in a land where every honest man was the equal of his neighbour had unfitted him for the genuflexions of the English middle-classes before the footstools of the great.’

Although his pride was hurt by the attitude of the people to his profession, he was furious when he learnt that Mary was snubbed by some of the ladies of the town. Studying her objectively, he realised that she was different. Her manner was natural and spontaneous which contrasted to their restraint and it seemed to him that,

'...into all Mary did or said there had crept something large and free - a dash of the spaciousness belonging to the country that had become her true home.'

There are some interesting backdrops to this book: the Victorian goldfields and the Eureka Stockade, the Crimean War, Lister’s experiments in Glasgow, the English class system, and the fear of the Kelly Gang in country Victoria. It touches, too, on the treatment of the mentally ill - asylums were basically prisons and visits by relatives were discouraged. Mahony becomes intensely interested in Spiritualism for a time, attending seances and the like - apparently Ballarat had a small group of very devout believers in the 1800’s. 

There are also many philosophical tangents in the book as Mahony thinks about faith, science and eternity.

It’s interesting reading this in 2020 where the average lifespan is significantly longer than it was in the 1800’s. I kept reading jarring comments about someone being past their prime at 39 years of age ?! and a person was described as ‘very old’ when they were 61 or 62 years old.

The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a very compassionate and in-depth exploration of a marriage. At different times the author allows the couple to share their individual thoughts. I thought this was very well done and helped me to understand both parties. Mahony's personality is so thoroughly explored that even though at times he appears to be a real jerk, one cannot help but feel some empathy. He tended to have flashes of inspiration that came too late:

'For such a touchy nature I'm certainly extraordinarily obtuse where the feelings of others are concerned.'

'To be perpetually in the company of other people irked him beyond belief. A certain amount of privacy was as vital to him as sleep.'

'His first impressions of people - he had had the occasion to deplore the fact before now - were apt to be either dead white or black as ink; the web of his mind took no half tints.'

As time passed, Mahony grew increasingly withdrawn. His work left no time for friendships, so he said, and although his wife was dear to him he missed the companionship an old friendship provided. The 'solid base of joint experience' was gone but his life had become too set to allow him to start building another.

'...the one person he had been intimate with passed out of his life. There was nobody to take the vacant place...He had no talent for friendship.'

Richardson was a gifted woman and an excellent writer. Obviously well-educated, her writing is peppered with allusions to mythology and Latin words. From what I've read of her life, this book has strong undercurrents of her own experiences.

Linking up with Brona for the 2020 AusReading Month.

An Australian Living Book: All the Green Year by Don Charlwood (1965)

All the Green Year by Don Charlwood is an Australian coming of age classic set during the year of 1929. The story takes place around the Port Philip Bay area of Victoria in the fictionalised town of Kananook, which was modelled on the real town of Frankston when it was still rural.
1929 was the end of an era. It was still the age of silent pictures where ‘mood music’ was played during a movie by a pianist and the American accent was seldom heard.
It was the age of gramophones, coppers for boiling clothes, blacksmiths, cable trams, and milkmen delivering milk into billies outside everyone’s gate. By 1930 this began to change with the coming of talking pictures.

‘Now alien speech poured into our ears: in musicals, westerns, gang warfare, smart comedy. Implicit in my story of boyhood in 1929 would be the suggestion that our era had been much less Americanised than those to come.’

Charlie Reeve narrates the story which mostly revolves around his best mate, Johnno, school, family life, boyish adventures and hijinks.
1929 was the year Charlie turned fourteen and started 8th Grade at school. It was also the year when his grandfather’s mental state worsened and Charlie’s family moved into ‘Thermopylae,’ Grandfather’s house on the cliffs, to take care of him.

This is a memorable story of adolescence, adventure and family friction at the beginning of the Great Depression. Fathers worried about their sons, their school grades and future prospects with the downturn in the economy, and this inflamed the conflicts at home. Both sides in the conflict misunderstood the other or just couldn't relate to their concerns and attitudes. It didn’t help that Charlie & Johnno’s teacher, Mr Moloney, targeted the two of them and made life and learning generally miserable.

'After five grades together this was my last year with Fred Johnston, a tall, melancholy boy of extraordinary physique...head and shoulders above everyone else, as a swimmer and boxer hardly anyone in the town could touch him. He had learnt boxing from his father who at one time during the war had been R.A.N. welter-weight champion...
About Johnno himself there was a contradiction I have never forgotten. He had practically no physical fear, yet he was always afraid of his father and of old Moloney…
His fear of both of them went back a long way; back, I suppose, to the third grade when Johnno had lost his mother. About a year after that Moloney, in a temper, had hit Johnno across the face with the strap. Johnno had gone home and told his father and old man Johnston had given him a note to bring to school. But the note only told Moloney to give him more for not taking his punishment like a man.'

During the year, Miss Beckenstall, a new, young and pretty teacher replaced Moloney and Charlie and Johnno began to enjoy school and do well. She encouraged them with their writing, and read poetry and David Copperfield with them, giving each of the students parts to read.

'“Don’t like being Steerforth,” said Johnno. “Look what he’s done to Little Emily.”

I wasn’t sure what he’d done to Little Emily; in any case Little Emily was being read by Janet Baker, who had nothing to recommend her.

“A chap’s really bad if he’s tough on women,” said Johnno gazing into the distance...

“She’s only in a book.”

He hadn’t heard me. “I’d drop Steerforth cold.” He punched the air absent-mindedly.'

Charlie’s grandfather and his antics were portrayed so well as was the family’s attitude towards him. It was refreshing to read about their sense of duty in their care towards him, making difficult decisions in order to keep him in his own home. He wasn’t an easy fellow to live with.
There were many humorous anecdotes throughout the book: stealing a camel and riding it to school, antagonising a bull, fist-fights with the town bully; the two boys reluctantly escorting Johnno's sister to a dance and 'defending her honour' as they were directed to do by her father; but the author also portrayed the pain and discomfiture of boys moving from childhood to adolescence; their physical and emotional upheavals, as if they were recent experiences for himself.

When two of Australia’s foremost critics commented that the first part of All the Green Year read as a ‘book about boys’ but the second part read like ‘a book for boys,' the author replied, ‘I was writing as an adult repossessed by boyhood and that the state of ‘repossession’ intensified as the book neared its climax so that, briefly, I shed my age and became in spirit a boy again.’
I think this expresses the feel of the book well. Charlwood sounds like he's looking back at events that just happened.

All the Green Year is an evocative novel that is wonderfully Australian. It is honest, compassionate, humorous, sad at times, and a compelling read. It was one of those Aussie classics that I knew about but I’d never seen in book shops. A while ago, I noticed that Erin had used it as a read aloud and their family enjoyed it so I had a look for it online. I saw that Text Classics had republished it so I bought a copy. (They have reprinted some other worthwhile books.)

We’re using it this year in our Ambleside Online Year 10, which I have modified a fair bit for Australia. It had been read in high schools here for twenty years but has suffered the same fate as other noteworthy classics such as I Can Jump Puddles.
Don Charlwood’s writing career spanned more than eighty years and he was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1992 for services to Australian Literature. He served in Bomber Command during the Second World War and later wrote several books about his experiences during this time. He died in 2012 aged ninety-six.

Back to the Classics 2019: Wrap-up Post

This year I'm stopping at 10 books for this challenge which was hosted by Karen @ books & chocolate. I skipped the 'Comic Classic' and 'Classic Play.' I did read All Things Bright & Beautiful by James Herriot book aloud to my daughter which was a great laugh in places but it didn't qualify for this challenge as it was written in the 1970's.

These were my original ideas and the books below are what I ended up reading:


19th century Classic: Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

20th Century Classic: In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

Classic by a Woman: Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell

Classic in Translation: On the Incarnation by Athanasius

Classic Tragic Novel: Requiem for a Wren by Nevil Shute

Very Long Classic: Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

Classic Novella: Chocky by John Wyndham

Classic From the Americas or Caribbean: The Homemaker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Classic From Asia, Africa, or Oceania: The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki

Classic From a Place You've Lived: Colour Scheme by Ngaio Marsh

I'd be hard put to try and choose a favourite but a few I'd highly recommend are The Homemaker, Requiem for a Wren, & Ruth. Followed closely by The Makioka Sisters & In This House of Brede.

The most difficult were On the Incarnation, not because of the author's style, which was lucid and inviting, but the subject matter; and Daniel Deronda, because George Eliot was a very intellectual & articulate woman and you almost need an art and history degree to get all her references.

Three books that had me in tears: The Homemaker, Requiem for a Wren, and Ruth.

New authors for me: Athanasius, Junichiro Tanizaki.

Back to the Classics: Requiem for a Wren by Nevil Shute (1955)

It’s been a while since I’ve read anything by Nevil Shute and this book reminded me how much I enjoy his writing. I thought I’d already read the best of his novels but Requiem for a Wren certainly deserves to be placed on a par with works such as Pied Piper, A Town Like Alice, and Trustee From the Toolroom.
Set partly in the time of WW2 and the years following, it is filled with Shute’s trademark aviation knowledge, which surprisingly doesn’t hinder this non-tech reader’s enjoyment of his writing.
I’ve previously mentioned the author’s ability to get into the skin of his characters who are never ‘standard heroes’ but just very ordinary people whose courage is called upon by unlooked for dilemmas and circumstances; common, quiet folk who rise for a short time, do what needs to be done and go back to their quiet lives. This book is no exception.
From the very first page there is a sense that this story is going to be tragic. There is an inexorable pull in that direction as Alan, the narrator, tells the story of his brother, Bill, and Janet, the young woman he would have married had he survived the war.
All three had met just before the invasion of Normandy but were never to meet again.
The brothers were Australian and the story takes place in Britain and Australia.
After the war Alan sets out on a quest to find Janet, a search that takes him back to England, across to America and then back to Victoria in Australia. What he finds out in his search poignantly reveals Janet’s character and background. Alan is determined to find her and to offer her a home with his parents on their rural property which would have been her lot if circumstances hadn’t intervened to prevent her marriage to Bill.
Unfortunately, Alan always found himself on the back foot in his search. Between Janet’s many moves, the post war confusion, his hospitalisation and rehabilitation after being seriously injured in an air battle, he would arrive somewhere expecting to find her only to discover she had moved on.

'Like some infernal monster, still venomous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after its all over.'

This is a sad book with a mix of mystery and WW2 events. Somehow Shute imbues his tragedies with a not altogether bleak outlook. There is some hope within the pathos.
An achingly beautiful read. Highly recommended!

For my thoughts on other books by Nevil Shute see here and here.


Linking up to the 2019 Back to the Classics Challenge: Classic Tragic Novel

Sun on the Stubble by Colin Thiele

Sun on the Stubble is an Australian classic first published in 1961 and later adapted for television and was written by a prolific Australian author, Colin Thiele (1920-2006). We've read a number of his books, mainly for the younger set, and I'd heard of this book but didn't get to read it until my eldest was in her teens. I recognised the title when I stumbled upon it at an op shop,and thought I should at least give it a try seeing it was a sort of iconic Aussie book. I was surprised to find that it was so different from his other books, some of which are quite sad, and by the fifth page I started laughing at regular intervals and continued to do so until the end of the book 183 pages later.

I knew I'd just have to read this book aloud, which I did, but with great difficulty. When I'd finished the kids told their dad he had to read it aloud to them also. So he did but he had trouble too and everyone got frustrated because he'd read ahead and start laughing.

Bruno Gunther is the main character in the story, the youngest child of German immigrants, along with three other sons, two daughters, and Grandad, who settled in a farming community in South Australia after fleeing Germany.

The book opens as Bruno is leaving his beloved home to attend school in the city and his thoughts are on all he is leaving behind.

It was the end of a boyhood. The beginning of an exile. After twelve years in the warmth of home he was being thrust out, torn up by the roots, sent off to school in Adelaide. In his anguish the scenes of his boyhood swept through his mind's eye, leapt and swayed and flickered like the changing patterns of sunlight on the stubble...

Bruno's father is big, tough and blundering; his mother tiny and timid but fierce when it came to protecting her youngest child in particular; his older brothers are approaching manhood and are full of bravado and fun; his sisters are feminine, and the older girl is desperate to have bathroom amenities added to the home; his Grandad clever, devious at times, humorous and a beloved member of the family.

Dad was a big man - six feet tall and an axe handle across the shoulders. Each of his hands was like a leg of mutton. In an emergency, Dad was always reliable. He was strong and quick, even if no one could possibly describe him as cool.

A big tear started suddenly in Bruno's eye and he dabbed it hastily with the towel. Dear old Mum! He knew she was near tears herself, but she had a great love in her small body - more than Dad would ever know - and Bruno felt it suddenly like a warm and living thing.

Sun on the Stubble is a hilarious, loving, and often poignant portrayal of a young man growing up in post World War II rural Australia. Colin Thiele managed to write a very humorous story interspersed with gems showing facets of the love between a mother and her child.

Most of my children would say it was the best book we'd ever read aloud to them. It's definitely the funniest. It's suitable for family reading although I'd suggest a quick preview as I skipped a few sections when I first read it aloud as some of my children were quite young at the time. It's easy to do this without ruining the story.

The book pictured above is an Omnibus Edition and includes three other stories set in rural South Australia written by the author.
This is an updated post of my original from about six years ago. This book is too good to miss!

An Australian Classic: The Shiralee by D’Arcy Niland (1955)

D’Arcy Niland (1917-1967) was an Australian author who is probably best known for his classic book, The Shiralee, although he also wrote over five hundred short stories.
The Shiralee was a best-seller both in Australia and overseas and has never been out of print since it was first published in 1955.
Now that I’ve read it I’m not surprised at its success. It is a raw story of fatherhood, rejection, betrayal, and the human heart’s response to these. The author was in his teens during the Great Depression and although the time period of the story isn’t directly referenced, the setting seems to be during or around that time.

The Story

Macauley was a swagman (a labourer who walked his way from job to job, carrying a swag which contained his bedding and all his belongings) and he worked all over New South Wales. He had been married for five years and his wife and their three and a half year old daughter lived in the city while he worked in country towns or in the outback.
One day he returned home unexpectedly and found his wife with another man. In his rage, he beat up the interloper, grabbed Buster, his daughter, and made his way out on the road again.
Six months later he is still on the road and resentful that he is lumbered with his shiralee, his swag, the burden that he took on himself to spite his wife.

He had had no word from his wife since that time but she turned up in a town where he was working and tried to take Buster back to the city. Her plan was one of revenge. She didn’t want to be lumbered with the child and planned to get back at her ex-husband by putting her daughter into an orphanage without his knowledge. Macauley discovered she had taken the child and took her back but he was unaware of her real intention at that time.

It had come to this, the two of them wrangling over a scrap of humanity, like dogs wrangling over a bone; only dogs wrangle for the same reason: her reason and his were totally different. He was sure of that.

Macauley began to realise just how attached he had become to his little girl. This burden that he had to carry with him had compelled him to consider someone else besides himself. Begrudgingly he had had to adapt himself to a little person’s needs and in so doing he had become tethered. The swag that felt like a burden in the heat of the day, became a shelter at the end of it. And now he could not bear to be parted from her.

This book is unusual in its depiction of a single father. I know its extremely difficult for anyone in a single parent situation, but in the few instances I’ve known where the father is the solo parent, it seems doubly hard.
Macauley found it almost impossible to get suitable work. He was considered to be incompetent to raise a child, especially a female one. The type of work he did, the sort of people he associated with, the conditions of travelling on the road, were all considered totally unsuitable for a child.

Macauley wasn’t the most likeable sort of fellow when first encountered in this book. He lived by his fists and acted before he thought, if he thought at all. Thinking only brought him the pain of memory. He was aggressive, surly, and had a devil-may-care attitude. There were a few flashbacks to his own childhood and they were not pretty, but they helped to reveal how the man had become who he was. He had entered his marriage wanting the woman but not the life. He had no great love for his daughter and only took her with him to get back at his wife, not knowing that his wife didn’t want to be burdened with a child.

The developing relationship between father and daughter is poignantly portrayed but without sentimentality. Niland’s writing is terse, real and downright moving at times. He takes a total jerk, gets between the chinks of his armour and his angry exterior, takes him through a refining fire and reveals his humanity and heart.

Life on the road was also shown in its highs and lows. There were some dangerous and nasty characters but there were also others who would stand with you in trouble and still others who would lay down their lives for a friend.

Some practical points:

There are no chapter breaks in this book of 257 pages, but apart from the temptation to keep reading because there were no enforced breaks, it didn’t bother me.
Niland uses colloquialisms and Australian slang, some of them outdated now, that may be a hindrance to some readers - but then maybe not, judging by the international appeal of the book.
Parts of the book may cause offence to some readers . Macauley has many negative things to say about women, police, and Aboriginals, for example. But then, he is angry at just about everyone, even his own child, and has a basic distrust of people in general. However, I think the author has written honestly about the life of an itinerant worker in the early 1900’s in Australia. It wasn’t an easy life and it was a very different generation that had been through an atrocious world war and a world-wide depression. I appreciate books that honestly depict a time period without trying to impose a more modern worldview upon it.

The Shiralee is a true Australian classic but is definitely for a mature or adult audience.
D’Arcy Niland was married to the New Zealand author, Ruth Park, and they lived in Sydney where they raised their five children. She wrote a ballad, an extract of which I found in my copy of The Shiralee pictured above:

The swagman crawls across the plain;

The drought it prowls beside him,

A hundred miles from rim to rim,

And a shadow-stick to guide him.

The crow speaks from the broken branch,

And he replies, delirious;

But in the dark he drinks the dew,

Beneath the stare of Sirius,

And from his shoulder drops the swag,

The shiralee, the tether,

That through the cruel, stumbling day,

Drove all his bones together.

The load too heavy to be borne -

He cursed it in the swelter,

But now unrolls with humble hands

And lies within its shelter.

From 'The Ballad of the Shiralee’ by Ruth Park

If you scroll down this page, there are some lovely photos of Niland with his twin daughters and his wife.

AusReading Month: Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner (1894)

Seven Little Australians by Ethel Turner is a beloved Australian children’s classic that was first published in 1894 and has never been out of print since. So it with some trepidation and ducking of the head that I am going to say that I was fairly underwhelmed when I finally got around to reading it. My three girls read it before me - they were about 9 years of age when they first read it. As far as I remember, they all liked it, although it didn’t appeal to them as much as some of the other Australian classics they read around the same age e.g. The Silver Brumby and Billabong books.

At one point the story reminded me of an incident in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, which was published twenty-five years earlier. Meg is the eldest daughter of the family in this book, as was Meg (Margaret) in Little Women. In both books ‘Meg’ is influenced by another girl to put on airs and act out of character and a young man is pivotal in both instances in helping 'Meg' see the foolishness of her behaviour.
My 12 year old re-read Seven Little Australians recently so I asked her if it reminded her of any other book she’d read. It hadn’t, and I mentioned that I thought in one part that it was similar to Little Women. Her reply was that ‘Seven Little Australians didn’t carry on about morals, unlike Little Women...'

If you imagine you are going to read of model children, with perhaps a naughtily inclined one to point a moral, you had better lay down the book immediately...
Not one of the seven is really good, for the very excellent reason that Australian children never are.

But my daughter also said that she hated the ending.
Which brings me to a couple of things I think was problematic with the story: the ending felt rushed and melodramatic, and the characters were never satisfyingly developed. I never felt I got to know anyone well enough and out of the two characters I thought had development potential, one is dispatched by the author before the story finishes.
However, the book is definitely worth reading and the writing itself is excellent and of literary quality, as you would expect of a classic that has never been out of print.



Linking up for the AusReading Challenge 2017 @ Brona's Books

An Australian Classic & a Living Book - My Love Must Wait: The Story of Matthew Flinders by Ernestine Hill (1941)

'If the plan of a voyage of discovery were to be read over my grave, 

I would rise up, awakened from the dead.'

 

Matthew Flinders (1774-1814)

My Love Must Wait is a book I've known about for years and if it had been published under a more auspicious title I might have read it long before now. The title just doesn't represent the contents well enough. Yes, it is a poignant love story and this thread is woven throughout but it is so much more than that. It is also a wonderful account of the early life and influences of Matthew Flinders, the man who circumnavigated, mapped and named Australia, the fifth continent, and it details his driving ambition, his engaging personality and his great navigational skill. It is an account of a great tragedy, where a young man's life's work was cut short, his achievements forgotten for a century. A young man who gave his all and lost everything.

In the early 1930's, Ernestine Hill's knowledge of Matthew Flinders was on par with the average Australian. Everyone knew that Bass and Flinders sailed along the coast of New South Wales in a little tub boat called Tom Thumb, that Bass discovered Bass Strait and that Flinders made other explorations that were important but vague, but that was about the extent of common knowledge.
In the 1930's, the author sailed a thousand miles in a lugger from Thursday Island to Arnhem Land with a Torres Strait Islander as skipper, and was amazed to discover that the chart Matthew Flinders made of the area in 1802 was still in use.
Poring over that chart by the light of a hurricane lamp in the evenings, and later in library research, Ernestine Hill came to know Matthew Flinders as a friend as she pieced together fragments of his life. One day she hoped to write his forgotten story, a living book, that would speak to Australians and bring this 'most exact and accomplished of the cartographers of all time, a genius in navigation' to life.
The author certainly did this. My Love Must Wait is a superb achievement using scenes and situations created from written records: logs, journals, letters and private diaries, to present an accurate portrayal of the man, the lover, and his considerable accomplishments.
Flinders left an immense amount of detail about his work, his friends, his impressions, the surroundings he found himself in, and his associations, but it was in his passionate, poetic letters to his wife, Ann, that he revealed his heart.
Matthew and Ann had known each other from childhood, and were married in 1801. Ann had been prepared to travel to Australia with Matthew and stay with friends in Sydney while he did his explorations of the coast, but this was the era of Napoleon and Nelson, and the Admiralty had recently clamped down on women aboard ship due to Lord Nelson's indiscretions which had made the Navy a laughing stock.
Matthew was forced to choose to sail without Ann, or forfeit his voyage of discovery.
Ann was supportive of his going even though he would be away for four years and he was willing to leave her to undertake his great task. He told Sir Joseph Banks:

'I will give up the wife for the voyage of discovery.'

Pretty harsh! Although Ann was severely disappointed she made no complaint. She must have been an unusually selfless type of woman to have done this as graciously as she did. It wouldn't have been my response!
Matthew completed his work but a cruel twist of fate made him a prisoner on the Ilse-de-France (now known as Mauritius) for over six years as he was on his way back to England. By the time he returned home he was a broken man, almost destitute, and forgotten, or worse, pitied.
He had been separated from his wife for nearly ten years and was to die only four years after his return to England, a direct result of the conditions he endured in captivity. Only forty years of age, he died just a day after the book he wrote about his explorations was published, leaving behind his faithful and loving wife and an infant daughter they had named Anne.

 Flinders chose to title his book 'A Voyage to Australia,' but Sir Joseph Banks changed it to 'A Voyage to Terra Australis. However, Flinders' choice was later vindicated: 

 

Although Matthew Flinders only lived for forty years, he accomplished so much and lived through a time of great upheaval and change. My Love Must Wait reflects this and so the book encompasses a significant amount of history, culture and geography.
There is a lively account of Flinders' early life and influences and his developing love for the sea and exploration. We see his friendship with George Bass, a surgeon, who was to go exploring with Flinders later on; his budding relationship with Ann, his childhood friend; his father's opposition to his going to sea and his later acquiescence.
Matthew joined the Navy at a time of national fervour but he chose exploration over war and one of his first journeys was with Captain Bligh (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) to Terra Australis. This was a lively account of life at sea and displays Flinders' personality so well. He was a skilful communicator and showed wisdom and humour in his encounters with the Aboriginal people, once diffusing a potentially explosive situation by giving the natives haircuts.
Their return to England coincided with England's war with France and Flinders took part in what was to become known as the the Glorious First of June, the first great naval engagement of the French Revolutionary Wars, fought between the French and the British in the Atlantic.
After this Flinders departed on a voyage to the new colony at Sydney with Captain John Hunter and while there he and Bass did their exploring in Tom Thumb. This was a very enjoyable and interesting part of the book. It was upon his return to England after this trip that he and Ann were married.
About a quarter of the book details Flinders' stay on the Ile-de-France where he was held on house arrest and it has quite a different feel from the rest of the book, sombre and introspective with less action. His six and a half years on this island gave him much time for reflection and he was tortured with thoughts of his wife, wondering if she were still alive, and whether others such as Nicolas Baudin, the French explorer, would take credit for the work he had done.
Later when the war between England and France ended, he was released by the French and was reunited with Ann in England:

The woman covered her face with her hands.
He went forward swiftly, and put his arms about her - sombre brown against the faded blue. With cold hands he lifted her face to his.
This sober little body his lovely, laughing Ann. They kissed, and the kiss seemed formal, empty.
Then in long shivering sobs she clung to him, the helpless tears staining the shoulder of his frayed uniform coat. Haggard eyes looking out on the grey, he might gave been a man of fifty years.

All through that dreary forenoon they sat there, clasped in their joy and sorrow, now and again to find dear remembered caresses of reawakening love, telling the sad litany of their loneliness, feeling their way, as a blind man feels, back across the years.

This is a warm, lively, enjoyable, but an ultimately sad look at the life of Matthew Flinders and Ernestine Hill's writing style is lyrical and descriptive. There are so many connections with historical figures and the early days of colonial life in Australia, such a broad sweep of characters: Sir Joseph Banks, Captain William Bligh, Captain Hunter, John Macarthur (the pioneer of the Australian wool industry), Lord Nelson, and Nicholas Baudin, for example. I learnt so much about Australian History and what was happening elsewhere at the time.
The only disappointing part of this book is that it didn't contain any maps! I used the maps in a book we used in Year 4 to follow along with Flinders' journeys but there are online maps showing the places he navigated and charted.

I  highly recommend this book for high school history and geography or as a biography for about ages 14 and up, even if you're not Australian, as it features worldwide events and high profile characters. Chronologically it fits well into AmblesideOnline Year 9 (1800's) and would be enjoyed by both boys and girls. Flinders is certainly someone a young person could admire.

'All the time Matthew could spare from his nautical  and mathematical studies he spent in reading discovery, "peering in maps and charts", chasing the evolution of exploration from Ptolemy again down to Cook. He took the soundings, in fancy, of a myriad islands sprawled in seas of unruffled blue. He kept imaginary journals with scrupulous exactness, assimilated the various styles of the great English navigators, and grieved that he did not know Dutch.

For light relief, propped beside him at mess, or beneath a ship's lamp in his hammock at night, he read Dampier's Voyages...finding within those yellowed pages entertainment and inspiration.
This William Dampier was a man after his own heart, a farmer's boy who loved he blue furrows of the sea better than the brown of earth, and became a pilgrim of the winds and high adventure.'
Matthew Flinders was honourable, a man of his word, and he had an ability to get on with crusty personalities such as William Bligh. Here he comments to a fellow-midshipman as they were going to report to 'Bully Bligh' for duty on his ship:

'"I think we need have no fear. Lightening never strikes in the same place twice. Bligh knows that all England is watching him this time. To please him may be impossible, but a record of no complaints with such a man is worth more than the praise of others. Our commanders hold our future in their hands. Let's try, Bob, just for the fun of it, to see if we can make him smile upon us. Let's draw the old serpent's fangs, and tame the lion."

After they met Bligh he said to his friend, "I think I like him...A lot of pepper, but good red meat beneath." He was to like old Bligh, with the usual reservations, to the end of his days.'



My Love Must Wait is my choice for the Back to the Classics 2017, Romance Classic. It was re-printed by Angus & Robertson in 2013; the copy pictured above is an out of print hardback I've had for some time. The cover is taken from a painting "The Battle of the Glorious First of June," 1794 by P.J. de Loutherbourg. 

AusRead Month 2016: Magpie Island by Colin Thiele; Illustrated by Roger Haldane

Magpie lived in the open countryside of the Eyre Peninsula in South Australia. He would fly high into the early morning air and swoop down the sky like a jet plane and then invigorated by his downward rush, he would stand upon a high branch and pour out his joy in song. Looking to the south west, Magpie could see where the trees dwindled away and the Nullarbor Plain began.
One day Magpie and his fellow magpies saw a giant bird come sailing out of the Nullarbor, and as it cast its dark shadow over the land, Magpie joined his companions as they gave chase to the proud wedge-tailed eagle who just kept flying higher and higher.

One by one the other birds gave up the pursuit - all except Magpie, who continued squawking and snapping and following the great bird, the north wind speeding him along. When at last he stopped chasing the eagle and looked below to the earth, he found the wind had carried him to the coastline and soon he would be out over the sea. He began to panic and tried to turn back into the wind but before long he was exhausted. As he began to lose ground, the wind took him and carried him far out to sea.

Magpies are land birds and are not built for roaming across the sea, but the Magpie in this story reaches an island and finds himself marooned with penguins, bull seals and ferocious terns - a Robinson Crusoe Magpie.
Sad and lonely, Magpie didn't have it in him to sing his lovely songs. The island was no place for a land bird. But one day a young boy on a fishing trip with his father saw Magpie, and a year later the fishing vessel returned bringing a mate for the lonely bird.

Colin Thiele (1921-2006) was a wonderful Aussie author who wrote mostly for children. If I were to ask any of my children to name the book that they liked best out of the hundreds we've read to them over the course of twenty plus years, they would all agree it would be Thiele's book, Sun on the Stubble. His books are realistic and unsentimental, but he had an ability to inspire sympathy for the people and the animals he wrote about. After reading Magpie Island you come away with a love and appreciation for these garrulous, dive-bombing birds that can be so aggressive during their breeding season.





Magpie Island was written for a younger audience than Storm Boy, but like Storm Boy, it is sad in places (Magpie's mate is killed when she flies into a plane). The book fits well into a term of Year 1 or 2 of AmblesideOnline (my daughter was 7 when we did Year 1) and it offers an opportunity to learn not only about the South Australian Magpie, but also the geography of the region.

'He lived high and free in the open countryside in South Australia where a big triangle of land called Eyre Peninsula pushes out into the sea. He was young and happy. He had been hatched in a wide scraggy nest made of sticks that were as hard and knotty as knuckles. His mother had laid two eggs in it; beautiful eggs they were, with spots on them, and touches of lovely colour - blue and grey and lilac. Magpie hatched out in three weeks.'

58 pages, including illustrations in colour and black and white.

Points of interest:

*  Magpie Island could have been one of the many islands off the South Australian coast.

*  The Australian Magpie has one of the world's most complex bird songs and a lifespan of about 20 years.

*  The white-backed magpie (Gymnorhina tibien hypoleuca) is on the official emblem of the State of South Australia. It is a close relative of the black-backed magpie found mostly in eastern Australia.

*  Over 15 whaling sites have been identified in coastal South Australia. The author briefly mentions previous whaling activities in the book.

*  The book's illustrator, Roger Haldane, had a background in commercial fishing and his family pioneered the tuna fishing industry at Port Lincoln. He drew on his broad knowledge of the flora and fauna of the Eyre Peninsula's for his illustrations.

 The Eyre Peninsula is the triangle of land on whose point Port Lincoln is found:

Golden Fiddles by Mary Grant Bruce (1928) Classic Children's Literature Event

Mary Grant Bruce is mostly known as the author of the Billabong books but she also wrote a number of other books. Golden Fiddles is one of these and is a stand alone book that tells the story of the Balfour family - Mr and Mrs Balfour and their four children, Kitty, Norman, Elsa and Bob - who are trying to eek out an existence on a farm in Tupurra, a fictitious town in country Victoria. Although the family barely makes ends meet, they live happily enough, although Mr. Balfour is taciturn and pre-occupied with their lack of finances. His attitude creates resentment in his older children and as the story begins we see this tension playing out in the family.

'I wouldn't mind being poor,' (Kitty) said. 'There aren't any rich people about here. But I'd like to be poor cheerfully - not to fuss and worry all the time, as Father does, and always making the worst of things. Why, he looks as if the world were coming to an end when any of us want new boots, till it makes one ashamed of having feet!'

...Father's hard to work for, Mother. A bit of praise doesn't cost anything, but he doesn't give that either. I suppose he has got so used to being economical that it affects his tongue! Norman won't stand it for ever, you know: when he gets a bit older he'll go away, and then Father will find out that he has lost a jolly good helper.

Kitty talks to her mother about leaving home eventually to become a chef...

'I want money, and I'm going to get it with the only talent I've got.'

'Money isn't everything, Kitty.'

'Well, Father has brought us up to think it is. And it does make the wheels go round, Mother. I want to be independent, and I want to see something beyond a hill farm in Gippsland...'

The family looked forward to one day in the year which loomed above all others: 'Show Day.' The whole family gloried in the occasion and entered the various competitions. This year each of the Balfour children won prizes in the different events. Bob was overjoyed when his pony won first prize in the ring and once at home he talked excitedly about entering the jumping event in next year's show.
Mr Balfour, however, dropped a bombshell by announcing he had sold Bob's beloved pony. Jim Craig had offered to buy the pony for more than it was worth after seeing him perform at the Show. It was an offer too good to refuse. Now Bob had to watch someone else ride his pony to school and put up with the chaffing and ridicule from his schoolmates as he rode double behind Elsa on her old nag.

He knew what he had to face at school; that ordeal could not be dodged. But no one watched him leave home, except his father; and Walter Balfour, seeing, from his work in the paddocks, the sad little trio go down the track, bit hard on his pipe stem and muttered curses on ill-luck and poverty. The thought of Jim Craig's cheque burned in his soul. He was by nature neither cruel nor hard, and he loved his children and was proud of them. But care and worry had made a crust over his heart.

A week of misery followed for everyone. Bob was sullen and had three fights at school resulting in a magnificent black eye. Norman didn't whistle as he went off to milk the cows. Mealtimes were unusually quiet and tense.
One hot evening they sat on the veranda after tea. Mrs Balfour opened a letter that had come earlier in the day and as she read, she grew white and began to tremble.
Her Scrooge of an uncle had died and left her eighty thousand pounds!

What follows is hinted at in this selection of chapter titles: The Recklessness of the Balfours; The Horizon Widens; The Golden Fiddles Play; The Growth of the Balfours; The Waking of Kitty; Realities and The New House of Balfour.

Through numerous circumstances and mishaps, the family learns that money doesn't buy happiness; that they all need some sort of work, not the gruelling type they had before, but something worthwhile that they can put their hands to. They also learn to appreciate each other as a family and to understand their father.

They talked of Tupurra and the old days. Time had drawn a veil over the hardships and the dullness of that long-ago life; looking back they seemed to remember many good things.

'All the same, it was a hard life,' Kitty said, at length. 'And yet, we were pretty happy, even if we used to grumble because we were so poor. The queer thing is that I believe we were happier then than we are now, when we've got everything we ever longed for. But that's ridiculous if course.'

'I don't know,' Elsa said slowly. 'Some things were better then. For one thing, I don't remember more than about three times that we ever quarrelled.'

Golden Fiddles is an enjoyable story with just the right level of realism for a reader of around 11 years of age and up. As it was written in 1928, the word N***er is used in places. In this story it's the name of Bob's pony, so it crops up quite a bit whenever the horse in mentioned. The only other occurrence is in a comment Elsa makes: 'Father works like a n***er in the garden...'

I wrote some thoughts on literature and its associated language when I talked about the Billabong series by the same author. I think C.S. Lewis's words below are helpful in this situation, and although a book written in 1928 is not old in the sense that Lewis was speaking about, it does reflect a way of thinking or an outlook which is quite different from the present.

Every age has its own outlook. It is specially good at seeing certain truths and specially liable to make certain mistakes. We all, therefore, need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books. All contemporary writers share to some extent the contemporary outlook - even those, like myself, who seem most opposed to it.

Authors such as Mary Grant Bruce (1878-1958) lived through the class conflict of the 1880's in Australia and the great worker's strikes, the First World War, and the lead up to the Great Depression, before she wrote Golden Fiddles. I couldn't begin to imagine what she lived through - incredible change, loss and upheaval but I am willing to overlook her mistakes in order to benefit from her truths. The discomfort that these older books sometimes generate opens our eyes and minds. Some of our best discussions at home have come via the avenue of literature when we've been faced with these uncomfortable ideas and attitudes. As I've often mentioned when writing about books, I often edit as I read aloud, depending on the child's age and/or maturity, or use the opportunity to discuss attitudes etc. when appropriate. It's easier for me to do this now than it was years ago as I've learnt the importance of preparing my children for a world that's often uncomfortable.


Linking this to Simple Pastimes as part of the Classic Children's Literature Event 2016.

PS. The book was made into a mini-series in 1991 but I haven't seen it.

A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey (1894-1982)

It's a tribute to Albert Facey that in his simply told, poignant autobiography, he was able to say that his had been a 'fortunate' life.
There were many episodes in his life which many would class as most unfortunate, but although he acknowledged his life had its share of hardship and difficulties, he was grateful for much.
Before he had turned two his father died, and not long afterwards his mother deserted him. His kind grandmother took on his care, but even so, circumstances forced him to start working when he was only eight years of age.
Denied a formal education, he grew up illiterate and because of this disadvantage he missed out on opportunities to learn a proper trade. As a young lad he was ill-treated and ill-used at times, doing work which was akin to slavery. He eventually taught himself to read and write, but it was a slow and difficult process.

He survived Gallipoli, but two of his brothers were killed there, and Albert was to endure years of pain and disability from injuries he suffered in the trenches.
After four months on Gallipoli ('the worst four months of my whole life') a shell exploded in his trench, killing a mate and badly injuring himself. He was sent to Cairo for treatment and was repatriated back to Australia in 1915.

Albert said that he had two lives that were miles apart. Up until just after the war he had had a lonely and solitary existence but then he met Evelyn, the woman who was to become his wife:

After our marriage my life became something which was more than just me.

Albert and Evelyn raised a family through the depression years and Albert involved himself with the Trade Union movement and battled to improve the general conditions for workers.
When World War II broke out three of their sons enlisted. Only two of them returned home after the war. Their eldest son was killed in a bomb attack while defending Singapore.
Albert Facey was an ordinary man who overcame extraordinary circumstances. When he retired, Evelyn encouraged him to write down the story of his life. He crammed his stories into school exercise books, thinking that at some stage he would get copies printed for family members. The manuscript sat in a cupboard for years but in 1979, when he was eighty-five years of age, his autobiography came to the attention of the Fremantle Arts Centre Press and was accepted for publication.
A Fortunate Life was published in 1981, nine months before Albert died.

Some thoughts

A. B. Facey was a true historian, a story-teller. As I read the story of his life I could almost imagine he was sitting in the room speaking. It is simply written, understated, almost matter of fact, but totally real and engaging.

It's sobering to think that many people born in the late 19th or early 20th Century would have seen and endured similar circumstances - WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, industrial expansion. Death was a common visitor to many families and not just during the war years. We live in a very different world today.

Apart from Albert's time in Gallipoli, the book is mostly set in Western Australia and it is a fascinating account of frontier life in that state.

It was also interesting to read of the early days of the Trade Union Movement. Albert was a true Labor man and believed the Labor Party was on the side of the workers. I wonder what he would think about the Labor Party we have now?

Albert had a definite belief that Providence had brought his wife and him together, but towards the end of the book he said that the wars changed his outlook on things and that he found it difficult to believe in God.

I highly recommend this book for anyone - Aussie or otherwise. It is a valuable insight to the changes which swept through the 20th Century as seen by an ordinary person. It's also a beautiful love story and a lesson in perspective.

From the Afterword by Jan Carter:

What has Albert Facey left us? There is his description of childhood and adult-child relations at the beginning of this century which indicate how great the changes in childhood have been. There is his personal account of the dehumanising and brutal effects of war (the one defeat he felt morally unable to accept).
There is his documentation of the types and processes of work including some vanishing occupations. There are all these things and more, but in the end, Albert Facey's  autobiography must be classified as political history, for he contributes to the neglected history of this country...
From Facey, we know what it was like to be poor and young at the gold rushes...
We know what it was like to be an itinerant worker...
We understand the predicaments of a first-world-war private...
He describes being a husband and father with mouths to feed in the Depression...
Albert Facey is Australia's pilgrim.


Besides being a wonderful story for adults, this book is also suitable as a read aloud with some editing for younger listeners, or for readers around the age of 14 years and up. There is also an abridged version of the book for younger readers which is very well done.




A Forunate Life was one of my choices for the Aussie Author Challenge 2015.

My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (1879-1954)

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was nineteen years old when she sent the manuscript of My Brilliant Career to the publishing firm Angus & Robertson in 1899. Initially rejected, her manuscript was sent to another publisher in London where it was later put into print after a few revisions.

The book, set in the late 19th Century in country New South Wales, has as its main character, Sybylla Melvyn, a girl whose dream was of a brilliant career as a writer. Sybylla's parents were well thought of in their comunity and lived comfortably, but when she was about nine years old her father unwisely decided to move the family to a small farm near the town of Goulburn, in order 'to have more scope for his ability.'

This was a feasible light in which father shaded his desire to leave. The fact of the matter was that the heartless harridan, discontent, had laid her claw-like hand upon him.

Within the space of twelve months, Syblla's father had squandered his savings. His short-lived career as a stock dealer and his predilection for alcohol had ruined him.
Reduced to hard work on their property, Sybylla's once genteel mother became embittered and her relationship with Sybylla, her eldest daughter, was one of constant friction.

Dick Melvin being my father did not blind me to the fact that he was a despicable, selfish, weak creature, and as such I despised him with the relentlessness of fifteen, which makes no allowance for human frailty and weakness. Disgust, not honour, was the feeling which possessed me when I studied the matter.
Towards mother I felt differently. A woman is but the helpless tool of man - a creature of circumstances...

One day a letter came from Sybylla's maternal Grandmother suggesting she be sent to live with herself and Aunt Helen, and so sixteen year old Sybylla was unexpectedly taken from her life of drudgery into very different circumstances.
Aunt Helen was a gracious and beautiful, but firm woman, who had been deserted by her dashing husband after only twelve months of marriage. She took Sybylla under her wing, instructed and encouraged her niece, lifted her out of the gloomy introspection she was prone to indulge in, and before much time had passed Sybylla found herself the object of numerous suitors.
Harold Beecham, a wealthy neighbour and a friend of her Grandmother's family, became a regular visitor and Sybylla found herself very attracted to him. He was to be her first, her last and her only real sweetheart.
Suddenly required by her mother to leave her privileged circumstances and take a position as a governess to help the family financially, she was torn between Harold's offer of marriage (done in a no nonsense fashion, which confused Sybylla) and her own independence. Accepting Harold's offer would give her a way out of the drudgery that would otherwise be her lot, but Sybylla wanted to be a writer and why on earth had he chosen her of all women?

I had no charms to recommend me - none of the virtues which men demand of the woman they wish to make their wife...I was erratic and unorthodox, I was nothing but a tomboy - and, cardinal disqualification, I was ugly. Why, then, had he proposed matrimony to me? Was it merely a whim? Was he really in earnest?

Some thoughts:

I mentioned that Franklin was still in her teens when she wrote My Brilliant Career and that is reflected in her writing. She captures all the angst and confusion that often goes with this time of life - the sense of being ugly and different to everyone else - and Sybylla was a convincing character in that respect. Her attitude annoyed me but I remember having similar feelings and struggles when I was that age myself.  Hindsight is a very handy commodity at times.
Sybylla is idealistic and headstrong and doesn't really know what she wants. She agrees to marry Harold but then pushes him away, and totally misjudges his character. She plays with his emotions, one minute encouraging his advances and the next spurning them.

At last! At last! I had waked this calm silent giant into life. After many an ineffectual struggle I had got a little real love or passion, or call it by any name - something wild and warm and splendidly alive that one could feel, the most thrilling, electric, and exquisite sensation known.
I thoroughly enjoyed the situation, but did not let this appear.

Sybylla's attitude towards men in general is quite derogatory but she also has a very low opinion of herself and considers herself to be ugly and hateful.

'The world was made for men.'

She also knew that her thoughts were destructive:

Among other such inexpressible thoughts I got lost, grew dizzy, and drew back appalled at the spirit which was maturing within me. It was a grim lonely one, which I vainly tried to hide in a bosom which was not big or strong enough for its comfortable habitation. It was as a climbing plant without a pole - it groped about the ground, bruised itself, and became hungry searching for something strong with which to cling. Needing a master-hand to train and prune, it was becoming rank and sour.

Apart from thinking that Sybylla needed a good kick in the pants and wondering if Miles Franklin herself would have been of a similar ilk, I did enjoy the literary style. Considering that the book was written more than a hundred years ago and is considered an Australian classic, it was quite an achievement for a person still not out of her teen years.
This book is a literature text used in Year 12 in Australian schools.

My Brilliant Career was out of print for many years and the first Australian edition was published as late as 1966 by Angus & Robertson, the same firm that had rejected her first manuscript.


On the 28th September 1901, The Sydney Morning Herald had this to say of Miles Franklin's heroine:

"My Brilliant Career," by Miles Franklin (a copy of which reaches us from Messrs. Angus and
Robertson) is a creditable essay in prose fiction by a young Australian girl. 
The heroine of the story (which by the way is prefaced by a few words from the pen of Mr. Henry Lawson) is not a person whose acquaintance in the flesh it would be desirable to make.
She is thoroughly good, morally, but she has a distinctly unpleasant way of asserting herself and her goodness. It would be matter for regret if she - "Sybylla Melvyn" is her name - could possibly be taken as a type of Australian bush girl. 
Bold, forward, and selfish Sybylla is the sort of girl that is happily rare in Australia.
The story itself and Miles Franklin's way of telling it are interesting mainly as promise of better things, which should be well within the compass of the author.

Some information on Miles Franklin is here & here.

I borrowed a copy of the book from the library but I liked the look of the hardback Virago Modern Classic pictured above.
It's been a long time since I saw the 1979 movie version of My Brilliant Career. I think I liked it except that I remember I wasn't fussed on Sam Neill playing the part of Harold Beecham. Here's a trailer of the movie:
 








Linking this to Brona's Books Ausreading Month and the Aussie Author Challenge at Booklover.

Ambleside Online Year 5 - with Australian Substitutes: Updated

What, then, have we to do for the child? Plainly we have not to develop the person; he is there already, with, possibly, every power that will serve him in his passage through life. Some day we shall be told that the very word education is a misnomer belonging to the stage of thought when the drawing forth of 'faculties' was supposed to be a teacher's business. We shall have some fit new word meaning, perhaps, 'applied wisdom,' for wisdom is the science of relations and the thing we have to do for a young human being is to put him in touch, so far as we can, with all the relations proper to him.

Charlotte Mason, Volume 3, pg 75

This is my (updated) plan for Moozle's Year 5 using Ambleside Online with some adaptions/substitutions to reflect our Australian situation. These are mostly for History and Biography, although I always add some Australian Natural History and don't usually follow the AO schedule for Composer, Artist, Folksongs and Hymns.
We schedule our year over three terms (Australian schools have four terms per year) and have breaks to fit in with whatever might be happenening regardless of where we are in the term. I've just found this to be the easiest way to make AO work for us.

AO Year 5 covers the time period from 1800 to 1914, the beginning of World War I. Books that we're  replacing with substitutes are:
This Country of Ours, Of Courage Undaunted (Moozle has read this before), and possibly George Washington Carver (may use it as a free read).
Otherwise we are primarily using the Year 5 schedule as linked above.


Term 1 (1800-1840's)

History of Australia by Manning Clark, Meredith Hooper and Susanne Ferrier - Chapters 8 to 14  (1995 edition). I started this in Year 4 and will continue to use it to cover Australian History until the end of Year 6.

Doctor Hunger & Captain Thirst: Stories of Australian Explorers by Meredith Hooper
Chapters 1 to 3

Margaret Catchpole (1762-1819) by Nance Donkin

Term 2 (1840-1860's)

History of Australia - Chapters 15 to 16

Doctor Hunger & Captain Thirst - Chapters 4 to 8

River Rivals by Ian Mudie

Term 3 (1860's-1914)

History of Australia - Chapters 17 to 21

Doctor Hunger & Captain Thirst - Chapters 9 to 15

The Singing Wire: The Story of the Overland Telegraph by Eve Pownall

Natural History

His parents know that the first step in intimacy is recognition; and they will measure his education, not solely by his progress in the 'three R's,' but by the number of living and growing things he knows by look, name, and habitat.

Charlotte Mason, Volume 3, pg 76

All my children have enjoyed the Ambleside Online selections for Natural History e.g. books by Ernest Seton Thompson and William Long so we keep these on the schedule and add in a couple of Australian titles. Tiger Cat by C.K.Thompson is one Moozle will be enjoying this year.

 

Read Alouds

A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey. We started this book a few months ago and are about a third of the way through. It's a wonderful autobiography of the author who was born in 1894 and grew up on the Kalgoorlie goldfields and in the wheat-belt of Western Australia. There are a few maps sprinkled throughout the book and we've been using these to cover the geography of Western Australia.

It cannot be too often said that information is not education. You may answer an examination question about the position of the Seychelles and the Comoro Islands without having been anywise nourished by the fact of these island groups existing in such and such latitudes and longitudes; but if you follow Bullen in The Cruise of the Cachelot (or in our case, the life and travels of Albert Facey) the names excite that little mental stir which indicates the reception of real knowledge.

Charlotte Mason, Volume 3, pg 169

Plutarch

Themistocles is the man whose life we have started to study. His is an interesting life to learn about as there are a few incidents in the story we already have some background knowledge on - Xerxes, The Battle of Thermopylae and King Leonidas, for example.

Shakespeare


We haven't started another Shakespeare play yet but I've been watching this Royal Shakespeare Company version myself - not suitable for Moozle but I may use it with Benj. As yet I'm undecided on whether to do Hamlet - a comedy would be a nice change after our stint with Macbeth.

Updated to add:

Our Sunburnt Country covers similar material to History of Australia. She reads it on her own:

Term 1 - chapters 6, 7 & 8
Term 2 - chapter 9
Term 3 - chapters 10, 11 & 12

I read History of Australia aloud as the content is a little more mature and will also be reading aloud Doctor Hunger & Captain Thirst. Most of the other books on the AO schedule will be read on her own, with the exception of Madame How & Lady Why.


Maths


Maths just seemed to click for Moozle when we started Singapore Maths 4B and she started to get into decimals. 4A and some of the previous books were a struggle and I was wondering how on earth we'd ever get through the Singapore books I'd bought, so I am relieved. This is the first time anyone in our family has found maths difficult in the earlier grades. There were some hiccups with highschool level maths from time to time but that wasn't any surprise.

I didn't want her to just get her work done and get it right, but to actually find some enjoyment in the process. I gave her this book to read a few weeks ago and today she read about a card game on positive and negative numbers which we ended up playing together.

Science Biography


Robert Boyle, 'The Father of Modern Chemistry.' Moozle read a chapter from one of the suggested online sources chapters for Isaac Newton and then I gave her this book on Robert Boyle to take her through the remainder of the first term:
 

This eight and a half minute video gives a short introduction to Robert Boyle & his times:





I will probably substitute The Story of Madame Curie by Alice Thorne a Signature Biography for George Washington Carver in third term.

We continue with Latin (usually only once a week); French and Dawn's free ebook 'a Biblical study of the underpinning ideas found in Charlotte Mason's motto, I Am, I Can, I Ought, I Will.'