Sister Heart (Sally Morgan, Fremantle Press)

This beautiful new verse novel from Sally Morgan can be used a personal and approachable conversation-starter about the Stolen Generations for mature young readers. Sister Heart opens with an as-yet-unnamed child being taken away from her family. Right away we are thrust into the desperate mindset of a child torn from her family and with no idea what’s about to come. At sea she is very sick, and a priest gives her a new name, Anne, but she thinks ‘I already have two names/Everyone on the station has two names/English name for the boss/Language name for me/Name I keep to myself/I don’t need/Another bossing name’. Soon they arrive at a place where many children are being kept, and she is renamed again, Annie—but this little Annie is no orphan, instead she cries and dreams of her mother, baby sister and aunts. Some of the children are kind to her, others are cruel; the food is miserly and the conditions simply awful. The kids are able to take some small pleasures in nature and in each other’s company. But the small offerings of happiness do not last long for Annie, as tragedy strikes. With difficult subject matter and verse writing, this book might be tricky for less capable readers, but it’s one well worth all kids attempting and having a conversation about. It’s heartbreaking and stark and its message is powerful.

Hannah Cartmel is an editor, former bookseller and co-founder of The Rag & Bone Man Press

Category: Reviews