The Nargun and the Stars

This book stamped itself indelibly on my mind as a young girl growing up in Australia. It evokes the land and it's inhabitants, plant and animal alike, in a beautiful haunting story that never fails to rouse my love of this big red land on every read. This book gives insight to the heart and minds of every Australian and the bittersweet relationship between us and the environment. If you are a foreigner, it will give you a taste of the terrible beauty and history of this place. The story relates to the conflict of white australians in learning to live and respect this land that we love despite it's harshness, and find ways to live harmoniously with it's aboriginal people and it's history. But it is told in a fantasy that reminds me of dreamtime stories. This story is told so that past and present exist simultaneously, as it does in dreamtime history. An orphan boy Simon is sent to live with some relatives in the country, and discovers that life is not always as it seems. As machinery goes missing from a local road project, he encounters strange creatures that live in the bush and the rocks and the trees, and works with them to divert a fearsome primitive being that is rampaging through the area. He learns to really see the world, to trust, to believe and ultimately to live his life fully. Read it, and then take a walk in the Australian bush next visit- I promise you will have a new 'sense' of what surrounds you, and the possibilities of what may be encountered....