Bushfire Book

For Younger Readers, Parents, Teachers and Other Adults 

Bushfire by Elizabeth Mellor (The Awakening Network Inc) Reviewed by Wendy Blaxland

How would we react as a firestorm races towards us? How would we cope with the aftermath, picking up our life again?

And even more so, how do vulnerable kids cope? How might we help them?

That’s where bushfire, Elizabeth Mellor’s new novel for upper primary and early secondary aged children, comes in. Her book handles this sensitive but vital topic for all Australians from a unique double point of view. The author herself experienced first-hand the terror of facing a firestorm in rural Victoria and then the long complex process of recovery. She also has thirty years’ experience as a counsellor and social worker, helping trauma survivors and working in parent education, as well as a number of books to her name. (Read more of this excellent review.)

What makes bushfire special is its immediacy of experience and its patently genuine depth of knowledge about what to do before, during and after a bushfire.

We see, hear (and smell!) events from the point of view of Ruby, a girl still at primary school, who lives on a farm outside a country town with her mother, father and beloved dog Gypsy. The book opens slowly on a breathless hot day but quickly picks up pace as the terrifying bushfire arrives.

The author focuses on Ruby’s emotional reactions to what happens, progressing from apprehension, despite her parents’ excellent preparations and sensitivity to her needs, through panic at the approach of the worst of the bushfire (could YOU face a firestorm and keep calm?), then the dazed reaction common to survivors after a catastrophe as Ruby and her parents try to sort out what to do without knowing anything about the situation in their community outside their own farm house. Relief follows when the family finally makes it to temporary shelter on the local cricket ground, and can eat something more than cold baked beans and cereal washed down by providentially saved party fizz. Oh, and wash again.  Ruby’s roller-coaster emotions include relief at being able to help younger children have fun, grief at the news that not everyone she knows has survived, and nervousness when faced with going back to an old routine like school where not everyone has been through the same experiences.

A cracking pace pulls readers from page to page as we wonder what Ruby will face next. The story only ends six months later as the family completes a ceremony for the community to commemorate those who have not survived. Food for thought here.

Ruby is a believable and likeable girl, and her parents just quirky enough not to seem the perfect parents who always know how best to help her. Surrounding them is a wide variety of neighbourhood characters. The most effective of these is Mrs Tottle, an admirable country woman who knows how to turn the fearsome angry Basher into a chastened Phillip or whip up a tasty batch of puftaloons to lift sagging spirits equally easily (recipe please?). However, my favourite character has to be Ruby’s furry companion Gypsy, a delightful black and white sketch of whom marks the start of every chapter.  Gypsy’s tactful disappearance into the bushes to deposit a tomato sandwich after Ruby’s young friend Ginny has generously shared her supper with the dog (‘Tomatoes were not her favourite food’) is finely observed.

The author also uses humour to lighten what are often stark and difficult situations, and her ending is a carefully paced description of a special event which acknowledges the cycle of renewal through the use of traditional symbols.  And I have to admit, tears stood in my eyes when I finished the book for the second time.

Elizabeth Mellor has also generously created a free on-line resource book, in which she discusses what she wishes to demonstrate at every plot point in the book, a valuable tool indeed.

However, it also shows that the origin of the story lies in her laudable impulse to help children cope in every way she can, and makes sense of the odd awkward moment. But almost all the characters come to life well, though perhaps focusing on fewer might have made the plot easier to follow.

The great and invaluable strength of this book lies in the fund of information it provides on what it is like to experience a bushfire, how different people cope and how to navigate the tricky path of life afterwards. It will help children, parents and teachers to come to terms with and understand the experience of a catastrophic bushfire.

Wendy Blaxland is a Sydney writer for children and adults (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, humour) with over 100 children’s books published and 14 children’s plays staged. She lives with her family among water-dragons and king parrots in one of the most beautiful but most bushfire-prone situations imaginable under tall trees surrounded by a national park – and has learnt a great deal from bushfire.