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.) Read the rest of this entry »

I have just finished reading the manuscript and I am sitting here with tears pouring down my face.

It is indeed a very rich piece of writing. I think it does an absolutely beautiful job of normalising and verbalising an experience that many of the children who went through the fires would feel very alone in, and would struggle to give words to. Read the rest of this entry »

Bushfire Review

I have read Bushfire this Christmas and I loved it.

It is so full of Life. Everything is there, balanced in beautiful simplicity. Like its writer – what you provide goes beyond the act of reading and writing. Read the rest of this entry »

Bushfire – this powerful novel for children and teenagers also provides a mentoring resource for parents and teachers.
This book is a gripping story about a child’s experience of a bushfire and its aftermath. Read the rest of this entry »