Description
Thirteen-year-old Ava lives in Darwin with her family and their homing pigeons, of which Essie is Ava’s favourite. A Japanese family live next door and their son, Kazuo, is Ava’s best and only real friend. Her father is serving overseas.
While Essie is taking her first flight, Ava overhears an argument between her mother, and her brother Fred, who has lied about his age to join the militia. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he trains in Darwin and later helps set up a pigeon service in Townsville. When most civilians are sent to safety down south, Ava remains in Darwin because her mother (who works in the post office) is essential to the war effort.
Later that day, military police take Kazuo and his family away in a truck to a holding camp—much to Ava’s distress—along with many other Japanese people who call Australia home.
On February 19, 1942, Darwin is bombed, and Ava and her mother are evacuated in a cattle train with the remaining women and children. After a very difficult journey, they arrive, exhausted, at her grandparent’s home in Lake Boga, where they discover the extent of the damage to Darwin is being concealed from the population. Even those who were actually there know only part of the truth.
Desperate to do something to contribute to the war effort, Ava’s mother joins the WAAAF and begins work at the secret Catalina Flying Boat Base.
In the meantime, the authorities decide to transfer Kazuo to the men’s camp, separating him from his parents and siblings.
Living by rules and rituals has always been how Ava has felt safe, but when Kazuo escapes, she is faced with the hardest decision of all—whether to report a ‘potentially dangerous’ escapee to the authorities, or to protect a beloved friend …
Review
Ava lives in Darwin with her Mum and her brother, Fred. Her Dad is a pilot and is off fighting in the war. Fred has just enlisted, and he wants to join the squadron that trains pigeons so that they can be used to send messages during conflict, and he moves to Townsville to begin training.
Then the Japanese bombers arrive in Darwin, causing widespread devastation. Luckily, Ava and her Mum are alright, but they decide that the risk is too great, and they embark on a difficult journey to the Victorian town of Lake Boga, where her grandparents live on a farm. Unfortunately, Kazuo, her best friend in Darwin, and his family are placed in a camp because his Dad was born in Japan, even though Kazuo was born in Australia. And when Kazuo escapes, Ava will have to make a huge decision...
A lot of this novel is told through the letters that Ava sends and receives from her Dad, Fred and Kazuo, and it is through these letters that we get a better picture of the impact of the war on different people.
Based on real and important events in Australia’s history and with themes of war, internment, racial hostilities, family life and the brave role that pigeons played in war, this is an excellent lower secondary novel that can also be read by upper primary students.
