The Middle of Nowhere

The Middle of Nowhere

ISBN13

9781409522003

Review published

17/11/2013

By Reviewer

Melanie

Star Rating

(5)

By Author / Illustrator

Geraldine McCaughrean

Age range(s)

11+

Review

Comity lives with her father, Herbert Pinny and her mother on a telegraph repeater station in the middle of nowhere in the Australian outback. Life is hard, but her father takes great pride in his job as stationmaster, and her mother makes it a real home, with love, stories and friendship to all visitors, including aborigines and the ghans who are camel drivers. Life changes drastically for Comity when her mother tragically dies of a snakebite. Her father is struggling to cope, so he gives her the task to write to her grandmother and aunt telling them the news of her mother's death. She can't bear to write about it, so makes up happy events describing the life she wished she was leading and sends these instead. Thus she cuts herself off from any help she might have received. Being desperately lonely, mostly ignored by her father, she makes friends and trades stories with Fred, an aboriginal boy who works on the station. Things go from bad to worse when Mr Hogg, a sub-telegrapher arrives. He takes advantage of Herbert Pinny's grief-stricken state; he's lazy, cruel and a bully, and plots to take over the station. Tension builds, people are killed and events get completely out of control. This is the story of Comity, the young heroine who, due to a breakdown in communication, inadvertently starts a war, then uses all her courage, her friendly understanding of the differences between races and her kindly and considerate behaviour towards others to stop it; living up to her name. A story steeped in prejudice, ignorance and racism, showing people at their very worst. Despite this it is a very positive, uplifting and encouraging book in which the main characters all make mistakes, but redeem themselves in the end. 292 pages / Ages 11+