BOOK REVIEW: Crow Country by Kate Constable

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Title: Crow Country

Author: Kate Constable

Publisher: Allen & Unwin




Age Group & Genre: YA Timeslip 





Reviewer: Kate Forsyth





Source: The book was given to me by Allen & Unwin quite some time ago – thank you!






The Blurb:

From the author of the Chanters of Tremaris series comes a contemporary time travel fantasy, grounded in the landscape of Australia.





Beginning and ending, always the same, always now. The game, the story, the riddle, hiding and seeking. Crow comes from this place; this place comes from Crow. And Crow has work for you.




Sadie isn't thrilled when her mother drags her from the city to live in the country town of Boort. But soon she starts making connections—with the country, with the past, with two boys, Lachie and Walter, and, most surprisingly, with the ever-present crows. 





When Sadie is tumbled back in time to view a terrible crime, she is pulled into a strange mystery. Can Sadie, Walter, and Lachie figure out a way to right old wrongs, or will they be condemned to repeat them? 





A fantasy grounded in mythology, this novel has the backing of a full consultative process on the use of indigenous lore.






What I Thought: 

I am in such admiration of Kate Constable’s bravery and delicacy in writing this beautiful book, which draws upon Aboriginal mythology and Australian history to deal with themes of injustice, racism, truthfulness and atonement. 





As a child, one of my favourite Australian authors was Patricia Wrightson. Many of her children’s books draw upon Aboriginal mythology and Australian landscapes, creating stories filled with beauty, mystery and strangeness. 



However, when I studied children’s literature in my undergraduate degree in the late 1980s, Patricia Wrightson was lambasted for her so-called ‘cultural appropriation’; indeed, for a kind of imperialist exploitation. I have struggled with this for a long time. I loved Patricia Wrightson’s work and, as a result of reading The Nargun and the Stars and The Ice is Coming, I have been fascinated by Aboriginal mythology and art ever since. 



I have long wanted to write a book set in Australia which drew upon Aboriginal history and stories, but I have been held back by my desire to be sensitive and respectful to those of Aboriginal descent. Crow Country has shown me that perhaps it is possible for a non-indigenous Australian to write a novel filled with the magic and mystery of this ancient land while still being sensitive to the sacredness of those beautiful old stories and songs, and to their vital importance to the voices of Australian indigenous cultures. 


Crow Country is a simple book, simply told, but that is part of its great strength. It tells the story of Sadie, an unhappy teenager who moves to the country with her flighty but loving mother. One day she stumbles across an Aboriginal sacred site, and a crow speaks to her – she is needed to right a wrong that occurred many years earlier. So Sadie slips back in time, into the body of one of her ancestors, and observes a crime that is covered up. 





The novel encompasses three generations of families living in the small country town of Boort in Victoria, and their different responses to racism. In the contemporary tale, the three families are embodied in Sadie, Lachie (son of the white farmer who owns the property on which the sacred site is found), and an Aboriginal boy, Walter. Their relationships are complicated by the past history of Sadie’s mother, Ellie, who – as a teenager – dated both Lachie and Walter’s fathers, and stirred up dormant racism in the town. 





Somehow, Sadie must find a way to make amends for the past and help the town and its inhabitants heal and grow closer together. 





A quote from Crow Country: “The Dreaming is always; forever... it's always happening, and us mob, we're part of it, all the time, everywhere, and every-when too.”





I loved it. 





Kate Constable’s blog 





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