The Crooked Snake

by Patricia Wrightson

Set in the 1950s. A group of Australian schoolchildren set up a club related to their project... keeping vandals out of the national park. This is a domestic adventure story in the vein of Monica Edwards and Arthur Ransome.

153 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1955

About the author

Winner of the Dromkeen Medal (1984).
Patricia Wrightson is one of Australia's most distinguished writers for children. Her books have won many prestigious awards all over the world. She was awarded an OBE (Officer of the British Empire) in 1977, the Dromkeen Medal in 1984 and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1986, all for her services to children's literature. She is a four-time winner of the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award: in 1956 for The Crooked Snake, in 1974 for The Nargun and the Stars, in 1978 for The Ice Is Coming and in 1984 for A Little Fear. Patricia lives and writes in a beautiful stretch of the Australian bush beside the Clarence River in northern New South Wales.

Reviews

[Lark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book. It was publsihed two years before I was born, and so had a slightly old-fashioned air when I read it at ten or so. I remember the characters using pen-and-ink with nibs while I used a biro... but there were nibs still lying about in drawers at home! The activities; writing, photography, local exploring, school etc were SO familiar to me. Must re-read it!

If you like this one, try John Gunn's The Humpy in the Hills and The Goodbye Island, or Roland Pertwee's The Islanders.

[Sally Odgers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved this book as a child... although it seemed a little old-fashioned in detail even then. (It was published a couple of years before I was born, but, in the manner of the times, was still easily available when I was ten or so.) It has a lot going for it... an assorted group of children who usually get along, an interesting project, and a lot of (now) period detail about photography, stalking and community life. It would appeal to those who enjoy Monica Edwards' "Strangers to the Marsh".