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Forest

Sonya Hartnett

3.68 · Rating details · 130 ratings · 20 reviews

The forest is earth and leaves, sun and shade, feather and blood and bone. It is the old way, the true way, the wild way to live. But, for Kian, wilderness is not home.

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216 pages

Published July 1st 2001 by Penguin (first published 2001)

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Average rating 3.68 ·

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· 130 ratings · 20 reviews

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Mar 28, 2015 Amy rated it it was amazing

Loved it! Although it is a very sad story and I cried everytime I picked it up

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Aug 17, 2015 Catsalive rated it liked it

Shelves: 2015, aww

3.5 ★s

The forest is earth and leaves, sun and shade, feather and blood and bone. It is the old way, the true way, the wild way to live. But, for Kian, wilderness is not home.

Kian, a five-year-old ex-tom, Jem and Cally, two kitten siblings, are dumped in the forest. Kian wants nothing more than to find his home, but first they have to run the gamut of the wild, & the feral creatures living there. For Jem & Cally it's more of an adventure, they're young enough that picking up the wild ways ...more

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Oct 14, 2016 Chermay rated it really liked it

I felt that 'Forest' was full of cats kicking ass and yet on the other hand also an emotionally touching novel. The fact that the animals could talk and it was written in third person which made the book more of the talking and dialogue rather than the actual story. For cat lover like myself I could understand the connection Kian had to his home and things he liked. For every cat or animal lover this book by an aussie author is purrfect :)

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Jul 27, 2014 Kate Belle added it

Shelves: children-s

An interesting read with My 10 year old daughter, who kept stopping me so she could write down phrases that struck as particularly special. There were plenty, it is Sonya Hartnett after all. And her take on the cat personality is spot on. Arrogant, selfish, careless, particular. Plenty of interesting imagery to keep an adult going too.

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Jan 04, 2019 Lynley rated it liked it

Shelves: australia, forest, cats, mythic-structure

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This is beautifully written, as I'd expect from this author. I especially loved the insults the cats flung at each other. Sonya Hartnett is the last person on earth to be sentimental, and even though this is a talking animal story, it's not the Disney adaptation of The Incredible Journey. These cats can communicate with each other in language, but they're still very cat-like. Hartnett does a great job of giving us an impression of what it might be like to be a cat, replete with the misanthropy ...more

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Mar 30, 2018 Atiqah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: library, audiobook, reviewed

Forest follows the journey of an abandoned litter of kittens and their older brother, Kian, and their journey home with, of course, detours. They encounter feral cats fighting to keep their territory. Also, they stumble upon a clowder of cats - a territory occupied by the female, the young, and the old. Here, the weaker of the species group together to stay safe in the forest. Plenty more happens during their journey back to human civilisation, including an encounter with a sly fox, a flat-cat ...more

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May 07, 2018 Felix rated it really liked it

I read a handful of Hartnett's novels as an adolescent, their stark savagery painting Australian Gothic in blue-green-grey across my suburbia. Forest is the one I remember best, and it was even more delightful this time around. The prose itself is always catlike - elegant, or playful, or razor-sharp. The feline lifeworld is convincing, as are many of the conceptual foundations of their language - their insults and curses are especially piquant.

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Sep 12, 2017 Devilish rated it really liked it

Inside the mind of feral and urban cats. Very descriptive language, I loved it, but sometimes wondered if it was too much, mostly it wasn't, it read like poetry.

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Jul 11, 2017 Beau N. rated it really liked it

Read this one as part of a university course, in, I think, 2005.

I thoroughly enjoyed that course and all the books we read.

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May 16, 2018 Gill rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-harder, ausya-bloggers-reading-challenge

Sonya Hartnett is one of my favourite authors, and Forest did not disappoint.

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Jun 13, 2012 Laraine Anne Anne rated it really liked it

From the back cover: The forest is earth and leaves, sun and shade, feather and blood and bone. It is the old way, the true way, the wild way to live. But, for Kian, wilderness is not home.

When I informed an Australian writer friend that her fellow countrywoman Sonya Hartnett had won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature and she replied that she had never heard of Sonya, I made her curious enough to go in search of one of Sonyas books and she came up with Forest. She found she couldn From the back cover: The forest is earth and leaves, sun and shade, feather and blood and bone. It is the old way, the true way, the wild way to live. But, for Kian, wilderness is not home.

When I informed an Australian writer friend that her fellow countrywoman Sonya Hartnett had won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for Literature and she replied that she had never heard of Sonya, I made her curious enough to go in search of one of Sonya’s books and she came up with Forest. She found she couldn’t get further than the first chapter and didn’t seem able to pinpoint the reason the story didn’t grip her because she told me she thought it was because it was told from the viewpoint of animals, which apparently isn't her "thing”. That didn’t make a lot of sense to me, coming from a children’s writer anyway. I soon worked out the real reason and when I sent my thoughts to my friend she agreed with me. So here are those thoughts:

The story starts with two kittens and one fixed male adult cat bundled into a crate and driven to the edge of a forest, where the man responsible for crating them dumps them and drives off. Readers aren’t given the names of the cats until well into the chapter, never mind being allowed to experience their thoughts or feelings while cooped up in the terrifying dark, hearing only the equally terrifying roar of the car. We are told what is happening to them and that they are frightened, instead of being allowed to feel their fear. But things do improve. The male cat is determined to get them back home, and their resulting journey, along with the cats’ interactions with other feral cats, and the way they see the alien landscape of the forest, is all very well told. Unfortunately, I consider Sonya spoils her story with the ending. I feel it isn’t fair to let young readers down by making the protagonist’s efforts all for nothing. However, I won’t say more than that. I’d just like to warn parents thinking of buying this book for their children to read it first and then make up their minds as to whether they think their children can handle it. Sonya Hartnett is a hugely talented writer who deserves her win, despite my criticism of the way she ends this book.

I can't remember when I read this book; my date is guesswork. ...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Alan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: down-under

Not so very long ago (though far longer than I'd like to admit) I was a university student taking Summer courses to pass the time. One of these was a Young Adults Fiction class, and "Forest" was on the reading list... I did not read it. In fact, I think it is the only one that I did not get around to, and when I heard the class discussion (they hated it! they loathed it to its very core!) I vowed that one day, I would not only read - but I would enjoy - this book.

Many years later, the spark of Not so very long ago (though far longer than I'd like to admit) I was a university student taking Summer courses to pass the time. One of these was a Young Adults Fiction class, and "Forest" was on the reading list... I did not read it. In fact, I think it is the only one that I did not get around to, and when I heard the class discussion (they hated it! they loathed it to its very core!) I vowed that one day, I would not only read - but I would enjoy - this book.

Many years later, the spark of rebellion has worn down some, but I was browsing my bookshelf when this one caught my eye. I figured I'd give it a try... To begin with, this is a book about cats. Feral cats. That will put a lot of people off before they have even started. I'm not sure who the target audience is supposed to be; but cat lovers won't enjoy watching the pitiful creatures suffer, cat haters won't get through the first chapter, and young adults will probably be bored out of their brains, because in a world of "Twilight" and "The Infernal Devices", this one simply does not compare.

That said, those who can endure will discover an interesting story with exceptional writing. The prose itself is the star of this book, and Sonya Hartnett knows how to turn a phrase. She also knows a lot about cats, and imbues them with attitudes and ideas which can't be too far from the mark. They are definitely cat-like, but I'm not sure that they're very likeable or very interesting. I think that the best characters in the novel were the other wild animals, from foxes to dogs, possums to echidnas, lizards to rats. These were my favourite scenes.

Ultimately, the story is a bleak and grizzly one. All of the animals suffer needlessly, and there are no easy solutions to the feral situation. Hartnett doesn't pretend that there are. On the one hand, the ferals left unchecked will destroy the forest and each other, and yet the trapping and killing of the animals is shown to be a brutal and inhumane process. I wouldn't recommend this novel because I don't think anybody would enjoy reading it. This is one wayward animal story that not even Walt Disney himself could work with... ...more

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Feb 25, 2016 Heidi Kennedy rated it really liked it

Shelves: australian, children-s

While I found Forest, which I listened to on audiobook, difficult to warm to initially, it was a story that I loved in the end and I think it will stay with me forever. It is interesting to think what children would make of it as it is neither cute nor formulaic in its representation of the cats or life in the Australian bush. But then, is it kids who would find this off-putting or the adults who guide them?

While Hartnett does anthropomorphise the cats and other creatures to some extent, as ...more

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Dec 07, 2015 Nada rated it liked it

I cannot fault this novel in the sense it was written well. It was written from the viewpoint of the cats. However, for some inexplicable reason it just didn't quite make me feel the emotions I have read from other reviews. My strongest emotion was anger that humans dump animals at all. If you love cats then this is a great book.

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Aug 25, 2016 Kenmore SHS rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: animals, australian

Just bought a new edition with the gorgeous cover.
This book won the CBCA book of the year competition in 2001 and has stood the test of time. I love a story told from the animal's perspective, which highlights humanity's thoughtless and seemingly arbitrary acts of cruelty and neglect towards animals that are supposed to be our companions.
Sad but thought provoking.

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Nov 09, 2016 Lync Lync rated it it was amazing

From the opening lines I knew what I was getting into but I still read on. Kian is just too well adapted to the ways of humans. The two kittens though, they adore Kian, look up to him, and are torn between his stubborness and the new enticing ways. In a way it is a happy ending but it didn't feel like it. Sonya Hartnett was not writing a fairy tale.

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Jul 23, 2012 Kel Sta rated it liked it

Shelves: read-by-eb-not-me

EB listened to the Bolinda Audio Book of this novel. ISBN: 1 74093 115 7

She said it was very sad, and very realistic. She told me a fair few details from the story, so obviously found it engrossing.

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Apr 24, 2011 St Clare's Library marked it as to-read

Shelves: animals, yr-8-reads, yr-9-reads

A very different read but interesting if you like cats.

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Oct 09, 2016 Gloria rated it it was amazing

I love Sonya Hartnett books but when I saw this one was about a feral cat I didn't think I would like it. Wrong! This woman could make a story about a fly crawling up a wall impossible to put down.

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May 12, 2010 Georgia rated it did not like it

I hate cats

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Michael rated it it was ok
Jan 04, 2014

Mia rated it really liked it
Sep 28, 2016

Annette rated it really liked it
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Nov 25, 2014

Jenna Baldwin rated it really liked it
Dec 14, 2017

Robyn rated it it was amazing
Aug 06, 2014

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Mar 17, 2013

Caity rated it it was amazing
Sep 01, 2013

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About Sonya Hartnett

Sonya Hartnett

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Sonya Hartnett (also works under the pseudonym Cameron S. Redfern) is, or was, something of an Australian child prodigy author. She wrote her first novel at the age of thirteen, and had it published at fifteen. Her books have also been published in Europe and North America. Her novels have been published traditionally as young adult fiction, but her writing often crosses the divide and is also Sonya Hartnett (also works under the pseudonym Cameron S. Redfern) is, or was, something of an Australian child prodigy author. She wrote her first novel at the age of thirteen, and had it published at fifteen. Her books have also been published in Europe and North America. Her novels have been published traditionally as young adult fiction, but her writing often crosses the divide and is also enjoyed by adults.

"I chose to narrate the story through a child because people like children, they WANT to like them," says Sonya Hartnett of THURSDAY'S CHILD, her brilliantly original coming-of-age story set during the Great Depression. "Harper [the young narrator] is the reason you get sucked into the characters. Even I, who like to distance myself from my characters, felt protective of her."

The acclaimed author of several award-winning young adult novels--the first written when she was just 13--Australian native Sonya Hartnett says she wrote THURSDAY'S CHILD in a mere three months. "It just pulled itself together," she says. "I'd wanted to set a story in the Depression for some time, in an isolated community that was strongly supportive. Once the dual ideas of the boy who tunneled and the young girl as narrator gelled, it almost wrote itself--I had the cast, I had the setting, I just said 'go.' " Accustomed to writing about edgy young adult characters, Sonya Hartnett says that identifying with a seven-year-old protagonist was a challenge at first. "I found her difficult to approach," she admits. "I'm not really used to children. But once I started, I found you could have fun with her: she could tell lies, she could deny the truth." Whereas most children know "only what adults want them to know," the author discovered she could bypass that limitation by "turning Harper into an eavesdropper and giving her older siblings to reveal realities."

In her second book with Candlewick Press, WHAT THE BIRDS SEE, Sonya Hartnett once again creates a portrait of childhood. This time the subject is Adrian, a nine-year-old boy living in the suburbs with his gran and Uncle. For Adrian, childhood is shaped by fear: his dread of quicksand, shopping centers, and self-combustion. Then one day, three neighborhood children vanish--an incident based on a real case in Australia in the 1960s--and Adrian comes to see just how tenuous his safety net is. In speaking about Adrian, the author provocatively reveals parallels between herself and her character. She says, "Adrian is me in many respects, and many of the things that happen to him happened to me."

Sonya Hartnett's consistently inspired writing has built her a legion of devotees. Of THURSDAY'S CHILD, Newbery Honor-winning author Carolyn Coman says, "Hartnett's beautifully rendered vision drew me in from the very start and carried me along, above and under ground, to the very end. This book amazed me." The achingly beautiful WHAT THE BIRDS SEE has just as quickly garnered critical acclaim. Notes PUBLISHERS WEEKLY in a starred review, "Hartnett again captures the ineffable fragility of childhood in this keenly observed tale. . . . Sophisticated readers will appreciate the work's acuity and poetic integrity." Sonya Hartnett's third young adult novel, STRIPES OF THE SIDESTEP WOLF was named an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults.

Sonya Hartnett lives near Melbourne, Australia. Her most recent novels are SURRENDER, a mesmerizing psychological thriller, and THE SILVER DONKEY, a gently told fable for middle-grade readers. ...more