Justin D'Ath

The Winter Door by Isobelle Carmody & Shædow Master by Justin D'Ath

May 2004, no. 261

Setting is a particularly important feature in fantasy texts. One of these three fantasy novels for young adults is set in a self-contained world, while the other two have their main character travel from the ‘real’ world into a secondary one.

In Justin D’Ath’s Shædow Master, fourteen-year-old Ora – related to the royal family of Folavia – knows there is a mystery surrounding her. Why was she the only person to survive falling into Quickwater Lake? And why does she have the despised fair hair and blue eyes of the lower-class skiffers, instead of the dark eyes and hair of Folavian aristocracy? Ora’s search for the truth about herself is intricately linked to the destiny of Folavia. The country is in the grip of drought, its people are divided into rigid classes where the rich oppress or ignore the poor, and the ‘history’ being taught by the aristocracy proves to be seriously flawed. Through her courage, compassion and willingness to examine herself, Ora gradually realises the secret that haunts her family, and comes to understand what she must do in order to give Folavia a future.

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Missing Drafts

by Judith Ridge •

September 2003, no. 254

Kierin Meehan’s Hannah’s Winter was one of the most promising débuts in some time. Her second novel, the ambitious Night Singing, attests to Meehan’s importance as a new writer for the middle-school years reader. There’s a magical quality to Night Singing and, although it is not a fantasy, a sense of the fantastic pervades the novel. Meehan has woven various plot strands and numerous characters into a delightful and, at times, deeply moving whole. Her characters, some of whom are wildly eccentric, never seem less than real, and her plot, although full of extraordinary coincidences – coincidences that, in less capable hands, would be both lazy and unconvincing – is believable and satisfying.

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