When We Were Little…
As soon as I began reading independently I loved to explore the books that my mum had kept from her childhood. These included the Silver Brumby series by Elyne Mitchell, The Billabong series by Mary Grant Bruce and my favorite Bush Christmas by Ralph Smart and M. Cathcart Borer.
This novel was written from the screenplay of the 1947 movie of the same name. The story is classic adventure, five outback children take off after horse thieves days before Christmas hoping to rescue their father’s prized mare. With the help of Nezza, their aboriginal friend, they track the thieves through the mountains, hampering their efforts to get away with the stolen horses.
I loved dreaming about living with these children, riding horses to school, swimming in water holes and best of all chasing horse thieves. Although I had already devoured all the very English Famous Five books, Bush Christmas gave me a taste of a part of Australia that I hadn’t experienced and it was fascinating. The children were so clever and ingenious, they could handle horses and knew all about the bush.
The original movie starred popular Australian star Chips Rafferty and was excellently acted by its young cast. I especially adore the little boy who plays Snow. The film was remade rather badly in 1983 with a very young Nicole Kidman.
You can see a clip of the original film on YouTube.
- No related posts
Other Australian classics for the slightly older age group are the Nan Chauncy (nee Masterman) novels. Hope one of you might get to review one of them some time!
Nan was at one time the best selling children’s novelist in Australia. She was born in 1900 (died 1970) and her family migrated from England to Tasmania in 1912 where her father was an engineer.
She wrote her first novel (They found a cave) in the early 1940s; it was published in 1948 and about this time she and her husband, Anton, bought 1000 acres of bush next to Chauncy Vale and had it declared a wildlife sanctuary. Ahead of their time they were both very concerned about the destruction of bush and wildlife in the midlands of Tasmania.
Nan had also had a deep interest in aboriginal culture and pioneer country living and this is reflected in her children’s novels. Her treatment of Aboriginal issues was unusual for the time and Tangara and Mathinna’s People (1967) are generally regarded as her finest work.
She won acclaim both in Australia and overseas; she won 3 Children’s Book Of The Year awards for Tiger in the Bush in 1956, Devil’s Hill in 1959 and Tangara in 1961, and was the first Australian to win the Hans Christian Andersen diploma of merit.
Many of her 14 novels are partially autobiographical including Half a World Away (1962), The Roaring 40 (1963), High and Haunted Island (1964), Lizzie Lights (1968) and The Lighthouse Keeper’s Son (1969).
An award in her name was created by the Children’s Book Council of Australia to honour people who have made an outstanding contribution to the field of Australian children’s literature.
And guess what – her books are now collectibles, too!
23 Dec 2008 at 4.52 pm