Rosanne Hawke's "Alex" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

Brief description of Alex

Alex is set in 2020 in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia on the traditional lands of the Adnyamathanha people. The people of this area are used to calamitous weather events including dust storms, bushfires and drought, and this time there is the ongoing effects of the Covid pandemic and its effects on rural tourism and small business. Alex Bray is thirteen and lives with his family on their sheep farm in a remote part of this region where it is 55 kms to travel to school each way each day. Alex’s sister, Lily, lives with her grandparents and attends a school in the city. Alex’s dad has been deeply distressed by having to shoot his sheep, when a raging fire threatens their house and farm. He is suffering from this harrowing experience and through his character Rosanne Hawke highlights the challenges for farmers, especially men and their mental health. Alex’s dad is not the man he was and Alex and his mother are compassionate and supportive while they are working extra hard to do the jobs of their father. Alex’s mum works in town cooking at the local pub but the decline in visitors post-Covid is affecting that business too. 

Alex has a horse called Jago and a faithful and much-loved kelpie Tangi. One day a dangerous feral dog attacks Jago and this reinforces the impact of the drought as feral dogs are now coming much closer to the homestead and the Bray’s dwindling sheep flocks. 

Alex is a mature, caring and gentle young man whose compassion for his parents is endearing and special. He is deeply worried about the ongoing effects of the drought on the farm, their livelihood, and of course his parents’ well-being. He tries to think of ways to improve the farm’s sustainability. At school he befriends a new student, Bonnie Saleh, whose family plans to start a camel dairy as well as saving camels from being culled. Camels are a controversial topic in this area and indeed, in many parts of Australia, so Alex has a challenge to convince his parents of their worth.

Alex and Bonnie become good friends and are both interested in ideas to improve sustainability. They decide to create a Transmutation project which transforms discarded plastic into usable items. This project not only highlights the value of recycling, but it has a powerful unifying force on the local community, as a common project gives them a unity of purpose and value. 

At the same time Alex tries to convince his father of the benefit of camels. When their school friend Summer is missing, Alex takes one of the camels to find her. The gradual change in attitude to camels has begun.

This is a fascinating story and the character of Alex ensures it is an authentic and special read. 

Rosanne Hawke is an Australian writer of over 35 books for children and YA. She has been a teacher and an aid worker in Pakistan and the UAE and currently is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Tabor Adelaide. She has a PHD in writing. Rosanne often writes about children under challenge especially through dislocation. 

Distinctive features of Alex:

• Alex is an example of the genre known as contemporary realistic fiction. 
• There are features of nonfiction which adds to the appeal of its realism:
  • Maps of South Australia and Alex’s family farm of Spring Park
  • Timeline on p. 216-217 which contextualises the drought
  • A section at the back, Find out more about…, which lists websites to expand understanding on a range of topics including drought, transmutation, camels and camel culling
  • An Author’s Note which provides interesting insights to the Flinders Ranges area which scientist say “is the only place on earth where 350 million years of near-continuous geological sequence can be seen, showing the advance of a habitable planet and the arrival of animal life.” P.207
• Alex is told in the third person which focalises the perspective of thirteen-year-old Alex Bray. ;Alex is a very likeable and admirable protagonist of the story and indeed, the hero. 
• Authentic adolescent characters of Bonnie, Alex and Summer enhance the narrative’s engagement.
• The bond of Alex to his kelpie and horse is powerful and endearing but it also highlights the necessity of such animals on remote farms.
• The narrative informs the reader about a range of important topics: climate change, life in remote and regional communities especially when challenged, resilience of farmers, difficulties of farming as a livelihood, mental health, friendship and strength
• There are Teaching Notes available from the publisher here.

Ways to use Alex in the classroom

• This text could be part of a broader unit of work which explores a range of different texts in different textual forms which represent the natural world and its challenges. Alex could be the core text to explore its key narrative features and what the text reveals about the challenges to the natural world. Students could then be given a choice to read from the series. 

• Initiate a class discussion of why we are attracted to real stories and how real stories are often the basis for novels, plays, television series and films. Consider a visual display of such texts or some slides of book covers and film posters.

  Include in this discussion:

  • What is realistic fiction?
  • Have you read other books or watched film/television series of this genre?

  This idea of realistic fiction could be the focus of this unit of work and could explore a range of texts e.g. film, ballads, nonfiction, fiction, short stories which use real stories as the basis of their narrative.

  Encourage students to read through Alex and note the various features which are more common to nonfiction. You might find it more engaging to visit these sections after the story has been read.

• Raise awareness about the impacts of long-term drought in South Australia in this short YouTube clip from 7News.
• Allen and Unwin’s teaching resource contains some excellent discussion questions about drought.
• What can we learn from fiction? In keeping with this series, Rosanne Hawke has researched a range of subjects to ensure realism and credibility. In reading the text encourage students to keep a log on what they learn about Alex’s world through this story. At the end of their reading, student to choose the three most interesting insights they gained from reading Alex and share.
• The character of Alex is the story’s hero and he combines many endearing and attractive qualities. Draw up a table of those characteristics and allocate 1-3 to groups to locate specific examples and textual references. This could lead to a sustained response on the role of Alex in this text.

Tasks

1. Alex is inspired by watching the film: The Boy who Harnessed the Wind (2019). This is based on the true story of another 13-year-old boy, William Kamkwamba, from Malawi in south-east Africa. His family, like 98% of Malawi did not have electricity. In 2000 William’s village is devastated by large flood followed by a prolonged drought and the threat of famine is powerfully real. From reading books at his primary school William learned how to build a wind turbine and his life takes a totally different direction.

Watch the trailer or access the entire film through a streaming service.

There is also a picture book on Williams’ story.

The Guardian published a review of the film which concludes with this compelling comment: 

There’s unavoidable darkness in the story and Ejiofor leans into the brutal reality of Malawi’s early 2000s food crisis while balancing the more harrowing details with notes of resilience and hope. When the climax arrives, it’s with immense, earned satisfaction, a crowd-pleasing triumph…

In what ways does the trailer and/or the feature film draw the viewer into the world of the extreme challenge to parts of the planet? What were 2-3 insights you learnt from this film and what most inspired you? 

2. Crafting a powerful speech

Increasingly, speeches by respected and concerned people are imploring us to be more vigilant in protecting the planet and its animals. Tim Winton’s speech to protect Ningaloo Reef is a compelling example of a beautifully crafted and passionate speech. 

• Read or listen to this speech and note the imagery he uses to describe the whale sharks. You could also access his television series on the reef.
• Access other persuasive speakers on the environment: Greta Thunberg, Amanda Gorman, Leonardo Di Caprio
• Form groups and decide on what animal you would like to be the subject of a persuasive speech to your class colleagues. 
• In crafting your speech be conscious of your word choices and imagery to evoke the beauty and the vulnerability of animals at risk. 
• Let your words reveal your passion and commitment.

Possible topics:

• Koala habitats
• Endangered Dugongs
• Brumbies in Kosciusko National Park
• Overfishing
• Camels 
• First Nations insights on caring for Country
• Feral pigs or cats or dogs.

3. Writing your own contemporary realistic fiction or about 600-800 words.

Choose a specific place for your setting and a specific time. It could be contemporary or in the past. Research the time and place.

Craft your character who will be significant to your narrative. Include in your narrative five facts from your research and highlight those facts with a coloured highlighter.

Write a 300-word reflection on what factual details you chose to incorporate and how that realism contributed to the authenticity of your narrative.

Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English 7-10 syllabus

Text requirements: Alex is a novel (extended prose) by an Australian author. It includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives, including from popular and youth cultures.
Explore our Year 9 texts and study guides and Year 7 texts and study guides for more Stage 4 and 5 reading material.

Concepts: Point of View, Narrative, Characterisation, Perspective and Context 

Relevant NSW English 7-10 Syllabus content

A student uses a range of personal, creative and critical strategies to read texts that are complex in their ideas and construction EN4-RVL-01

• Explore the main ideas and thematic concerns posed by a text for meaning
• Identify and understand that relevant prior knowledge and personal experience enables and enhances understanding when reading, viewing or listening to texts
• Read texts selected to challenge thinking, develop interest and promote enjoyment, to prompt a personal response
• Understand the ways reading helps us understand ourselves and make connections to others and to the world
• Reflect on how reading promotes a broad and balanced understanding of the world and enables students to explore universal issues
• Reflect on own experiences of reading by sharing what was enjoyed, discussing challenges to strengthen an understanding of the value of reading

A student analyses how meaning is created through the use of and response to language forms, features and structures EN4-URA-01

• Recognise how texts engage and position the audience to perceive events, characters and ideas using narrative voice and focalisers, tense, sequencing and intrusion, and apply this understanding in own texts
• Analyse how engaging characters are constructed in texts through a range of language features and structures, and use these features and structures in own texts
• Understand how the interactions of characters, such as protagonists and antagonists, might be perceived to represent aspects of human relationships, and experiment with interactions when composing texts
• Understand narrative conventions, such as setting, plot and sub-plot, and how they are used to represent events and personally engage the reader, viewer or listener with ideas and values in texts, and apply this understanding in own texts
• Examine how narratives can depict personal and collective identities, values and experiences 

A student identifies and explains ways of valuing texts and the connections between them EN4-URC-01

• Understand how a genre addresses its purpose through patterns of textual elements, such as structure, choice of language, character archetypes and settings, and apply these patterns in own texts
• Analyse how texts can participate in larger, established patterns of narrative, purpose, theme and tone by exhibiting and challenging conventions, and experiment with conventions in own texts
• Explore particular genres to identify ways they may be adapted to different modes and media, or refreshed by combining with other genres, and experiment with these in own texts

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023)

Connecting texts