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CBCA 2024 Shortlist Trio teachers' review
Posted:
June 14, 2024
Brief description and distinctive features
For Stage 5
Among a range of new NSW English 7-10 Syllabus requirements is one that states:
“Across each stage, the selection of texts must give students experiences of:
- texts chosen by students for personal interest and enjoyment.”
Reading though a range of texts shortlisted by the Children’s Book Council of Australia for the 2024 Awards in August I came across three that certainly caught my eye with their very different approaches to family, growing up and youth. I thought all three lent themselves to reading for personal interest and enjoyment as well as close study or genre study.
Brief description of Grace Notes
Grace Notes is a verse novel set in a locked-down Melbourne and charts the different paths of two fifteen-year-old school students. Grace Dalfinch is a young and talented violinist while James Crux (everyone calls him Crux) is a budding street artist. Grace loves her family but finds her mother’s strict and controlling ways difficult, as Grace wants to play to a wider audience and her mother wants her to concentrate on her school grades. Crux has promised his father, who works with troubled youth, he won’t do public art until he finishes school so he paints in the garage with cans supplied by his father. But when Crux meets street artist Mack, and then head artist Bindy asked him to join them in some commissioned art, he can’t resist and starts street painting with the tag LeXX. Crux sees Grace playing her violin on a deserted tram and is inspired to paint her.
With Grace’s mother travelling and working in the USA, the two teenagers’ paths cross and recross as they come together, despite their parents. The narrative flows beautifully, with texting messages between the two amid the oppressive backdrop of the lockdown and the fear for Grace’s grandma Ettie when Covid reaches her aged care home. There are nuances in the complex family relationships and in the portrayal of Mack who defaces some of Crux’s art but tries to make amends after support for his alcohol habit. The novel concludes with a musical and artistic celebration at Jay’s bar, where Grace had already featured during her mother’s absence.
Distinctive features of Grace Notes
- Verse novel with texting conversations emphasised and scattered through the novel
- Dual narratives from the two protagonists highlight tensions and connections and provide rounded and comprehensive characterisation
- Musical metaphors dot the novel including the “grace notes” of the title (“a tiny note that’s there for embellishment but can easily be ignored”)
- Complex family relationships are skillfully woven
- The impact of the pandemic is closely chronicled in the novel with statistics and restrictions paralleling mental health and youth issues
- The power of art and music to sustain us during difficult times is a cohesive theme.
Brief description of The Quiet and the Loud
Helena Fox’s previous novel, How it Feels to Float dealt with a feisty protagonist and her struggle with mental illness. The Quiet and the Loud is concerned with post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by family violence and will have a powerful impact on the reader. It is also an exquisitely told story of hope and survival, of love, friendship and family set in Sydney during the black summer of 2019. Georgia (she calls herself George) has a complex life as she tries to keep everyone happy at great stress to herself. Her two mums are supportive, loud and sometimes overbearing, her best friend Tess is pregnant and relying on Georgia for help at the birth. George’s other friend, Laz, is distraught over climate change and he is deeply pessimistic about the future of the world and her previously abusive and estranged dad is constantly ringing her from Seattle. The only peace she can find is on her kayak out on the water and through her painting, both suggested by her second mum, Mel. When Australian Sri Lankan Calliope arrives in George’s life, a dazzling life force with joy and light she starts to banish some of the darkest clouds. This LGBTQ+ love story is beautifully told. By the end of the novel, George has learnt that she doesn't have to look after everyone.
Distinctive features of The Quiet and the Loud
- Explosive opening sequence of a near drowning experience for George at the age of nine
- Lyrical and haunting writing
- The novel’s structure is intricate and moves between places and times and there are five parts: Summer nine, Summer eighteen, Seattle thirteen, Sydney eighteen and ends with Summer Series 1, 2 and 3.
- Powerful and complicated characterisation reflects the author’s own experiences of family violence and parental addiction
- The story references mental health including anxiety, depression, PTSD, family violence, youth pregnancy, catastrophic fires and contains strong language and some humorous genital art references
- The incessant controlling phone calls from the father punctuate the story and are countered by poetic reflections and the artistic endeavours of both George and Calliope
- The Author’s Note provides a context for the main themes of the novel as it explains the toll of mental health issues, reiterates calls for climate change protest voices to be listening to and for everyone to have the right to make choices about their futures and their bodies.
Brief description of Two Can Play That Game
In contrast to the gravity of the preceding books, Two Can Play That Game is a hilarious and sweet rom-com with wonderful family and Australian-Malaysian cultural grace notes. Sam is the eldest daughter in the Khoo family and her passion is creating indie games. She has a scholarship to university but wants to be a designer, despite her parents desire for her to attend university. Sam is desperate to gain a ticket to a game design workshop but Jay Chua grabs it and Sam challenges him to a competition of classic video games to win it back. Both protagonists are aware of the ‘Asian gossip network’ and its actions provoke much laughter in the novel. As the rivals learn more about each other and each other’s families they become friends and something a bit closer than friends. The reader learns about Sam, and her younger sister Eva’s sometimes volatile relationship, and about Jay’s fierce protection of Ansen, his younger, autistic brother. Both protagonists grow and learn to better understand their siblings. Exciting video games races and escapes room experiences are all part of the mix. As a total failure at escape rooms and one only gaming experience (Myst) I still found the pace and wit of the novel endearing.
Distinctive features of Two Can Play That Game
- Wonderfully geeky and nerdy competitive gamer with a slow burn romance of first love
- Showcases Australian-Malaysian family culture with humour and heart
- Banishes gender stereotyping in gaming with both protagonists, Sam and Jay, being keen gamers, and Sam being a budding designer
- Issues of identity and independence, drive, ambition and family are explored
- Puzzles and games of all kinds are centre stage
Ways to use this CBCA 2024 Shortlist Trio in the classroom
Wide reading
Set aside time in the classroom or library for reading for pleasure. Ask the librarian to make up a book box including several copies of each of these novels. Allow students to select a novel and set no task on the novels they choose, only that they read it and rate on a class reading guide set up on the wall of the classroom.
Close Study of a novel or Genre Study
The Quiet and the Loud and Grace Notes both have the complexity that reward close study. The sheer joy of Two Can Play that Game will delight gamers and will explain gaming to the rest of the class. It could be part of a rom-com genre study with novels like The Surprising Power of a Good Dumpling, or Road Tripping with Pearl Nash. A gaming genre study with texts such as Ender’s Game, Erebos or Space Demons could be another possibility (see connecting texts below).
Relevant details in relation to the new NSW English 7-10 syllabus
Text requirements: For more recommended texts suitable for Stage 5, explore our Year 9 texts and study guides and Year 10 texts and study guides.
- Grace Notes is a verse novel by an Australian author. It includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives.
- The Quiet and the Loud is a novel (extended prose) by an Australian author with a disability. It includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives
- Two Can Play That Game is a novel (extended prose) by an Australian author. It includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives.
Relevant NSW English 7-10 Syllabus content
Reading, Viewing and Listening to Texts EN5-RVL-01
Reading for challenge, interest and enjoyment
- Read increasingly complex texts that challenge thinking, pique interest, enhance enjoyment and provoke a personal response
- Engage in sustained and varied reading that presents increasingly diverse and complex perspectives and experiences, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and respond in a range of ways, including through extended written responses
- Consider how the social, cultural and ethical positions represented in texts represent, affirm or challenge views of the world
- Evaluate experiences of reading by sharing responses to texts
- Evaluate the ways reading texts help us understand ourselves and make connections to others and the world
(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
For Grace Notes and The Quiet and the Loud
For Two Can Play That Game in a gaming context
For Two Can Play That Game in a rom-com context
Jane Sherlock and Deb McPherson are experienced and passionate English teachers. They have also been involved in the education sector as authors and presenters at teaching conferences.
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