Bronwyn Blake
Find Me a River
language
( June 4, 2014)
‘Find me a River’ is the first of The Gippsland Trilogy: ‘Find Me a River’, ‘Rock Dancer’ and ‘Out of the Blue’.
‘Find Me a River’, and ‘Rock Dancer’ are both Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Books.
The three books are written for Young Adult readers, aged 12 to 16.
Kes Martin is facing the unthinkable. As drought and a bushfire threatens their lives, their homes and wipes out the cattle, her family and her cousin’s family will probably have to abandon the mountain property of their great-grandparents.
The Martins and the Lawsons, share a cattle property in the wild foothills of the Baw Baw Mountains in Victoria, Australia. For 15 year-old Kes, her three siblings and two cousins, this remote cattle station is the only home they have ever known and are passionate about trying to save it from the disaster coming closer every day.
Kes is torn by her search for her own identity and for her Aboriginal grandmother. She is determined to find her father’s family, and what begins as a simple search develops into an ethical dilemma and an awareness of the importance of her Aboriginal background. If her gentle father was not a stolen child, but simply unwanted, will she keep this knowledge to herself?
The catastrophic drought and bush fire has a profound impact on all members of the close-knit families, and the story explores how the four teenager cousins and an unexpected visitor, deal with the impact of traumatic incidents associated with the fire, and the threat of having to leave their home. The five are forced to re-assess their values and relationships after painful events and growing maturity alter their views of their world.
And then there is an incredibly exciting discovery which will change everything and that just might be their salvation?