Ruth Starke
Auteur de Nips XI
A propos de l'auteur
Ruth Starke is the co-author of My Gallipoli which won a 2015 NSW Premier History Award in the category of Young People's History Prize. This prize carrries a monetary award of $15,000. She also made the Asher Award 2015 shortlist with this same title. This literary award is presented to a female afficher plus writer whose work carries an anti-war theme. (Bowker Author Biography) afficher moins
Séries
Œuvres de Ruth Starke
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Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 22
- Membres
- 286
- Popularité
- #81,618
- Évaluation
- 3.5
- Critiques
- 9
- ISBN
- 56
Trigger warnings: Military violence and war themes, animal death, death of a relative, blood, grief and loss depiction, World War One, gun violence, physical assault and injury, conscription, racism, racist slur
Score: Six out of ten.
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An ANZAC Tale was better than Noodle Pie, that's for sure. I wanted to read this book to coincide with ANZAC Day, and I did, but it could've been so much better. I saw it on a library display shelf, so I picked it up, hoping for an intriguing read based on the blurb. However, when I closed the final page, it was okay.
It starts with Wally, Roy and Tom volunteering to fight for Australia during World War One in the opening pages. They soon land on ANZAC cove in what is now Turkey, but the battle doesn't go to plan. Instead of the adventure Wally and the others expected to have, they faced the reality of war, reminding me of a certain anti-war poem. Even though this one was better than Starke's previous work, it still could've been so much better if she made some improvements to it. I'm unsure where to begin, but I'll try.
I like that An ANZAC Tale is there to teach people about ANZAC Day, but it is under 100 pages, making it more like a picture book than an illustrated novel, but it's not quite the former, because of the words. The art was okay, but the characters were hard to connect or relate with, making me disengage from An ANZAC Tale. Why was there white space in some pages? That space could've been used, but Starke left it empty. Exploring the efforts from POC during World War One would've added to the length and substance to An ANZAC Tale, like the Indigenous Australian efforts in the Australian Imperial Forces or the Vietnamese soldiers that served for France. Because the entire narrative doesn't last 100 pages, the pacing would have to be swift, and it was, but it was also disjointed, as one page I saw Gallipoli and then a dawn service on the concluding pages many years afterward. How does this make sense? Adding more pages could reduce the disjointedness. The finish is bittersweet.