My four-greats grandfather went to what is now Guyana from The Netherlands in about 1780. Since becoming aware of this, I’ve had an ear out for stories with a Guyanese connection. This tale is a road story, describing the journey of Dylan, a 14-year-old girl of mixed Guyanese/French heritage through the Australian outback, after her mother’s sudden death, with her mother’s boyfriend Pat. Dylan’s brain is wired a little differently.
Dylan struggles to process her mother’s death, its disruption of their plans to travel to France, Dylan’s grappling with her racial identity, and reconnecting with previously unknown family. I enjoyed the quirkiness of Dylan’s perspective on events, the surprising jewels of humour, the ultimate hopefulness, and the occasional glimpse of Guyanese culture.

Read because this book is CBCA shortlisted. It is told from Dylan (a 14year old half black, half French Australian) who lives in a small outback town and has always been allowed to be a free spirit in everything she does. Her mother dies and her boyfriend Pat drives her across the outback to her paternal Grandfather's family who are all from Guyana. Dylan is also a little strange in that she can see inside other people's thoughts and feels compelled to help put others at ease which sees her doing strange things like joining an elderly citizens outback tour bus. Pat leaves Dylan with her Grandfather to cope with her grief and her "not fitting in" by herself and eventually it all comes to a head when Dylan tries to flee to Paris in a rowboat with her 4 year old mute cousin Joni.
This book is told entirely through Dylan's thoughts and observations and as a result there are lots of quirky takes on idioms such as "family air loom" "Hares and graces " etc. Also the voice in Dylan's head makes her appear quite unbalanced - she is very mentally ill as she wades through the grief of losing the one person who knew who she was. I found this quite confronting and uncomfortable. I wonder if students reading this book will understand what the author is trying to do and whether they will persevere with the book as I felt it was very depressing.
For this reason, I give it only 2 stars and a further warning of very strong language... ( )