In this graphic novel, Ruth Starke and Greg Holfeld have combined to create an extraordinary and original work for upper primary students on the subject of Gallipoli and the Anzac campaign.
When Australia pledges its support to Great Britain at the outbreak of World War I, mates Roy Martin and Wally Cardwell are among the first to enlist.
But what the friends first thought would be an adventure soon turns to disaster The day after the landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, more than 2000 of their fellow Anzacs are dead. As the campaign drags on, life for Wally and Roy and their new friend, Tom, becomes a battle of endurance against a plucky enemy, a hostile landscape, flies, fleas, cold and disease. The story of the Anzac campaign, including the battle of Lone Pine, is interspersed with scenes of Australians at home to show the shift from popular support of the Empire at the start of the war to profound disillusionment as the casualties begin to mount.
|
Ruth Starke is the author of the best-selling Dead Red, Starstruck and Muck-Up Day, in the Crime Waves series; NIPS XI (Honour Book, CBCA Awards, 2001; Honour Book, 2003 UNESCO Prize for Children’s Literature in the Service of Tolerance); NIPS Go National (a ‘Top Australian Title 2003’, Youth Literature Centre); and Saving Saddler Street, in the Takeaways series, published by Lothian Books. Dr Starke teaches English at Flinders University and creative writing at Adelaide TAFE and UniSA, and reviews for Viewpoint and Australian Book Review. She lives in Goodwood, SA.