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The Sea-wreck Stranger ISBN: 9781877361883 Release: 08-2007 Subject: Young Adult Fiction Format: Paperback RRP: NZ$18.99 Download Resource Kit for teachers |
An island community has tenaciously survived civilisation’s collapse but there’s a price. It is a society inherently myopic, patriarchal and distrustful of the past and wider world, no more so than when the book’s narrator rescues a stranger who has washed up on its shores. This exciting page-turner is charged with confident writing, strong characters and a convincing evocation of island life (and future world). For these reasons the judges have given The Sea-wreck Stranger by Anna Mackenzie (Longacre Press) an honour award.
From the first page Anna Mackenzie skilfully challenges and plays with the readers perception of location, time and society. We know the book is set on an island but is it in the Shetlands? Is it in the late 1800s? And why is the sea off limits? Then comes the slow realisation, this is life lived post apocalypse. Islands today are often holiday destinations but not Dunnett Island. Here narrator Ness survives in a patriarchal and austere society that proudly displays an ingrained distrust of knowledge and the outside world. What hope then when she discovers a stranger washed up on its shores with news of a world bigger than her own? The writing is assured, the plot page turning, the location utterly convincing. Ness too is a particularly well-drawn and lively distinctive character. The judges found The Seawreck Stranger a compelling read with an ending that, hopefully, hints at more adventures to come.
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