Ginnette Cameron-Gardner – Primary Teacher/Librarian

Welcome back, I hope that you all had a wonderful vacation.

Kindergarten, Year 1 students and students who are new to the school since September 2018 have now been allocated NSW Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC) ID and passwords. I will be giving these to their class teachers, along with a copy of the information on how to enter their reading which they will be passing on to the students. 

Students who have previously been entered in the NSW PRC have already received their ID and password in previous years and are to retain and use them until the end of Year 9. Those students are able to enter what they have read since September 2018. Details of how to enter students reading online is included in this Ma Nishma edition.

 Walking the Boundaries by Jackie French

If you are looking for an Australiana fiction book that also includes time travel, this is an intriguing book by master story teller Jackie French, former Australian Children’s Laureate.

A story of friendship, adventure and the past. Martin lives in the city with his mother. His father lives with his new family in Adelaide.  Martin has never met his great grandfather. His parents are both surprised when an invitation for Martin to come and visit his great grandfather arrives.  He is encouraged to accept Old Ted’s invitation as it includes an offer for Martin to inherit the property if he comes and walks the boundaries of the farm that’s been in his family for generations.

The farm is estimated to be worth about a million so both parents are at last united in something when they agree to Martin going. Martin’s great – grandfather, Ted, doesn’t even want him to walk around the farm’s fences, just up the gorge and along the hills. Martin thinks about what he will do with the land, the money he may get from selling it and what he would do with that money.

Martin begins his trek which becomes more adventurous than he had expected. Up in the gorge Martin meets Meg from about seventy years ago. They journey on together and after further adventures, they meet Wullamudulla from thousands of years in the past.

The bulk of the story is about the relationship between the individual people and the land.  Despite their differences they discover that they’re all on the same journey … and that walking the boundaries means more than following lines on a map.  This is not just a time travel novel,  they are each walking the boundaries of time, of culture and of the land, and they are each coming to know themselves.  Read the book, enjoy the detailed adventures and see if you have correctly predicted the ending.

Recommended reading ages: 10-14. A copy is located in the Primary Library at JF FRE and also the High School Library has one at F FRE.