Backbencher

Set in a fictional Australian town called Wirrawee, this book follows a group of six friends through an invasion of their hometown. Ellie, along with her friends Homer, Fiona, Corrie, Kevin, Lee and Robyn decide to go camping in the bush. While they’re gone, they see large numbers of planes flying at night, but think little of it at the time. When they arrive home, they find that their families are gone, there homes abandoned, and their pets and livestock are dead. They decide to break into groups to investigate what has happened and find that there has been an invasion and the locals are being held captive in the town’s show grounds. After a lot of ciaos, the group decides to split up, with half going back to their bush camping spot to hide and form a base camp and the other half going to the show grounds to do some more investigating and see what they’re up against. Along the way they find and pick up an old school mate, Chris, who’s been in hiding the whole time. The group figures they have the choice to stay in the bush an hide, surrender to be with their families, of stay and try to fight. They decide to fight and wage in guerrilla warfare by blowing up a bridge which formed the easiest way into Wirrawee. The book ends with Corrie getting shot and Kevin (her boyfriend) makes a sacrifice to bring her to the hospital (which is being run by the opposition).

This book is the first in a series of seven, so there is much more that happens in their fight for freedom. With this being a fictional book, it didn’t have any exact information that would relate to our studies of Australia and New Zealand, but it did indirectly. There was a lot of use of the Australian vocabulary and at times was a little bit hard to understand. It also paints a vivid picture of the bush and farmland/paddocks. After taking this class and seeing all of Prof. Isern’s pictures from his various travels, I found it much easier to form images in my mind. I would definitely recommend this book. It’s filled with action and a riveting story line.