Review of “Ben’s Challenge”
October 4, 2011 at 4:21 am | Posted in Writing | 2 CommentsTags: aoppreciation, Baby Boomers, Ben's Challenge, book review, children's novel, nostalgia, social values
It is wonderful when a reader thinks enough of a story to let the writer know how it has affected them. Carol Rose, who I have not met, read a copy of the book that her friend had purchased from the local store, where I left some to be sold on consignment. Carol sent her comments via the email address she found on the inside cover.
I am pleased to publish this unsolicited review of Ben’s Challenge.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a well-crafted story that remembers the pace and values of ordinary life in 1950’s rural Australia.
It’s a good read, much of the pleasure is in being taken back to a world that I recognise. It’s a book for adults who were children in the 1940s and 1950s, rather than the kids of the fast-paced aggressive computer worlds of Carmageddon and Grand Auto Theft, of paved city streets, skateboards, tiled chlorinated swimming pools, and instant “communication”.
It’s a good reminder of how our values were forged. For example, the notion of paying your way comes out of a slower life, and a more austere, yet more egalitarian society, where even if we could pay for modest necessities on a weekly basis at the grocery store, we had to save for something we wanted. If you received credit it was likely to come out of compassion, from someone who knew you, and the circumstances of your family.
Our values came from a world where you could go overnight camping (if you were a boy!) with a jumper, a piece of canvas for groundsheet, a small sack of food, a box of matches – not the sort of “lifestyle” that the Contemporary Camping Shop would have you adopt.
It’s a book that explores the growing moral sensibility of a young person, intent on uncovering the truth about his father’s death by hit-and-run driver. It’s about loyalty and truthfulness between friends who come from quite different places.
This world is one in which children were children, but capable of taking on adult responsibility within the household; a world in which the polarity between boys and girls appeared later in life; a world in which bullies could change and soften; a world in which an older man could provide friendly guidance, support, and touch to a young boy, in which it was possible to imagine mutual trust and respect between generations.
How refreshing a comment on the new rigidities, rapidly changing codes, and shallow betrayals of contemporary society! The 1950’s weren’t “the good old days” (there were bullies, injustice, crooks, poverty, snobbery, some speedsters…atom bomb tests, persecution of aboriginal people and “communists” and those who wanted to escape suffocating family values…) but mostly they moved at a human pace, and this pace invited reflectiveness of a sensitive, perceptive young person. The speed at which many people move and “communicate” in 2011 leaves less room for circumspection or thoughtfulness.
This is a story that resonates with truth, and I thank L.M. Visman for giving me the opportunity to review my life, its formative influences, as lived in country Australia, specifically Cessnock and Wangi Wangi, in the 1950s.
Carol Rose
~~~~Click on the book title at top right of this page to purchase a copy from Amazon~~~~
My second Y.A. novel
Available from Amazon.com
Linda Visman's blog
Share Your World
A to Z Blogging Challenge Survivor 2015
I survived A to Z 2015
2015 A-Z Blogging Challenge
2014 A-Z Blogging Survivor
2014 A-Z Blogging Challenge
Search this blog
Posts by the month
Blogroll
- A to Z Challenge Blogging from A to Z Challenge
- Buy Ben's Challenge Click here to buy a copy of Ben’s Challenge from Amazon.
Links - Writing
- Anne R Allen's blog
- Between Fact and Fiction
- Broadside Blog
- C.S. Lakin's Live, Write, Thrive A blog on writing by a great author
- debbie Robson Researching and writing a historical novel
- Erika liodice – Writing the Dream
- Live to Write – Write to Live
- Magdalena Ball
- Memory Writers Network
- Straight from Hel
- Women's Memoirs
- Writer Unboxed
- Writing Our Way Home
- Writing Our Way Home
- Writing Through Life
My Books
- Buy Ben's Challenge Click here to buy a copy of Ben’s Challenge from Amazon.
Other Links
- A to Z Challenge A to Z April Blogging Challenge
- ABC News Australia
- Northern Rivers Geology Geology of the Northern Rivers of NSW Australia
Writing Memoir
Topics I’ve written about
Wangiwriter’s posts
Blogs I Follow
- Helen Armstrong - writing on the move
- Rosella Room
- Myricopia
- Foxgloves and Bumblebees
- L.T. Garvin
- Echidna Tracks
- Lake Macquarie Branch, Fellowship of Australian Writers
- irevuo
- Colleen M. Chesebro
- sketchings
- Learn Fun Facts
- backstorypress.com
- roughwighting
- Half Baked In Paradise
- Hoax-Slayer
- The Curry Apple Orchard
- barsetshirediaries
- Cee's Photo Challenges
- Leigh Warren :: Country Music Outlaw
- Diane Tibert
Recent Comments
Linda Visman - wangi… on Apocalyptic frederick anderson on Apocalyptic acflory on Apocalyptic Linda Visman - wangi… on Apocalyptic acflory on Apocalyptic Tags
1950s 1950s Australia adventure Albion Park Rail Alzheimers Anzac Day art Australia Australian birds Baby Boomers beauty Ben's Challenge birds blogging book review books camping cancer Catholic schools challenge children Christmas community creativity Dapto Dapto High school death depression education England environment family friends frustration gratitude health history Illawarra inspiration kookaburra Lake Macquarie Lake Macquarie NSW literature memories memory nature noisy miner nostalgia Oswaldtwistle poetry polio positive thinking poverty procrastination publishing Rainbow lorikeet reading recycling relaxation religion research responsibility rubbish Sisters of St Joseph Society trees Wangi Wangi war Wollongong words work writer's block writing WWII Young Adult fictionJoin me on Goodreads
Find me on Facebook
Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.
Entries and comments feeds.