In Times of Bushfires and Billy Buttons (Steven Herrick, Ford St)

With his parents in jail for drug dealing, high-school student Ethan goes to live with his Aunt Helen, a supermarket stacker who dreams of the Greek Islands. He gets by at school with his friend Biggsy and keeps quiet, hoping to win the attention of beautiful Audrey and continue mastering his passion for Shakespeare. When new kid Joshua starts at school with ‘angry scars on his forearms’, he brings baggage with him that Ethan soon discovers he can relate to. Joshua lives on the wrong side of town, with an abusive father and troubled home life. While forming a mateship with Joshua and coming to terms with the memories of his past, Ethan also worries about climate change when a fiery storm threatens his town. Steven Herrick, whose YA novel The Simple Gift was shortlisted for the CBCA Book of the Year Award and a NSW Premier’s Literary Award, pens a gripping and visceral young adult novel for readers aged 13 and up, with spit and guts and fire barrelling the story along in a perfectly paced manner. Themes of working-class struggles, the cost of living, domestic violence, climate change and environmental conditions, as well as a look into the social landscape and how it pertains to the difficulty of being a young man today, combine to make this a profound novel. A raw and honest read with true-to-life characters, it captures teenagers’ distinctive identities, characteristics and speech. In Times of Bushfires and Billy Buttons is a superb read for fans of Changing Gears by Scott Gardener, Graffiti Moon by Cath Crowley and John Marsden’s novels.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Brenton Cullen is an emerging children's author and freelance writer of articles, reviews and interviews when not working part-time in a bookshop. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Reviews