Genre
Fantasy, Young Adult, Mystery
Setting and Context
Set in the present-day Boort and 1930s rural Victoria in the time slip.
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person narration from the point of view of an omniscient speaker.
Tone and Mood
The tone and mood are neutral.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Sadie Hazzard; Antagonist: The Mortlocks
Major Conflict
Sadie is thrown into a time slip having to solve close to a century mystery involving the Hazzards, Mortlocks, and the Ravens. She has to confront the dark truths about the land they reside on that belonged to the Aboriginal people. With the help of Walter, she has to reclaim the heritage and ancient sacred places of the Aboriginals from being lost in the present day.
Climax
The claim occurs when Sadie and Walter finally locate the sacred special objects that belonged to Jimmy Raven.
Foreshadowing
“The crow wheeled high in the clear winter sky. The land was spread beneath, laid out like a map, like an open book. The lines of the creeks, and the bumps and sags of the hills and swamps held the stories of the country’s ancient history, the marks of its creation.”
This opening statement foreshadows the importance of the land and nature in the tale.
Understatement
“Crows seemed to be everywhere around here, pecking at road kill, flapping round the lake edge, staring at Sadie with their flat, bright eyes. They gave her the creeps.”
The statement understates the significance of the crows to Sadie and the spiritual journey she is about to undertake.
Allusions
The novel alludes to the spirituality of the Australian indigenous people entailing their connection to the land and nature. Accordingly delves into the injustices and racism against the Aboriginals in the past that persists in the present.
Imagery
“How could she have thought that the lake bed was flat and featureless? It undulated, dipped and rose, like the back of an enormous scaly beats, with immense muscles rippling beneath its damp, cracked skin. Lumpy warts of boulders marked the surface.”
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
The narrative parallels the older and younger generation of the Hazzards, Mortlocks, and Ravens to showcase the growth and change that has and is about to take place.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“I thought the whole reason we moved to the country was so I could be a free-range kid.”
Free-range is a metonymy.
Personification
“The only sound was the wind crying in the low trees.”
