Storm Boy is a touching and highly believable story in which the reader lives as much with Mr Percival as with Storm Boy. With great delicacy and tact, the author, Colin Thiele, conveys his message that to live in balance with nature, man must learn to live with and understand her creatures.
This is a children's story that has been very successfully made into a film - two films, in fact: one made in 1976 which is my favourite - click here -, and a more recent one with Geoffrey Rush - click here -, of which I could find only a full-length version in French but you're a linguist, aren't you?
The setting is "The long, long snout of sand hill and scrub that curves away south-eastwards from the Murrany Mouth. A wild strip it is, windswept and tussocky, with the flat shallow water of the South Australian Coorong on one side and the endless slam of the Southern Ocean on the other. They call it the Ninety Mile Beach."
To read the book online, click here. To listen to the audiobook, click here
I thought of Colin Thiele's book as I walked along the lagoon and spotted this squadron of pelicans. Luckily, I had my camera with me to take a picture. What incredible place "Riverbend" is. And I'm calling it home!
Some days I feel like Storm Boy.
