Sam Angus, The House on Hummingbird Island, Macmillan Children’s Books, 31 May 2016, 288pp., $14.99 (pbk) ISBN 9781447263036
This is the kind of book I hope my kids will grow up wanting to read. The story gives you a sense of another time and place, a life different from now, with the challenges and prejudices typical of that era. It exposes the reader to racism, the class system and attitudes towards mental illness and children born outside of marriage. And it’s all seamlessly woven into the adventure of a 12-year-old girl who moves halfway around the world with just her inebriated governess for guidance.
Idie Grace shows great disdain for inept adults. She herself is a capable child – proud and feisty, with a strong sense of right and wrong. She is fragile too and desperate to know about her mother. Idie was raised by relatives who loved her but wouldn’t – or couldn’t – answer her questions. Then suddenly, she is sent away. She travels by ship from England to an island in the West Indies where her late parents have left her their home and estate. I expect young readers will delight in Idie’s newfound freedom. Feeling alone, she collects tropical animals – a parakeet, a mongoose and a turtle at first – and brings them to live with her inside her house.
As Idie grows up, the First World War starts and she and those around her are affected in different ways. There is death and disappointment. It made me cry. And brilliantly, the reader is left wondering – right to the very end – along with Idie, about her mother. What was she like, why did she send her baby away, how did she die and why won’t anyone talk about her? When they finally come, the answers are satisfying, equal parts sad and heart-warming.
Reviewed by Carissa Mason
