Morrison & Mr Moore

Michael Hyde, Morrison & Mr Moore, in case of emergency press, September 2021, 204 pp., RRP $39.58 (pbk), ISBN 9780645128024

Michael Hyde is a long-experienced writer for children, and secondary school teacher. This marvellously engaging novel comes from his long experience, with all the benefits of a writing life behind him.

As with much Young Adult fiction, the first-person voice of a character on the edge of understanding life must hold the narrative together. And Morrison does just that. He is one of the outsiders at his school, smart enough to do well at any subject, but smart enough too, to give the teachers endless cheek. Abandoned by his parents, he has decided to abandon, in turn, his birth name and adopt one that suits him better. He manages a handful of friendships in the school: one with the hopeful film director Roxy who, he believes, he loves as a sister, and with Petticoat Boy, the one who wears a new petticoat to school over his jeans each day; and strangely, tentatively, a friendship of some kind springs up between him and the school principal, Mr Moore.

Mr Moore, as a character, embodies perhaps all the best qualities Michael Hyde has observed in principals through his decades of being a teacher. Mr Moore is actually interested in the students, and he is vulnerable without ever losing his dignity. He is fundamentally good natured, and hasn’t allowed the madness of school life to infect that side of him. I wish I’d experienced principals like him during my schooling. Though this odd friendship is at the heart of the book, it’s not at all a simple matter for the two of them. Mr Moore’s wife has advanced early Alzheimer’s disease, while Morrison has many battles to fight at school, and with himself. Central to him is the battle over his feelings for his mother who abandoned him in favour of a life given over to addiction.

Lucky for us, the one school-thing Morrison likes doing is writing. We have his observations, his wit, his confusion and his internal debates to entertain us as he moves from thirteen to seventeen, and on into his life, which we hope will be a life as richly described somewhere as these last few years of his schooling are in Morrison & Mr Moore.

It is a superbly told tale, with a winning voice, a novel that will touch each reader at their emotional core. Highly recommended for readers 10 to 15 years.

Reviewed by Kevin Brophy

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