Zana Fraillon and Bren MacDibble, The Raven’s Song, Allen & Unwin, October 2022, 288 pp., RRP $17.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781761065798
We’ve been told over and over we’re the generation that waits for the world to recover. We endure the heat. We endure the storms, the wrecking floods, the long droughts, the days of smoke as fire burns, coz this is what the honoured earth does when she’s trying to recover.
A warning with what the future may hold, this novel hits close to home in its depiction of a post-pandemic and ecologically destroyed world where life has had to change drastically in order to continue.
Written by two acclaimed Australian authors, The Raven’s Song is split between the perspectives of two twelve-year-olds born a century apart. Phoenix lives in a near future world that is being ravaged by climate change and pandemics, while humanity desperately clings to normality. Shelby lives a simple, sustainable life alongside the other 349 kind, ethical people on their seven hundred hectares – waiting while the earth around them heals. The discoveries these children make have the potential to upend their worlds – for better, or worse.
This is a gripping novel that walks the fine line of the post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, and paranormal genres. Indeed, I was surprised by how dark this novel is at times, containing fairly heavy scenes of child death while being aimed at readers as young as 9 years old. Shelby is a loveable protagonist: unruly, foolishly courageous, and helping others even if it means risking her own safety. Her chapters are written in first person, but I personally found reading the questionable grammar of a 12-year-old’s narration more frustrating than endearing. I particularly liked Phoenix, who held a great love for his family but was haunted by strange visions everyone told him weren’t real. Themes of environmental degradation, healing, grief, and authoritarianism are present throughout the novel.
An overall enthralling and hopeful novel, The Raven’s Song tells a story of endurance, kindness, and recovery.
Reviewed by Libby Boas