Samera Kamaleddine, The Sideways Orbit of Evie Hart, HarperCollins Publishers, May 2023, 288 pp., RRP $17.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781460762653
The Sideways Orbit of Evie Hart is the second novel from Matilda Children’s Literature prize-winning author Samera Kamaleddine. As heart-warming and authentic as Half my Luck, this story is about 12-year-old Evie, her friends, frenemies, family, and her quest to understand life, the universe, and everything. Evie is lucky enough to have Miss Owen as a teacher, and through Evie, we hear how Miss Owen takes the Year 6 class through learning about the wonders and boundless curiosities of space. For Evie, keeping her mind grounded through the daily worries of life on Earth feels hard enough, never mind trying to understand where she fits into the inconceivable vastness of gazing into the night sky. Despite changes looming in family life, and the alien world of high school on the horizon, Miss Owen’s big questions about the universe provide Evie with strangely cosmic comfort.
The Sideways Orbit of Evie Hart includes mind-boggling snippets about space unveiled in every chapter. Wonderfully, this consists of the beautiful dark constellation astronomy of Australia’s Indigenous astronomers, the James Webb Telescope, mysterious dark matter, sustainability issues, and even sensitively tackling astronomy vs astrology which was a refreshing and insightful detail. Many possible pathways exist for tying this novel to curriculum and transdisciplinary inquiry.
Any story tackling a young person navigating big emotions about fitting into family, society, culture, and change is an important story to tell. Along with the immense backdrop of space to help ponder such big questions and worries, The Sideways Orbit of Evie Hart is a highly recommended read, clearly on a trajectory to help readers aged eight years and over to explore the magnitude of their agency as young people.
Reviewed by Angela Brown
