Jackie French, Tigg and the Bandicoot Bushranger, HarperCollins Publishers, December 2024, 320 pp., RRP $17.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781460763506
Jackie French adds to her well-researched novels set in Australia’s colonial period. This time it is 1859 in the goldrush era and moves between Ballarat and southern New South Wales but includes information about the thousands of Chinese men who walked the long road from Robe in South Australia to the goldfields in Victoria and NSW.
Tigg, aged 12 and whose gender is initially hidden, is the youngest bushranger on the Ballarat goldfields. Tigg has grown up an orphan, loosely supported by Ma Murphy, a baby farmer, living in relative poverty but learning how to grow vegetables from a Chinese gardener, bush skills from Mrs O’Hare, a Wadawurrung woman, and becoming literate with ‘Gentleman Once’. Tigg only takes what he thinks the coach passengers can afford and not those items which are precious to them. When a robbery goes wrong, Tigg must flee from all he has known. On the way he meets all sorts of challenges, makes new friendships and learns how to judge people. Is Henry Lau a friend or enemy?
For me the strength of the book was in the section describing the journey, on foot, made by Tigg and the thousands of Chinese: their daily tedious and challenging journey in Australia, and incidentally learning about the role that they then played in our early history. French highlights, but doesn’t labour, the deep racism which existed then and for so long afterwards. For me, one of the weaknesses was the reveal of Tigg’s past life and true family connections, told through Mr Rudolf’s monologue story. It was all too neatly tied together but filled in many of the mysteries throughout the story.
The overall result is a good historical novel for those middle school readers who enjoy this genre. It is perhaps a little bit long, containing too many elements but French must be congratulated for empathetically including some of the less savoury aspects of our Australian past.
Reviewed by Maureen Mann