Hazel Edwards, Wasted?, BookPOD, October 2024, 250 pp., RRP $28 (pbk), ISBN 9781763580237
Hazel Edwards’ name will be familiar to most readers for her delightful series of picture books, beginning with There’s a Hippopotamus on our Roof Eating Cake, published in 1980. Since then, she has written numerous books for children of all ages. She was awarded an OAM for Literature in 2013.
Hazel writes young adult fiction to explore certain political and social issues, in the belief that 13–19-year-olds ‘can make a difference and are often passionate about social issues but unsure if they or their thinking can make a difference’.
In Wasted? she explores the challenges faced by asylum seekers together with innovative ways to use ocean garbage to create biofuel and an income for refugees looking to create a new life. The story is told by Kit, a 16-year-old boy who joins his mother on a shanty boat beside a garbage patch in the middle of an ocean. Volunteers on this floating craft are working together to create a utopian society that can gain economic independence by creating biofuel from the surrounding garbage.
There is a lot of information in this book, some of it quite technical. Kit arrives on the boat knowing nothing, so it’s via his questions we discover how this boat operates and what the people on it hope to achieve. Some readers may feel overwhelmed by the amount of information provided – in Hazel’s accompanying notes she says she was ‘conscious of getting the research background in’. This leads to the book being heavy on dialogue; there is a lot of ‘telling’ and very little ‘showing’.
According to her WIP Challenges in Writing, which she kindly provided with a copy of the book, Kit was 13 years old in her original draft, but she made him older to appeal to a wider audience. Unfortunately, he still reads like a 13-year-old in the way he speaks and acts, with a limited vocabulary (for example, he needed the words ‘toxin’ and ‘dystopia’ explained to him).
She debated with herself in regard to how to end the book, asking herself if leaving it open-ended was a cop-out for the writer – she has chosen to leave it ‘open for the reader to decide what choice might have been made’. I found this ending unsatisfactory, but other readers might find it intriguing.
It is important that books for younger readers are available that address the issues surrounding both climate change and the refugee crisis. I hope this book inspires readers to further explore both these vital issues. More information is available at the author’s website.
Reviewed by Gaby Meares
