Just So Stories

Allen & Unwin

October 2024

ISBN:9781761180491

Publisher:A&U Children’s

Imprint:A & U Children

You know as soon as you hold a new Garth Nix book that you are in for a treat. Usually a creepy, oft-bizarre and freakish treat, but a treat none-the-less. Your readers who are into such vibes as Stranger Things, The X-Files, Wednesday, Strange Objects, The Water Tower… and indeed, anything that smacks of other-worldly with a hefty dose of scare-the-bejeezus-out-of-you, are going to go mad for this. They may even go mad reading it [just kidding!].

Set in an alternate 70s (almost) Canberra, Garth has interwoven elements of his own experiences growing up in our nation’s capital with a tale of ordinary kids facing extraordinary circumstances.

Kim considers himself a regular kid, although living with his weird parents that’s difficult. His parents, it would seem, see themselves as alternative and in-tune with all things positive and natural. They have changed their birth names to meaningless (to others), but significant for them, new ones. They manage and caretake an experimental farm on the outskirts of Canberra. They don’t believe in TV, reading fiction novels, having fun of any kind and have expectations of their children, especially Kim, re working with them that border on child abuse.

Kim’s little sister Eila is a child prodigy, gifted with a very superior intellect, but very short on social graces. Kim (rightfully, Chimera Xanthoparmelia Basalt) and Eila (Eileithyia Indigofera Basalt) [see what I mean about child abuse?] share best friends, Bennie (Benjamina Ramella Chance) and, her younger sister, Madir (Madir Sofitela Chance) and have done so since each pair met in preschool. Obviously, even for the weird 70s those names were going to stand out.

Kim and Bennie have recently discovered a fabulous new game called Dungeons & Dragons and have been playing it (secretly, in Kim’s case) with another pair of friends for the past few weeks. When the foursome are hanging out by the lake one day, Eila suddenly walks straight into the water and retrieves a strange globe from the mud and weeds. Immediately, as strange lights appear in the globe and even stranger thoughts invade Kim’s and Bennie’s minds and bodies, Kim begs Eila to throw the globe back into the weeds. But Eila is already enthralled by ‘her’, soon to be known as Astra, and from that moment on, Kim faces an almost insurmountable battle to free not only his sister but, potentially, the world from the menace and danger that Astra – and Eila – pose.

Eila’s steadily accelerating power to control minds and more, via Astra, is both disturbing, and only too frighteningly parallel to historical incidents. Kim may well not have Eila’s intellectual capability, but he does possess common sense, rational thinking and problem-solving [see the D&D connections here!] in spades. I know who I’d want on my team! And the juxtaposition of such a wild plot and staid, [dare I say dull?] 70s ‘Canberra’ is a literary coup.

While recommended by some for 10 years upwards, I would suggest that it would need to be a fairly mature and discerning reader, and I’d be more inclined to lean towards to your Year 6 and up students. They, I think, are not only likely to be more able to absorb the implications, and unpack the layers in this, but also see correlations to real life and engender lively and rich discussions on such topics as ‘for the greater good’ and ‘all adults know best’, not to mention, the wielding of power by those not truly able or tempered (experience-wise) to handle it with grace and empathy.

As always, as with any of Garth’s books over many years, this gets my most fulsome approval with a 5 🌠🌠🌠🌠🌟 rating.