Jackie French. I can’t really put into words adequately how much I love Jackie French’s books. They are simply amazing, astounding, fantastic, and brilliant. She has a written a lot of historical fiction novels for pre-teens and teens (also I admit it I still love them!).
I remember first being introduced to her books by my aunt who gave me one for a birthday or Christmas one year. I don’t think that I read it for a while because the cover did not look at all appealing and the blurb didn’t thrill me much either but when I read it I instantly fell in love and raced off to borrow all her other books at the local library.
The first book I read was titled ‘Valley of Gold’. It tells the stories of the valley throughout the ages from its creation to the time of the gold rushes. It tells stories about aborigines, European settlement, gold rushes, Chinese immigration, bushrangers, and relations between indigenous and European people, world wars, the depression and natural disasters. Like all her stories the main protagonist is always a character around her targeted audience’s age- a teenager.
Here is a list of some of the titles. From the titles of some of them you will be able to tell roughly what they are about.
· Pharaoh
· They came on Viking ships
· Hitler’s Daughter
· Tom Appleby Convict Boy
· A Rose for the Anzac Boys
· A Waltz for Matilda
· Somewhere around the corner
· The night they stormed Eureka
· Soldier on the Hill
My favourite in High school was ‘Somewhere around the corner’ about a girl who goes back in time to the depression.
I remember first being introduced to her books by my aunt who gave me one for a birthday or Christmas one year. I don’t think that I read it for a while because the cover did not look at all appealing and the blurb didn’t thrill me much either but when I read it I instantly fell in love and raced off to borrow all her other books at the local library.
The first book I read was titled ‘Valley of Gold’. It tells the stories of the valley throughout the ages from its creation to the time of the gold rushes. It tells stories about aborigines, European settlement, gold rushes, Chinese immigration, bushrangers, and relations between indigenous and European people, world wars, the depression and natural disasters. Like all her stories the main protagonist is always a character around her targeted audience’s age- a teenager.
Here is a list of some of the titles. From the titles of some of them you will be able to tell roughly what they are about.
· Pharaoh
· They came on Viking ships
· Hitler’s Daughter
· Tom Appleby Convict Boy
· A Rose for the Anzac Boys
· A Waltz for Matilda
· Somewhere around the corner
· The night they stormed Eureka
· Soldier on the Hill
My favourite in High school was ‘Somewhere around the corner’ about a girl who goes back in time to the depression.
I would encourage anyone from VELS level 3 and up to read them as they are an exciting and interesting way of looking at history. Sure the actual stories are made up but the facts are mostly correct and they are a good way of getting a feel for the times.
Students are much more interested in reading about history in this format most of the time rather than as non-fiction. Many authors take note of this example the Horrible Histories books. One book that I think also deserves a mention is ‘Black Snake The Daring of Ned Kelly’ by Carole Wilkinson. ‘Black Snake’. The author retells the story while including extracts from documents written at the time and the inclusion of personal stories based on the author’s own interpretations as to how the people involved may have felt at the time.
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