Celebrated author Jackie French is quickly making a name for herself in the Historical Fiction for Children genre. Having already received acclaim for her works Somewhere around the Corner (Harper Collins 1994), Soldier on the Hill (Harper Collins 1997), Daughter of the Regiment (Harper Collins 1998), and the award winning Hitler’s Daughter (Harper Collins 1999), French has released her newest Historical Fiction novel, Tom Appleby, Convict Boy (Angus & Robertson 2004).

Tom is orphaned on the streets of London at the tender age of eight. He is sold to a chimney sweep who puts him to work and feeds him very little. After witnessing the death of a good friend, Tom turns to crime to try and start a new life. After being convicted of stealing, Tom is sentenced to deportation to Botany Bay and sails out with the First Fleet.

French’s incredible knack for description pushes this novel along and makes it hard to turn away. It is hard at times to imagine this is what life was really like for a convict yet, as the reader, you believe every word.

Being historical, obviously we cannot directly understand or connect with this protagonist, yet French develops this character with so much emotion that you are drawn to him and you feel for him even if it’s hard for us to imagine living in horrendous conditions in the filthy basement of a house or at the bottom of a ship for months at a time, rarely even glimpsing sunshine.

This novel is an engaging tale of courage, determination and survival, one boy’s fight for new life and prosperity in a new land.

The story begins with Tom as an eight year old, in 1785, progressing through the next five years of his life, to life in the colonies in the new land.  But every few chapters the story pushes forward to 1868, when Tom is an old man, Thomas, with great-grandchildren and 4000 acres of land. It i with these few short paragraphs in the future that we discover more about our protagonist and his thoughts on his past, and his secret convict past that he feverishly hides from his family.

Tom Appleby, Convict Boy also shows us the limited view of the Indigenous Australian people that the early settlers had. They call them ‘Indians’, presumably because they believe them to be the same as the Indians they knew lived in the Americas. Tom describes the ‘Indians’ as being “brown rather than black”. Tom also loosely describes the boomerang as a “bent stick”, and is confused by the ‘Indians’ lack of clothing. This lack of knowledge of the Indigenous people to the early settlers is clear throughout the text. At one point, Tom ponders on the heritage of these ‘Indians’,

“It was strange to think that this country had a history, that it hadn’t started when the English ships arrived. Did the Indians have their own stories of times past? But they had no books, or dwelling places, so how could they have a history?” (pg 187).

French’s newest Historical Fiction novel is an eye opener to children across this country interested in learning about our country’s early heritage, and what life was like in the 18^th Century.

Tom Appleby, Convict Boy is an imaginative story, powerfully written and inundated with descriptive text that assists the reader in imagining the world as it was in the 1790’s. Jackie French expertly brings Tom’s world to life, engaging readers of all ages and allowing the reader to feel and experience a harsh life that otherwise we could never understand.

Other books by this author:
Hitler's Daughter (HarperCollins 1999)
The Black House (Koala Books, 2003)
Vampire Slugs on Callisto (Koala Books, 2003)
Too many pears  (Koala Books, 2003)

Review by Erin Theresa Ure

This review was originally submitted as part of the course work in Australian Children's Literature.

© 2005 Erin Theresa Ure