The Song Walker

Zillah Bethell's The Song Walker is a desert mystery for 10 year olds about a girl who comes round in the Australian outback unable to remember her own name.

What happens

She's wearing a black silky dress and just one shoe. There's a green swirled marble in her pocket and a heavy metal case she can't open. She can't tell where she's ended up, she's sunburnt and she's desperately thirsty, and the pool of water she keeps staggering towards keeps moving away.

Then a girl with a slingshot saves her from a snake.

Tarni is about thirteen, sharp-tongued and completely at home in the bush. She feeds the lost girl billygoat plums, stitches her a new shoe and gives her a name, Moonflower. (Moonflower thinks it's a ridiculous name. Tarni thinks it's deadly.)

Tarni is Alyawarre and she's walking away from her home town, following a song that tells her where the water is. She won't say why she's out there on her own. She's also carrying a bellbird with a broken wing in a little cage she made herself.

It's told in the lost girl's own voice, in short, dizzy bursts at first, as if she's still half asleep. Then flashes of memory start breaking through. A voice telling her to hurry up. A plate of kale and lentil salad. Each one is a tiny clue, and you'll find yourself guessing along with her about who she was before. (She's rather snooty in those memories, which is interesting!)

The best bit is the friendship. Tarni teases her mercilessly, asking whether she's the queen of Australia when she won't eat out of a pan. But she also teaches her how to ration water, find food and make fire with a flint. You can feel Moonflower slowly toughening up.

There's some real bush life that a squeamish reader should know about. Tarni kills a rabbit for their supper, and tells a hair-raising campfire story about the yowie, a spirit monster said to rip people's arms and legs off. It's told with a grin rather than to frighten, but it's vivid.

What to read next

For another girl who knows her land inside out, try Zillah Bethell's The Shark Caller. Blue Wing lives on an island in Papua New Guinea and helps old Siringen call sharks for tourists, until a professor arrives with a daughter called Maple whom she's expected to look after.