Across The Creek
When his friend Jenice disappears, Aidan searches for her. He crosses a forbidden creek into an abandoned mine and discovers a strange world. A fantasy for younger readers based on Cornish folklore.
Themes: Cornish folklore, friendship, lost children.
Award:
Winner of Holyer an Gof Children's Book Award, Cornwall, 2005.
Published 2017
Stone Table Books
Australia
What people are saying
Time after time, Aidan is confronted with the most fearful creatures and happenings that threatens the escape, and it takes all his strength and courage to resist the melodies and music that has the power to lure him and the others, like sirens of the deep, into a certain time trap.
What Rosanne has done so movingly, tantilisingly and with such clear story-telling, is to provide us with some music of her own, to lure and entice us back into childhood, so we too remember the times when we crossed creeks, and wondered what would happen if . .
Here then is a story with the sense of the fantastic. It is a book you can't put down and it fills that part of you that yearns to hold something within you that is more than that which can be seen, touched or felt in the everyday – it leaves you satisfied as if your soul has been nourished, like the Human Children felt when they ate of the sweetest fairy food.
Janeen Brian, author
This is a fantastic story about how friendship can make you much braver. This is good book for people who love adventure.
Olivia Stocks, age 10.
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[Aidan’s] journey is in the great literary tradition of the fairy story. Aidan is in a dream world, which occasionally turns into a nightmare, where the fantasy can be believed, yet it is based in reality. A child is lost, a mother grieves, the humour is down to earth, but evil is also present. All is set against the historical Australian background of the last 160 years with the coming of the Cornish to work the mines. It is a clever mix. I loved this story, well-researched, well-written and memorable.
Ann Trevenen Jenkin, School Libraries, Cornwall
A multicultural fantasy, this adventure incorporates characters from Cornish folklore who have arrived with miners to settle in 1840s South Australia. The narrative is underscored by a town’s grief for children who have disappears throughout its history. An unwilling hero finds himself in the other world of a disused mine searching for a friend, discovering the secrets of the mine and strength of character. It is a well written story in which the powers of good and evil take on their traditional vestiges of light and dark, to battle for possession of the children.
N. Chaffey, School Libraries & Information Literacy
This wonderful fantasy adventure novel tells of a young boy’s discovery of a strange land … Loosely based on an old Cornish story, the story is fast-paced, enthralling and exciting. The characters are personable and believable with lots of humorous, magical dialogue. Readers will battle with our unwilling hero as he overcomes fears and obstacles … the detailed site map gives authenticity to the tale … I thoroughly recommend this to primary school readers.
Reading Time
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