Australian author Herrick (By the River
) takes readers to the present-day outback in this moving story told in verse, which unfolds through the first-person narratives of 16-year-old Lucy Harding and 15-year-old Jake Jackson. Though they are neighbors, their lives could not be more different. Jake has a happy and loving family; Lucy's home life is dismal. Her father drinks and blames Lucy for his unhappiness. "I was bad luck./ I was the cause of the drought,/ the bushfire,/ the floods./ He was stuck here because of me." Rather than stand up to him, Lucy spends her days trying to avoid him. Anything she cares about he destroys ("I was so happy watching the bird/ .../ I didn't see Dad raise the gun/ and fire"). When Jake's father finds another sheep ripped to bits, the man is convinced the culprit is a wolf, and Lucy tells Jake she knows where it lives. Herrick smoothly portrays how Lucy's thoughts about the wild creature allow her to work through her feelings about her father. While on their trek, Jake is injured, and the two spend the night in a cave where Lucy tells him about her unhappy home life. In Jake's friendship Lucy finds her inner strength ("What Jake and I got./ That can't be touched;/ it can't be broken./ My father can bash me/ all he likes,/ but I know now,/ he can't touch me"). Herrick's fully realized characters convey their hopes in this touching, well-written story. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)
