TEEN NOWRA
"When I think back, I see time were passing without me noticing. I lost me talking and lost me counting. It were the seasons I noticed: summer and autumn in the rain forests and hills and then winter down by the coast. We had four summers. That made me about ten years old and Becky a bit more than eleven. Four years to a child is like an eternity. Every year I live now passes quicker and quicker, but back then, a year were an eternity, so it were like a time without end."
Six year old Hannah and seven year old Becky survive a flood in the Tasmanian bush while out on a boat ride with Hannah's parents, who do not live. Hungry and cold, the girls follow a female tiger into the bush, who leads them to a cave where a male tiger also lives. While Hannah at once recognizes and accepts that the tigers (she names them Corinna and Dave) are taking the girls in as cubs, Becky resists. But eventually, in order to survive, Becky cannot fight her hunger, and joins in on a hunt.
For four years Hannah and Becky live with the tigers, hunting with them, sleeping next to them, and communicating with them through eye and body movements. They are able to differentiate between all the smells and animals in the bush and have the ability to see in the dark. They stop using language and walk on four legs most of the time. When the girls are rescued, they have trouble re-adjusting to human life, as though they are more tiger than human. Hannah and Becky's struggle to re-learn human behavior and speech is heartbreaking, especially because other kids and adults do not understand why the girls are so awkward.
Hannah narrates this story when she is 76 years old, apologizing at the beginning for her speech: "me language is bad cos I lost it and had to learn it again." Some readers may have trouble with her way of talking, but for me, her voice made the book more interesting than if she had been using perfect grammar.
I highly recommend Into That Forest if you...
* enjoy survival reads
* are interested in Australia
* are looking for something different to read
In addition to being a quick read, Into That Forest is a unique and very moving book (yes, I cried), and one of my favorite books of the year.
