Review:
Pix and me by Carolyn Ching
Hachette (Lothian), 2008. ISBN97873441058 0
When the Japanese planes bomb Singapore, and their army swarms in, Andy
knows that what has happened before is only minor compared with
now. His father, a botanist employed to catalogue the plants in
the small colony, is taken away with his wife and Andrew runs off
taking his monkey, a macaque called Pix with him. As they wander
through the jungle looking for food and water, Andrew recalls the time
leading up to the invasion, and how the Japanese, called Kempeitai,
infiltrated the island long before the invasion.
In the jungle he happens across a young girl called Emmeline, a girl
used to getting her own way and only dealing with servants. They clash
as the girl begins to tell Andy what to do, but soon they come to rely
on each other to survive.
A fascinating look at the plight of the inhabitants of Singapore at the
start of the Pacific War,
Pix and me has all the ingredients to
make it
an eagerly absorbed story. Slow to get going, and overly long
(310pages), with extensive descriptive passages, the book will need to
be sold to students who want to read an historical novel, especially
those who are intrigued with our involvement with war in countries
close to Australia.
Fran Knight
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