Swallow the air by Tara June Winch

Age 14+ Tara June Winch's novel leaves the reader breathless with the beauty of her lyrical language as she describes the sea and the land with loving detail and  the huge and often disturbing themes that the book explores: drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, single parents and searching for identity.

This is the story of fifteen year old May who, with her brother Billy, goes to live with Aunty when their mother dies. They both are searching for their place in the world and find it increasingly difficult to live with Aunty and her abusive partner. When Billy disappears after a violent episode, May decides to find her father and trace her aboriginal identity. Her journey takes her to the Northern Territory and the outback and through the people she meets, she discovers what family means and where she belongs.

Readers will gain an understanding of what it is like to be a young girl straddling two worlds, with a 'head-sick' Aboriginal mother and a white father who has abandoned her. We all need acceptance and family and this reading will help its listeners recognise those who love us and whom we love.

The author, of Wiradjuri, Afghan and English heritage, is the 2004 Winner of the David Unaipon Award for Indigenous Writers. This book could be read as a series of inter-linked short stories or as a whole and would be a very valuable addition to texts looking at adolescents coming of age and Aboriginal experience. Highly recommended.

Pat Pledger