Spotlight on Oz YA: Clancy of the Undertow
I'm often reminded how lucky I am to have grown up a reader in a country like Australia, where there are so many writers publishing complex and diverse books particularly for young people. Some would argue that on the diversity front, we aren't quite there yet, but through important discussions I see happening every day on social media and at conferences in the non-virtual world, I believe that the YA genre will probably be the first to get there. Far from being navel-gazing stories which would only interest teenagers, novels in the YA genre deal with issues which affect people of all ages, but look at them through the eyes of teen protagonists, who are often observers to difficult situations but don't always get a chance to make their voices heard. Clancy of the Undertow by Brisbane writer and bookseller Christopher Currie is a shining example of the power of Young Adult literature. Whilst reading it, I was reminded of many other great YA novels; those of ...