Australian Children's Literature

I’ve been reading Australian children’s and young adult fantasy for a grant application, and this week came to Isobelle Carmody’s The Gathering (1993). It was joint winner of the CBCA Book Award for Older Readers in 1994. Unlike awards for adult fiction, which tend to marginalise genre fiction, the CBCA prize lists includes many fantasy titles among its young adult prize winners. As part of the project I’m planning, I’m interested in thinking about how Australian children’s and young adult fantasy replicates familiar tropes and conventions from British and American examples, but also in how it might depart from them. The Gathering struck me as unusual because it depicts an Australian small town that is overcome by forces of darkness. Protagonist Nathanial moves to Cheshunt with his mother and dog, The Tod, after a peripatetic childhood in the wake of his parents’ divorce. He discovers that there is a culture of surveillance surrounding teenagers in the town, and is soon pressured by