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On gallant wings
Edwards, Helen2025
Book
Thirteen-year-old Ava lives in Darwin with her family and their homing pigeons, of which Essie is Ava's favourite. A Japanese family live next door and their son, Kazuo, is Ava's best and only real friend. While Essie is taking her first flight, Ava overhears an argument between her mother, and her brother Fred, who has lied about his age to join the militia. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he trains in Darwin and later helps set up a pigeon service in Townsville. When most civilians are sent to safety down south, Ava remains in Darwin because her mother (who works in the post office) is essential to the war effort. Later that day, military police take Kazuo and his family away in a truck to a holding camp. On February 19, 1942, Darwin is bombed, and Ava and her mother are evacuated in a cattle train with the remaining women and children. After a very difficult journey, they arrive, exhausted, at her grandparent's home in Lake Boga, where they discover the extent of the damage to Darwin is being concealed from the population. Desperate to do something to contribute to the war effort, Ava's mother joins the WAAAF and begins work at the secret Catalina Flying Boat Base. The authorities decide to transfer Kazuo to the men's camp, separating him from his parents and siblings. Living by rules and rituals has always been how Ava has felt safe, but when Kazuo escapes, she is faced with the hardest decision of all -- whether to report a 'potentially dangerous' escapee to the authorities, or to protect a beloved friend.
Main title:
On gallant wings / Helen Edwards.
Author:
Edwards, Helen, author
Work:
Imprint:
Alexandra Hills, QLD : Riveted Press, 2025.©2025.
Collation:
209 pages ; 21 cm.
Audience:
Pre-adolescent.
ISBN:
9781763526051
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
174712