All Our Shimmering Skies

Welcome back everyone and thank you for joining me in reviewing the May episode: All Our Shimmering Skies by Trent Dalton. I told you last month this was a historical fiction and this is still true. The story takes place during the second World War and the Japanese are invading Australia. The plot of this novel, however is much more centred around a mythic quest.

Dalton is a journalist, author, and screenwriter. He was nominated for a few awards like the United Nations of Australia Media Peace Award, Walkley, Queensland Journalist Of the Year Award, etc. His most famous novel, Boy Swallows Universe has been adapted as a TV show on Netflix. All Our Shimmering Skies was published in 2020 and this book brings in much more than you would expect.

The story starts with Molly Hook, a young girl working as a gravedigger. She makes it her life’s mission to undo the curse of Longboat Bob that he put on her family. Eventually, she will meet Yukio, a Japanese fighter pilot who will join her on her journey through the Australia wilderness.

As always, I’m going to start with the good parts. Very vivid and colourful descriptions and it’s super interesting to see the integration of magical realism into the novel. The writing appeals to the senses, especially sight and touch. The descriptions are very focused on the visual aspects of the flora and fauna of Australia as well as the texture of the surroundings. As you can guess, it’s very centred around character development and the setting. Molly really solidifies her personality and character as she grows up and does not lose her positive outlook on life. She had some good mentors and people to look up too. The emphasis is really put on the whole adventure quest side of the story rather than the actual war going on. Now this might be a way for Molly to cope with reality and the situation she is in, but this is not as much a war story as you think. We actually get more about the war from Yukio and his plot line rather than from Molly. Like the descriptions, it’s rich in symbolism, elements of style, metaphors, and life lessons. It feels like a children’s book and yet it is deep and requires an extensive analysis. I definitely see this as book on a high school curriculum.

It feels like a children’s book and yet it is deep and requires an extensive analysis.

Ok so for me, I was disappointed that there was not much behind the war side of the story, I really went it with the impression that we would see another side to it. Since the story takes place in Australia, I saw this as an opportunity to see a side to WWII we might not typically see in other books that tend to be more focused on Europe or the United States. So I will say that I was disappointed. I’m also not a big fan about how slowly this novel started. Being labelled as an adventure story comes with some expectations of the quest starting relatively soon. We got a lot of context and backstories to many characters. It was a nice touch and added to the depth of the characters, the story didn’t really start until like 30 to maybe 40% of the book. And even then, we often got flashbacks from characters that stayed in Darwin (where Molly lives) while Molly was off trying to undo the curse.

I would give this 3 to 3.5 stars. It definitely has quality and I would recommend it over most popular novels nowadays, especially for kids and young adults. It can however deter less avid readers because of it’s slow beginning and by the run-on sentences, tongue twisting phrases and repetition effects. It might be more suitable for young adults more than actual kids just because of the gore and violence due to the war and vengeful nature of some characters.

And now our little quest is at an end so thanks for tuning in! June is the first true month of summer in my eyes and I’m going to hold you to my promise of reviewing some of the books that made it on my Book Medley review. If you haven’t listened to it, give it a shot, you might find inspiration for your next read on there. I am dedicating the next episode to The Cardturner by Louis Sachar, the author of Holes.

Until next time, keep exploring those pages!