Crow Country by Kate Constable

Find it on the fiction shelf: F CON

“Crow comes from this place; this place comes from Crow. And Crow has work for you.”

Totemism is a part of Aboriginal lore that binds people to the land and the animals, and in Crow Country we are introduced to Crow, totem of the Dja Dja Wurrung Yung Balug Clan. When 10-year-old Sadie reluctantly moves from Melbourne with her mother, Ellie, to Boort in country Victoria, all she sees is, “… parched yellow paddocks and empty roads.” But when Sadie stumbles across Indigenous rocks and carvings long hidden within a dried up lake-bed, she is suddenly confronted by Crow who implores her to correct a grave injustice that took place there long ago. 

To do this, Sadie must time-slip back to the 1920s where she finds herself caught up in Boort’s complex history and its past stories of greed, war and prejudice. Sadie’s connection with the past extends to the present where she struggles to find her feet in this strange new place, and finds two new boys in her life who both have very different perspectives on culture and belonging. An ultimate ‘outsider’ Sadie must decide who to believe and what’s important in order to fix past wrongs for Crow who is never far away.

This is an enjoyable book that will take you into the very heart of Australia's history and how this history can shape all that it to come... but remember too that history is never unchangeable.

- Mrs Crisafulli