Millie and the Night Heron

Catherine Bateson (author)

University of Qld Press, Australia: 2005; 181pp

ISBN: 0702235261 12+

Genre: realistic fiction

Issues: change, family, friendship, identity, relationships

CBCA Honour Book, Book of the Year, Younger Readers, 2006.

Millie Childes likes her unusual family - her artist mother, her scientist father, her adopted aunt Sheri and her son Mitchell. They are good for each other, providing encouragement, support, laughter and love. When Sheri finds a new boyfriend and moves out, Millie accepts that things must change but is very unsure about her mother's decision to move towns and get a job.

She has a hard time making friends at her new school, having little time for ‘bland' girls who are only interested in boys, brand name clothes, and conforming to the schoolyard pecking order. School camp helps her forge friendships with some other independent minded teenagers but when she arrives home to find her own mother has acquired a boyfriend, Millie is not quite sure how to react. Having been raised in an intelligent and unconventional household, Millie is an intelligent and unconventional, unusually mature teenager but it seems that too much is changing too suddenly.

This is a beautifully crafted novel containing powerful characterisations and written with a great affection and sympathy for strong-minded, creative, intelligent people who often feel isolated as a result of ‘being different'. There is an almost Austen-like exploration of the possibilities of new relationships between single mothers and their boyfriends.

In Millie, Bateson has created a very believable teenager - an attractive, interesting girl with a positive attitude who is sensitive to the adults she loves. Millie is not perfect, however, and swings between mature and immature behaviour and reactions in a way that is typical of teens. This is realistic fiction at its very best.