Tomorrow, When The War Began

By John Marsden

Pan Macmillan Australia

This seven-book Australian series has set a new standard in teenage fiction. The books deal with a group of teenagers who were out bushwalking when an (unnamed) country invaded Australia. Their parents and friends have been interned in concentration camps from which they are let out in working parties, cleaning up the houses and properties that were once theirs. They are making them ready for the wave of settlers that is to follow the soldiers.

The teenagers have to learn to hide out in the bush. Since they are mostly from grazing properties they have an advantage in bushcraft over the invaders but they still have to build up their supplies by taking them from the empty houses. They also make dangerous trips into town to find out what happened to their parents. They have a secluded spot in the bush where they probably won’t be found. This is just as well since there is treachery among some of the adults and they also have to learn how to identify and deal with this.

Tensions start to rise within the group, only partly resolved when they determine to fight back in whatever way they can. Ellie, who narrates the story, tells of the shifting emotions, romances and interpersonal problems within the group. These are covered intelligently and sensitively. Teenagers are capable of quite deep emotions too, not just adults. These teens have been thrown onto their own resources without the support of adults and they must grow up quickly. Each of the kids has unsuspected talents and they must pool these to take the fight back to the invaders.

The series has been immensely successful. It has been translated into five languages so far and a film of the first episode was released in September. It has probably done more than any other book in Australia to encourage teenagers to go back to reading and it looks set to continue that success overseas.

Comparisons with that incredibly silly U.S. film Red Dawn are inevitable. The Australian teens are real people, not wannabe John Wayne types. They have real fears and doubts and must conquer these. They cannot beat off the invaders by themselves, but they do their inadequate best.

The books are intended as a series for teenagers but I really enjoyed it. It is many years (well, decades really) since I was a teenager but I found this to be good reading even at my advanced years.

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