The Road to Gundagai, the third book in the Matilda Saga, was one of my favourite novels of 2013 - it reads as a standalone, but I knew I had to go back to the beginning with this volume, A Waltz for Matilda.Ī Waltz for Matilda deserves to be better known and more widely read than it currently is. But I had to wait till I'd moved back to Australia, in late 2013, before I could start reading her novels. I was first introduced to French through her priceless picture book, Diary of a Wombat. Both are well deserved, and I hope she receives even more recognition. Jackie French is a prolific writer and the Australian Children’s Laureate she was also, this year (2015), declared the 'Senior Australian of the Year'. But it's not only the land she has to struggle against: her neighbour, the wealthy and powerful squatter Mr Drinkwater, presents a challenge of his own. With the assistance of a local Aboriginal woman called Auntie Love and Auntie's nephew, Mr Sampson, and her dog, Hey You, Matilda turns her energy and willingness to learn to making her dad's dream for Moura come true. But all too soon, a shocking and tragic event unfolds and Matilda must once again turn to her own abilities to survive in this harsh, drought-afflicted land.

Her dad is full of plans, and Matilda learns a new version of the truth as to why she'd never met him before. When she does finally meet her father, it's a happy reunion. Matilda throws in her lot with the working men, who give her a lift into town where her father will be - it's a big night for the union, and her dad is the man who began it in Gibber's Creek. Three men are there to pick up a union speaker who rode the train with her also waiting to be picked up are a well-dressed woman and her daughter, who's about Matilda's age. When the train stops for Gibber's Creek, she finds no station or town, but the faint demarcation of a road which she might not have spotted if a wagon wasn't stopped at it. Instead, she takes her few meagre possessions, learns which train to catch from her friend Tommy, a young boy with a knack for machinery and inventing, and heads off to find her father.Īll she really knows is the name of her father's farm - Moura - and the nearest town, Gibber's Creek.

Their landlady, Mrs Dawkins, is willing to let her stay if she works for her board, but Matilda has no intention of becoming a maid. When her mother dies, leaving her alone in the world, Matilda is left with few choices. She continues to write to the father she's never met, who is building a home for them in the country and getting established before they move - or so her mother has always told her, and she's never doubted it. Matilda is just twelve, pretending to be fourteen so she can work in the nearby jam factory while her mother is ill and bedridden.

A Waltz for Matilda by Jackie French