Descriptions of the animal skills that Hannah and Becky develop are fascinating, as is the general immersion in the Tasmanian setting.

Nowra doesn’t sugarcoat this survival story at all, and the loss of Hannah’s parents, the girls’ behavioral transformation into predators (complete with bloody repasts), and the tragic deaths of Dave and Becky all carry visceral and emotional weight. When Becky runs away into the bush after a disastrous school experience, her father turns to Hannah to find her, but the reunion between the two girls ends in tragedy. Becky’s father tracks the girls down, using Hannah as bait to catch and kill Dave, and then separates the girls in an attempt to recivilize them. A pair of of Tasmanian tigers adopt the girls as their cubs and provide them with food, shelter, and warmth and the two girls quickly come to think of the animals (dubbed Dave and Corinna by Hannah) as family as they themselves grow increasingly feral. Intensely gripping, blending together horror and beauty, Into That Forest is a remarkable novel that deserves to be read and remembered.In the early twentieth century Tasmania, six-year-old Hannah’s life takes a dramatic turn when her family’s boat capsizes on a river during a storm, killing her parents and stranding Hannah and her slightly older friend Becky in the bush.

Life in the bush can be brutal but their ultimate return to civilisation, after four years with the tigers, proves to be even more traumatic and painful.Ī haunting and evocative tale of survival against all the odds, told in a memorable narrative voice, this story that will stay with readers long after they have closed the book. Isolated from all other human contact, they begin to forget their former way of life, and even their language. At first, they are afraid, but as the girls find themselves growing closer to the tigers in order to survive, they also uncover the wild side of themselves. Washed ashore, the two girls awake to find themselves alone in the wilderness, being watched over by a Tasmanian tiger. Hannah and her friend Becky are enjoying a pleasant day out on the river with Hannah's parents when disaster strikes and all four are swept overboard. An elderly woman in rural Tasmania recalls the extraordinary events of her childhood in this powerful and unusual short novel from an award-winning Australian author.

Into that forest by louis nowra