The Pull of the Moon

 The Pull of the Moon

Reviewed By  Nan van Dissel       June 13, 2025

 

Author  Pip Smith

Distributor:      UWAP
ISBN:                 978-1-76080-303-2
Publisher:         Universtity of Western Australia Press
Release Date:   June 2025  

Website:    https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/the-pull-of-the-moon 

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The small most northerly external territory of Australia, Christmas Island is the setting of award-winning author, Pip Smith’s latest powerful young adult book.  While this novel centres around the 2010 sinking of the Janga, an Indonesian fishing boat carrying eighty-nine asylum seekers, it also highlights the issues around the standoff of the MVTampa, detention centres, and destroying of Christmas Island’s unique natural environment. 

Through the eyes of 13-year-old Christmas Islander Coralie, readers are exposed to life on this distant island and its wonderfully diverse but threatened biodiversity. Life for her family begins to change as the island is increasingly used as a place for off shore detention. In the early hours of December 15, 2010, the locals are alerted to the Janga disaster by sounds of screaming from the shore. It is through the eyes of Coralie and Iranian Zahra and her 11-year-old brother Ali that readers experience the enormity of this harrowing event.    

I highly recommend this well researched, sensitively written account of an event, which shocked many Australians and left them questioning their beliefs. As it humanizes refugees, teachers of young adults will find this the perfect book to discuss issues surrounding Australia’s immigration policy involving asylum seekers and refugees.

Teen Fiction, Young Adult