Into That Forest – Louis Nowra

This book is an emotional journey, following two girls who get lost in the Australian bush and are taken care of by tigers. When it arrived unexpectedly I wasn’t sure it was my kind of thing but now I’ve read it I know I would have missed out by not reading.

The story is just incredible. The language makes it flow in a strange way but one that’s actually quite easy to follow. There is an air of innocence, despite the narrator being old when she is telling the story, because of the age of the characters. The tigers are never scary and because they protect the girls from other predators the girls soon learn to trust them. I was impressed by the contrast between Hannah and Becky as Hannah was perfectly happy to conform to the way of the tigers whereas Becky wanted to keep her human ways.

I wasn’t expecting for the girls to be put back into society as early as they were, obviously I knew it happened as Hannah had re-learnt how to speak, but I liked that it gave another side of their story and where things went from there took the story in an interesting direction.

Into That Forest was a fantastic, emotional journey and is a perfect adventure for children, there are some expletives which I was a bit shock at as I thought the audience was towards the middle grade area but I think with an adult reading to children and perhaps adapting that language this book would be great for younger readers too. The press release said it would be a great read for fans of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and The Life of Pi and I cannot help but agree, this is a must read in my opinion!

Into That Forest was published on 7th January by Egmont. My copy was sent from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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