Review: The Other Sister

"Being in our town after the war was like being at the seaside when the tide rushes back in... bringing the men back... But... the beach had changed... they wandered over the dunes, confused, trying to find the place they knew from before."

It is 1920 in small-town, post-war New Zealand. Thirteen year old Tilly, quiet and observant, notices the changing shape of the country. She feels in the air the hope of normal life for these men, returned from war, as one mixed with deep sadness. The nation's psyche has been forever damaged. The returning men are variously shell-shocked with deep shadows in their eyes, silent or angry.

Tilly lives in her small family of females. Her pa was a Boer War victim, so she is acutely aware of mortality and lives that change in an instant. Her older sister, subject of the previous book in this young adult series, had gained respect as a telegram girl. Now it is Tilly's turn to shine.

Author Philippa Werry has written a lot of historical fiction for young people. She engages students with real periods of upheaval and calamity. They can experience these scenarios alongside the protagonist. Tilly is young and still innocent but it is a naivete touched by her personal losses and awareness of a wider sense of grief, shame and general misery.

Werry fills in an extensive cast of war veterans, placing Tilly in their midst. A schoolgirl, she has taken up work in a convalescent home where she deals with men in all shades of coherency and ruin. Yet she finds they do not want her pity or tears, and many of them share a sense of conviviality where at moments their senses of humour blaze through.

Werry's prose and style is age appropriate. Tilly finds herself both in child and adult worlds and she interacts accordingly: polite and restrained with adults, intimate with her close friends. The young people share concerns with contemporary readers. They are a little awkward, nervous on the first day of school, hesitant in the company of strange adults, wondering about relationships and the future. Tilly, like her readers, is coming of age. She is also developing a strong sense of ethics and Werry addresses issues (of racism, class, sexism, and other forms of bigotry) through her.

We are introduced to dilemmas which are both of their time and universal, such as how to treat difference, represented in the young Chinese fruit seller; the Indian immigrants banned from standard accommodation; British war bride, Beryl; the school friend of German heritage, and of course, those injured men. Tilly displays compassion and she knows that many wounds are invisible.

There is a real art in writing convincingly for young people. If the language does not compel or the plot does not grip, then a young reader will quickly turn away. Here Werry again shows she can capably manage both fronts. Within the broader setting of post-war life, she gives us historical curiosities, for example, the visit of the Prince of Wales, the celebratory mood of which contrasts bluntly with the pervasive sadness. Her prose admirably mimics a young person: Tilly wears a blazer "as warm as a sun-baked pebble," and the convalescent home is similar to an Alice-in-Wonderland world "where everything was upside down."

In Memoriam notices form a motif, like those we see in our cemeteries. Tilly scans them daily, seeking to give the dead men's lives meaning and longevity. This story forms a captivating introduction for young readers to a national trauma - and the power of empathy to make a real difference in the lives of damaged heroes.

Reviewed by Jessie Neilson