Our History: A House Divided
In a crisis, take a stand ... A coming of age story, set against the Dismissal of the government in 1975 as battle lines are drawn, democracy is on the edge, and all of it is far too close to home.
When another national crisis puts Juliet’s family beach trip on hold, Juliet is disappointed, but not surprised. When your dad has a key job in the federal government, even faraway crises hit close to home, and change is the only constant. It’s 1975 and Juliet has a lot to look forward to. It's the last year of primary school, wrongs are being set right, and there’s new attitudes, new opportunities ... as well as new friends. But as Juliet gets to know more about the people around her and the times that shape her, there are plenty of surprises still in store.
But politics is casting a long shadow over the country, and it seems nothing can save Juliet, her family, and her friendships, from the biggest crisis of all.
Creators
Clare Hallifax has worked as a writer, editor and publisher for over thirty years. She has a degree in journalism, and has worked in the Canberra Parliamentary Press Gallery. After further postgraduate studies in Literature and Art, Clare moved into book publishing, specialising in books about politics, history and political history, before shifting to children’s publishing in 2010 where she was publisher of the Omnibus imprint at Scholastic Australia, and then Walker Books. She has edited and published many award-wining titles, from picture books to YA and historical fiction. She is the author of Never Forget (2020), and moonlights as a ghost-writer for various fiction and non-fiction titles. She is now responsible for literary content acquisition at Audible Australia.
Reviews
It’s a novel for curious readers, and one that shows how social changes in the 1970s have informed what has changed in Australia during the last 50 years as well. The friendships are what make this novel so powerful for me, and it will be a great learning tool to show children what life was like before technology became ubiquitous. When people only had one TV, one landline, and where seeing people in person was more common. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, because it did allow for the nuances to be examined, and for people to understand that everyone has different beliefs – and that nobody is ever always right
Ashleigh, The Book Muse
It’s a complex and multi-layered narrative that astute readers will truly appreciate. The ‘behind-the-scenes’ aspect especially makes politics more accessible and understandable, particularly for those with little or no experience of it. I loved it from the first page and was completely focused on the unravelling, not just of the political thread, but the clash of generations and friendships that Juliet experiences as well. I may not have had the intense political connections but certainly those personal impacts resonated very much with me
Just So Stories
