Focus on Tuna
Focus et Fortuna
There is a lot going on for Hattie right now. Mum and Dad have split up and Hattie finds it very hard to manage the new routine of living week about with each parent. Hattie has a little sister called Ivy. Ivy is only five but she is also very odd and often Hattie finds her quirky behaviours very annoying. Then there is school. It is a school filled with rules. The Principal carries the nickname The Enforcer. I lost count but there are more than 200 rules which the kids need to follow at this school. And at school she also has to contend with a bully called Taylor Dellabella.
On the happy side, Hattie lives near a beautiful old house with a splendid Mulberry tree in the garden. This tree is her happy space and every year on her birthday her father ties lollies to the branches of the tree so Hattie has now renamed it the Mullolly Tree.
Dates are important in this story. Hattie finds an intriguing old diary in Hummingbird House. Inside she reads the names for the full moon such as Wolf Moon (January); Harvest Moon (October); Pink Moon (April) and Hunter Moon (October). She also reads a set of dates for the Triple Moon. Two of these dates are very significant. Today is 27th April the next triple moon is scheduled for April 30, 2020. Meanwhile in 1970 there was a triple moon on 4th November. Two days before the triple moon of 2020 Hattie wakes up in the middle of the night. She decides to visit her tree and Hummingbird House. Inside the house she meets a girl called Hypatia who tells her the date today is 2nd November, 1970 - fifty years in the past.
The Mayor, in collaboration with a corrupt developer, has plans to knock down Hummingbird House so she can build high rise apartments. The race is on. The girls need to discover the truth about Hummingbird House, they need to decipher the meaning of Focus et Fortuna. And, armed with the truth these two girls, separated by time, must find a way to protect this beautiful house and Hattie's special tree?
Some parts of this plot might sound familiar from other time slip stories but I really warmed to Hattie and her drive to stop this demolition. I also loved the final chapters which neatly tied up all the loose threads in a very emotionally satisfying way.
If you are sharing this book with a Primary school group it would be good to discuss the topic of protesting. Hattie makes a list of all the ways she can think to stop this development so she can save her tree and Hypatia's house - posters; petition; graffiti; public speeches; letters to the paper; media attention; sky writing; sit ins; blockades.
The setting for this story is Melbourne with references to trams and Brunswick which makes sense because the author lives in Melbourne and she works at the State Library of Victoria. I can certainly see why Julianne takes such delight in using a rich vocabulary in her story. I was also intrigued to discover there really is a Brunswick Bomber. Around the suburb where Hattie lives someone has been yarn bombing. Here are couple of examples so you know what this means:
Image source OurPermaCultureLife
Image source The Conversation
I am sure someone will work on teachers notes to go with The secret Library of Hummingbird House with a special emphasis on all the delicious words Julianne Negri has included. There are the vocabulary words from Hattie's school and the lost words used by Hypatia.
Hattie's vocabulary words from school (2020):
trepidation
statuesque
mayhem
stealthily
quandary
awry
discombobulated
enthralled
Lost words used by Hypatia (1970):
labscate
dipsopathy
whiffle
erstwhile
epeolatrist
phrontistery
selenology
brontology
forsooth
blatherskiting
No need to worry about the meanings of these - they are beautifully explained in the context of each conversation.
The secret Library of Hummingbird House will be published in July by Affirm Press. One tiny note of caution. My Advance Reader Copy of The Secret Library of Hummingbird House compares this book with Playing Beattie Bow. I have to say this is a very wild claim and one which has no real basis except to say both books involve a time slip.
One more thing - go back and look at the cover. It hints at so much that is revealed in the story - the moon, the tree, the yarn bombing, the girl at the window with a library behind her and the hummingbird.
Other time slip stories:
I would also pair this book with A good Day for Climbing Trees which is another excellent book about trees and protesting and community activism.
I will predict The secret Library of Hummingbird House will make the 2021 CBCA Notables list for younger readers.
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