Shakespeare in the Orchard by Danielle Binks

"I suppose we'd like to feel human again' ... A small, mean part of him wanted to make fun and mock - a bunch of Germans wanting feel human in the middle of a war that their lot had started, by play-acting death and destruction, ... but then he heard the others murmuring their agreement with Georg's answer, and he swallowed the acid words he was thinking."

The real strength of this story (apart from learning about Internment camps here in Australia, in particular in Victoria) is the way, very gradually, Jack grows in his understanding of humanity. 

This quote comes near the end of the book:

"All those stories we tell and get told, it's to make them less human ... you know that, because you know them. It's not true, it's just easier to be cruel and look away from what we have in common ... It's harder to kill a man if you know him."

It is 1914 and World War I has just begun. At first Jack is swept up in the war propaganda of Germans as the enemy and of course he is so proud of his brother heading away to train as a soldier. Jack is also learning some army skills himself through his replacement teacher Mr Kempster who is a war fanatic and actually a very dangerous man but not as dangerous as one of the horrible soldiers, Lance Corporal Wright, who has been sent to guard the enemy aliens who are now imprisoned in the rural community of Langwarrin on the Mornington Peninsular. 

Jack has joined the cadets and at first he enjoys the training along with his good friend Walter. But then he witnesses several things in his town which cause him to question the idea of 'the enemy'. Meeting the German prisoners who are sent to help in the apple orchard allows Jack to move beyond that word 'enemy' and understand that these are real people who just happened to be born in a different country and who happened to be here in Australia when we decided people from 'over there' were our enemies.

"if he was honest, there was a lot he hadn't told his mother lately - like the conversations he'd found himself having with the prisoners and his odd curiosity about their lives before the war. Not to mention the Maberly's white feathers and his agreeing to pass Lotti's letters onto Georg (her father) ..."

Jack and his mum anxiously wait for letters from Jack's brother Matt. There is a moment of terrible tension in this story when one of the letters arrives but before Jack can read it to his mother (I am guessing she may had have dyslexia) the letter is lost (Chapter 32). The dreadful Lance Corporal Wright has attacked Lottie (daughter of one of the German prisoners) and he has violently bashed Jack's friend Walter. This horrific incident and my worry over that important letter kept me turning the pages hoping that letter would be found - but it wasn't. 

Blurb from the author page: The whole world is at war. In Langwarrin on the Mornington Peninsula, fourteen-year-old Jack Thorning is the best marksman in military cadet training. His brother, Matt, taught him everything he knew, after their father died. But now Matt has joined the war effort, and it’s up to Jack to hold down the home front and help his mother run the family orchard. When a group of ‘enemy aliens’ are sent to Langwarrin to be held prisoner at the Military base, tensions in the town run high. For Jack and his best friend, Walter, the war feels closer than ever. Like the rest of the town, Jack and Walter want nothing to do with the German prisoners. But as the war progresses, the inmates at the camp are put to work doing manual labour on the farms around Langwarrin, including Jack’s family orchard, and Jack begins to see that the prisoners are people, too. What could Jack possibly have in common with the people responsible for keeping his beloved brother at war? And can Shakespeare bring them all together?

Five years ago I talked about another book based on Internment camps here in Australia (Interned by Pamela Rushby) and in that post I used this article to talk about the features of a good historical novel. I am going to repeat them here because I am so happy to say Danielle Binks does all of these things and she does them brilliantly:

1. Have fun with the research but do your homework. 

This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. Borrow some good reference books. Become comfortable with the time period. Try to understand both the larger scope of the period, while examining aspects of daily life. This will help create an authentic backdrop for your novel.

2. Let the characters engage with the historical details. 

This goes along with that “show don’t tell” truism writers are told all the time. Rather than just dumping a bunch of facts on the poor reader, let your characters interact with these details with all these senses. Let them smell the offal dumped onto the cobblestone streets. Let them squint in the fading light of the tallow candles. Let them feel the tingling sensation as the physician places a leech on their bare skin.

3. Allow your characters to question and explore their place in society. 

This will help reveal the larger political, social, cultural context of the time. What were the expectations for women? For sailors? For criminals? How did people from different parts of society interact with one another?

Interned

By coincidence as I finished Shakespeare in the Orchard I picked up our Sydney Morning Herald and saw an article by Danielle Binks under the heading Empathy.

“I am an author who writes sad kid’s books, and I maintain that children are a lot stronger than we give them credit for, and their inner universes so much more complex than we acknowledge. I never try to make my readers upset, I just hope they care enough to feel empathy for the characters I’m giving them.” Danielle Binks Sydney Morning Herald 27 June 2026

She goes on to say:

The book is set during World War I and is inspired by the true events of Australia’s home-front war that unfolded in my hometown of Langwarrin. In 1914, the Australian government suspended habeas corpus for the first (but not the last) time, and imprisoned “enemy aliens” of German and Austro-Hungarian descent. I chose to tell the story from the point of view of a 14-year-old boy named Jack, a military cadet whose brother has joined the war effort and who is being fed a jingoistic form of hyper-nationalism, right when the military reserve across the way from his family’s apple orchard opens its doors to German prisoners. It’s a true but shameful tale of Australia’s war history; a moment when our government arguably did the wrong thing, for the right reasons. The book also tells the true story of how those German prisoners staved off boredom and retained their humanity in the face of such adversity: with theatre. When Jack overhears the prisoners practicing Hamlet, he’s shocked and horrified by their humanity – and his curious response to it.

In this Instagram post you can hear Danielle Banks describing her book. Shakespeare in the Orchard was published yesterday - 7th July. Huge thanks to Gleebooks Kids for loaning me the advance reader copy. 

Daneille Binks suggests her book is for ages 10+ but I am going to say it will better appeal to readers aged 12+ firstly because it is long book (300+ pages) of very small print; secondly because the motivations of several of the Anti-German characters such as the teacher Mr Kempster and Lance Corporal Wright are distressing and complex; thirdly because I think readers will appreciate this book if they have some understanding of or have studied the Shakespeare play Hamlet; and finally because the main character, Jack, is aged 14. I did start this book three times but I kept putting it aside. Then I read a review on social media and the reviewer convinced me to start again and stick with this book - she was right. From about chapter 23 (of the 45 chapters) onwards I was able to read in a more sustained way.

It is a thoroughly heart-warming story demonstrating that prejudices and intolerance are so often created by pure ignorance and willful misunderstandings. A particularly resonant episode is the underlining of the most violent, dangerous and intolerant person in the plot – one of the soldiers reputedly safeguarding the community, not one of the prisoners who remain docile albeit dejected – a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Just so Stories

High School history teachers could make really good use of the letters from Matt that are included in this book especially if the topic is the lead up to the Gallipoli campaign. Here is some background reading about internment camps in Australia. And here are some stories/first-hand accounts. Here are more details in an article from The Conversation. 

Companion books:

Red Day

Our Castle by the Sea

Love in the Library