Burn, by Melanie Saward

Troubled teen Andrew is hanging out for the end of the school year, when he can leave his neglectful mother in Brisbane and return to Tasmania to reunite with his dad. The problem is he hasn’t heard from his dad in a while and doesn’t know where he is. Also the police are investigating the cause of a recent bushfire that Andrew and his mates might have started. And that could be a big problem because he has history with starting fires. Social and economic disadvantage; learning difficulties; bullying; racism; and intergenerational trauma; everything is stacked against Andrew. Saward paints a clear and concerning picture of just how impossible it is for some kids to escape a downward spiral. Her solutions are possibly a little too good to be true, as she acknowledges in an afterword, but breaking the cycle has to start somewhere. Although she firmly engages sympathy for Andrew she also endows him with some sociopathic traits, which point to a need for psychological help as well as a reconnection to country. She is right that what kids like Andrew certainly don’t need is the status quo of the justice system, and a political class that responds to increasing youth crime rates with more of the same.