Best YA & YYA Lit 1973 (5)
By:
April 6, 2019
For several years now, I’ve argued — here at HILOBROW, as well as in the UNBORED books I’ve co-authored — that the Sixties (1964–1973) were a golden age for YA and YYA adventures. This post is one in a series of 10 identifying my favorites from 1973.
Patricia Wrightson’s children’s fantasy adventure The Nargun and the Stars.
Simon Brent, an adolescent orphan, is sent from the city to live with relatives on a 5000-acre sheep ranch in the remote Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia — think of the first act of the 2016 New Zealand film Hunt for the Wilderpeople. While getting to know his new family, and exploring his new surroundings, which Wrightson, one of Australia’s most distinguished children’s authors, describes poetically, Simon meets a potkoorock. The mischievous swamp creature warns him that the Nargun — a fierce half-human, half-stone creature — has been awoken after a millennial sleep (“while eagles learnt to fly and gum-trees to blossom; while stars exploded and planets wheeled and the earth settled”) by humankind’s digging machines, and has slowly made its way into the Hunter Region. There is no European mythology, here: The Nargun is a creature from the mythology of the Gunaikurnai, an Indigenous Australian nation whose territory occupies most of present-day Gippsland and much of the southern slopes of the Victorian Alps. Can Simon and his family preserve the land, protect the whispery cave Nyols and the rustling tree Turongs, and stop the predatory Nargun’s advance on their farm?
Fun facts: The Nargun and the Stars was among the first books for children to draw on Australian Aboriginal mythology. Wrightson’s story was made into a mini-series for television by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation; it was screened in 1981.
Let me know if I’ve missed any adventures from this year that you particularly admire. Also, please check out these additional lists.
BEST SIXTIES YA & YYA: [Best YA & YYA Lit 1963] | Best YA & YYA Lit 1964 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1965 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1966 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1967 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1968 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1969 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1970 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1971 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1972 | Best YA & YYA Lit 1973. ALSO: Best YA Sci-Fi.
The 200 Greatest Adventures (1804–1983). THE OUGHTS: 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913. THE TEENS: 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 | 1920 | 1921 | 1922 | 1923. THE TWENTIES: 1924 | 1925 | 1926 | 1927 | 1928 | 1929 | 1930 | 1931 | 1932 | 1933. THE THIRTIES: 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1938 | 1939 | 1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943. THE FORTIES: 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 | 1953. THE FIFTIES: 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963. THE SIXTIES: 1964 | 1965 | 1966 | 1967 | 1968 | 1969 | 1970 | 1971 | 1972 | 1973. THE SEVENTIES: 1974 | 1975 | 1976 | 1977 | 1978 | 1979 | 1980 | 1981 | 1982 | 1983. THE EIGHTIES: 1984 | 1985 | 1986 | 1987 | 1988 | 1989 | 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993. THE NINETIES: 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003. I’ve only recently started making notes toward a list of Best Adventures of the EIGHTIES, NINETIES, and TWENTY-OUGHTS.