Volcano Boy - Libby Hathorn

Volcano Boy isn't the kind of book I normally read, and nor would I usually put this kind of book on here either. Volcano Boy is a free-flow, verse or prose poem.

'A real volcano boy,' his mother had called him.

Placed in the custody of his puritanical but well-meaning Uncle Frank, Alexander moves from Brisbane to volcano-circled Rabaul in Papua New Guinea. There the dark powers of the rumbling volcano call to him as irresistibly as the dark eyes of Alice, his newfound love. Alexander records his experiences in a moving, candid journal that surfaces many years after the volcano's fury has settled to ash.

Volcano Boy is beautifully written, and Hathorn is a beautiful writer. Her adult works have been adapted for stage and screen, as well as for opera and online. Volcano Boy is, however, her first verse novel for young adults such as myself. She doesn't disappoint, however, as Volcano Boy is a moving, touching novel that captures brilliantly the feeling of teenage years; the conflict, the emotion, the frustration and the need to be important and to mean something to somebody.

A quote directly from the book -
She's been in my room,
young Alice-
shifted my paintings,
riffled through my notes,
I know it.
But she hasn't found this diary-
thoughts about her

As you can see, although it is in verse form, it carries a heavy plot easily, and twists and turns and shifts in front of your eyes as easily as a narrative or a recount. The first section of the book is written as a letter, addressed to someone we will never know, as he's not mentioned, except as 'H'. It talks about a man, a writer, in Rabaul. He finds Alexander's diary with a proprieter, who explains that she found it in the ash outside after the September 1994 eruption.

Now, I'm not going to give away too much of the plot, as I really think you should read this, but I will tell you about the characters.

Alexander is depicted as your typical teenage boy - frustrated with his parents and his Uncle, and his Uncle's 'other fat friends'. He feels like he loves Alice, and wants to be with her, but he's scared. Completely terrified of the things he's never felt before. He makes friends, and gives in to the desire I think most of us feel - to want to keep his friends all to himself and let no one else near them - and thus alienates himself. Hathorn portrays all of this brilliantly, and it is easy to see how she has won so many awards.

Alice is harder to get a handle on. She and her mother clean Alexander and his Uncle's house, and she is very much the demure female. She also feels that she loves Alexander, and, in the traditional crushing-teenage-girl style, she spies on him and goes through his things in order to try and find out more about him. She then proceeds to watch him through doorways, but runs away when he tries to talk to her.

As I said, Hathorn is a brilliant writer, and as her debut novel into the young-adult genre, Volcano Boy is worth reading. It's the kind of book that you think you understand when you finish it the first time, but when you re-read it, you walk away thinking, 'Wow, that's deeper than I first thought...'

It's a good book, the perfect length for a verse novel. I finished it in about 3 hours, so it's perfect for a plane flight or extended car trip. I highly recommend it.