Bread and Honey

Book by Ivan Southall

0207954097Preceded byChinaman's Reef is Ours Followed byJosh 

Bread and Honey (1970) is a novel for children by Australian author Ivan Southall, illustrated by Wolfgang Grasse. It won the Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers in 1971.[1] It is also known by the alternative title Walk a Mile and Get Nowhere.

Plot outline

Michael Cameron is a thirteen-year-old boy living in a small country town in Australia with his father and grandmother after the death of his mother. On a wet Anzac Day, Michael meets and defends a nine-year-old girl from a local bully, and comes to appreciate the attitude of the adults around him and his place in the world.

Critical reception

Gwen Hutchings in The Canberra Times noted that the lead character's "problems hinge on the introspective and his innocent view of people in an every-day world, until the sham of it all is revealed in a moment of truth and he is a better person for knowing it. The idea shows purpose and the narrative is less emotional than in some previous novels."[2]

See also

  • 1970 in Australian literature

References

  1. ^ Austlit - Bread and Honey by Ivan Southall
  2. ^ "Boy seeks truth" by Gwen Hutchings, The Canberra Times, 6 March 1971, p13
  • v
  • t
  • e
Children's Book of the Year Award for Older Readers
1946–1949
1950–1959
1960–19691970–1979
1980–1989
1990–1999
2000–2009
2010–2019
2020–present
  • This is How We Change the Ending by Vikki Wakefield (2020)
  • The End of the World Is Bigger than Love by Davina Bell (2021)
  • Tiger Daughter by Rebecca Lim (2022)
  • Neverlanders by Tom Taylor (2023)
  • Picture Book (1955–present)
  • Early Childhood (2001–present)
  • Younger Readers (1982–present)
  • Eve Pownall Award for Information Books (1988–present)