Balyet

by Patricia Wrightson

Despite the precautions of the old aborigine woman she calls Granny, fourteen-year-old Jo falls under the spell of a secret thing in the Australian hills, a girl endlessly alive and crying for the death that will not take her

Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fiction

128 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Winner of the Dromkeen Medal (1984).
Patricia Wrightson is one of Australia's most distinguished writers for children. Her books have won many prestigious awards all over the world. She was awarded an OBE (Officer of the British Empire) in 1977, the Dromkeen Medal in 1984 and the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1986, all for her services to children's literature. She is a four-time winner of the Australian Children's Book Council Book of the Year Award: in 1956 for The Crooked Snake, in 1974 for The Nargun and the Stars, in 1978 for The Ice Is Coming and in 1984 for A Little Fear. Patricia lives and writes in a beautiful stretch of the Australian bush beside the Clarence River in northern New South Wales.

Reviews

[Libby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful story of two girls, Jo a very modern teenager and Balyet a girl spirit of the mountains frozen in time by an ancient curse and destined to live forever in terrible isolation. Patricia Wrightson is one of my favourite childrens authors, The Nargun and the Stars is up there in my Top 10 and this one is not far behind it.

[Ceridwyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly satisfying ghost story. I was a bit less enthralled as with other Wrightson books. I admired how she portrayed the disobedient teen character who constantly gets in trouble. She seemed realistic and not merely a convenient device. The denoument disappointed me, but it was still a unique story of Australia.