Australia's Great War: 1915

Australia's Great War

by Sally Murphy

When Australia throws its support behind Britain in its fight against Germany, young teacher Stan Moore is one of the first to join up, swapping the classroom for adventure in Europe. But the 11th Battalion is sent with the newly formed Anzac Corps to Gallipoli, where Stan is confronted by the hard lessons of war.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Historical, War, Young Adult

Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2015

About the author

Sally Murphy is an Australian author of over 30 children's books. She's also the slightly crazy mother of six beautiful kids. You'll find bits of her buried somewhere in every one of her books. She loves reading, writing, and speaking about reading and writing.

PEARL VERSES THE WORLD won the 2010 Australian Family Therapists’ Award for Children’s Literature as well as the 2010 Australian Speech Pathology Book of the Year Award for Best Book for Language Development. It was also an Honour Book in the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Awards.

TOPPLING won the children's book category of both the Queensland and Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, and was short-listed in the CBCA Children's Book of the Year Awards.

Reviews

[Gabriella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember reading the first book in this series, 1914, a few years ago, and really enjoying it. 1915 was also a very enjoyable read, excellent for giving young people a better idea of what happened at Gallipoli, as well as portraying the ugliness and pain of war in a way that wasn’t too raw for a young audience. It portrayed the Aussie way of thinking about things well. I’m disappointed that it ended where it did, because it felt quite depressing for a long time, and didn’t really end on a positive note, but I suppose that that’s because there are still several books about the war in the series focusing on other places and times, because the war didn’t end in 1915.
While I would personally have liked to see more religion in the story, i do understand that most of the soldiers probably weren’t very religious, and as the book was surprisingly clean, I think it’s a great book to hand to children/teens to give more of an understanding in the part Australia played in WW1. It’s very informative and easy to understand, and not a long read.
A great book!

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read for 12-13 year Olds. Strong characterisation and the ANZAC experience of Gallipoli is well handled.

[Matthew Marks · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book can't wait for next one

[Caleb Stuttle]

I really liked the way the Author wrote this book from a first person point of view. Here is an example showing a first person point of view: “still, I supposed, I was alive. The bullets and bombs hadn’t killed me, and I’d survived the torpedoing of the hospital ship with a pretty amazing story to tell.” This perspective is used to make the main character (stan) more relatable to the reader, because it gives the reader a view of his thoughts and feelings as well as giving the reader a more realistic depiction of what it was really like in world war one. It is very important in modern times to properly understand what soldiers went through in world war one and how they felt throughout, because there are no living veterans to pass down stories, therefore books are relied on heavily to show this. It is important to get a deeper understanding of their thoughts and feelings during this period, because we will never experience warfare the same again (trenches and hand to hand combat)(on that scale), therefore will never fully understand their experiences unless stories are passed down. We need to understand that people can endure this type of harsh environment, but can be scarred for life afterwards. It is also helpful for scientists to understand how the human body dealt with this skype of stress, because they can study the mental effects on people who went through this.

[Jarrod Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this a while back and wanted to re-read it purely so i could rate it on here and OH MY GOD IM GLAD I DID. I fucking loved this so much. Id give it 6 stars if i could. The actual novel is only 184 pages but when every page is as good as this it doesnt matter.

A great insight on a soldiers experience of the whole gallipoli campaign, and even though its a short book, it somehow manages to include elements of everything significant (of not only the events of gallipoli, but also the life of a soldier) in appropriate detail.

[Kirsten Boxall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this a lot more than the first in the series. The main character is actually of age and a soldier; the only protagonist so far who is. I noticed, though, that the book was very very careful to never show him ever firing his gun or actually killing anyone.
The whole Gallipoli campaign is covered, and letters to his sister back in Australia give a bit of the Aussie perspective.

[Shelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, although I thought that there were lots of parts that were basically just information dumps and a lot of kids/teens would be put off by this- especially in the letters from Elizabeth - I skipped over most of them. I did learn a few things about Gallipoli though.

[R C · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is absolutely amazing, I loved it so much! I just couldn't put it down and I actually ended up reading it all in one day. 1915 was such an enjoyable read for me that it has made my new favourite book genre Historical Fiction.

[Diwas · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty simple book about the Gallipoli campaign involving our fellow protagonist who is an Aussie ANZAC. A good novel depicting a perspective of a young soldier.

[adam heeney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Australian war history

Great read for readers of Australian war history of gives you an insight on how the Anzacs name was born the where the word diggers derived from

[Tehcup · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am really enjoying this approach to young adult historical fiction!

[flyingunicorn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not so much of a spoiler Bit of a mistake on page 180 for the letter where it says 1 December 2015 when it meant to say 1915

[Law · Rating 3 out of 5]

Representation: N/A
Trigger warnings: Military violence and war themes
Score: Seven out of ten.
Find this review on The StoryGraph.

1915 by Sally Murphy was the first book I read in 2023, which was okay.

It starts with Stan volunteering during WWI. However, it isn't the most original idea. Stan eventually arrives at Gallipoli. He meets other soldiers and fights the Ottomans during the year 1915, hence the title. I liked how the entire book is just a bunch of diary entries however they could use some more detail. Stan records his life in the battlefront, but it was challenging to read sometimes due to the heavy content inside. The ending doesn't change the depressing mood as World War One was still going by the time 1915 ended.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually, I quite enjoyed this. It was simple, and easy to read (only took me a couple of hours, and it is YA), and yet sadly true. Although it wasn't deeply descriptive it told enough to make me feel what Stan was going through, to a certain degree of course. I haven't read much about the first world war to know, but it seemed accurate enough, although I did wonder if some of the language was a bit modern. This is a good book though, and worth reading - especially as it's from an Australian's perspective, which is always nice to hear. :)

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

1915 by Sally Murphy
Young Bunbury teacher Stan Moore signs up with the 11th Battalion and ends up in Gallipoli. Lots of facts and realities of 1915 Australia and World War 1 are woven into this fiction account - the issues at home, the boredom of the training, the mindless horror of Gallipoli, the expendability yet tenacity of the men.

[David Bury · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just finished reading this book with my 11 year old son. The good part of this book is that it covers some aspects that you normally don't see, like letters and what was happened back home, what happened to injured soldiers and some of the other conditions while having to live in the trenches.

[Carmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Sally Murphy's verse novels but didn't find this as engaging.