Mia: Through My Eyes – Australian Disaster Zones by Dianne Wolfer, series editor Lyn White

Title: Mia: Through My Eyes – Australian Disaster Zones

Author: Dianne Wolfer, edited by Lyn White

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 30^th August 2022

Format: Paperback

Pages: 256

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: A powerful story of one girl’s experience of 2019’s Cyclone Veronica in Western Australia.

Mia is used to cyclone build-ups, but the noise and energy of the wild rain squalls keep her awake half the night. What if the cyclone hits before Mum gets back? As wild winds batter the coast, Mia knows she must keep calm. The animals need her.

Thirteen-year-old Mia lives on a bush block in the Pilbara, where she assists her mother’s work as a vet and equine therapist. Although she is used to the seasonal cyclones that threaten the West Australian coast, nothing can prepare her for the ferocity of Cyclone Veronica when she finds herself home alone and needing to protect their property and the animals she loves.

When her friend Nick arrives, pleading for help, and her favourite horse is injured, will Mia be able to withstand the greatest challenge of her life? As the storm intensifies, can she save her beloved animals?

~*~

Thirteen-year-old Mia lives in the Pilbara region on a remote property with her mother, who is a vet and equine therapist. She’s far from her friends and her school and spends her time at home helping her mother with all the animals that come to them for help, and their equine therapy clients. But in March 2019, Cyclone Veronica is approaching, and as it is building up, Mia’s mother, Zara, is called away to help with a horse in labour at a neighbouring property, kilometres away. She’s left alone to cope, her only contact over a radio with another neighbour. The furious storm is coming closer and closer, and Mia is stranded at home with the animals, and a flustered friend – Nick, who needs help, as does her favourite horse. Mia is faced with a series of difficult decisions, and she doesn’t know how she is going to cope.

This series of books tells the stories of children across Australia and the world in a various array of disaster zones – natural and man-made. This is the story of one girl’s experience as a cyclone batters the area she lives in and affects everyone she knows, and her struggles with friends, school, and confidence, especially when a new girl shows up and it feels like Erin is pulling Kirra and Jess away from Mia. Mia’s story is filled with tension and fear which lead to lessons of bravery and the things you must do when it comes down to it. Most of us only ever hear about the impending cyclone and the following devastating destruction in the aftermath, and here, for readers aged eleven and older, because I think this book was a bit scary, is a story about how it feels to be in the storm.

Mia’s story puts us right in the line of the storm, and we hear the wind, feel the rain, see the flying debris, and the devastating aftermath. I felt everything Mia felt – her fear, her anxiety, her determination to make things work while her mum was away with minimal help, and minimal contact. As a reader, I felt that the present tense gave the story a sense of urgency, a sense of I must keep reading to see if Mia and the animals survive, and to see if she is reunited with her mother. Because there were times when I felt like my heart was in my throat, I think sensitive readers may struggle with this, or may need to talk this over with an older person. So it could be interesting to read this together, either out loud or as a buddy read in case you or a younger reader wants to talk about it.

I think it is also a good book for a class read – it can open all kinds of discussions, and illustrates that we all have different experiences, we all live in different areas, and can help children understand the many different ways we all live. At the back of the book, Dianne Wolfer acknowledges the Indigenous nations the book takes part on and acknowledges that she has focused on a singular experience. I think this was the best way to tell the story, because it was the immediacy of Mia’s experience that drew me into the story, even though it was anxiety inducing. The beginning is the calm before the storm, and I felt set the scene well – because as a reader, I could sense what was coming, I knew that something awful would happen yet it felt like the characters didn’t really know, or at the very least, didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. I found this one compelling and wanted to read it all the time, but at the same time, when things got anxious, I had to take a break – and I found this was a really good way to read it, as I managed to finish it and enjoyed it, despite the hammering heart. I think it was because a part of me knew Mia and her mum would be okay in the end.

This book is an intriguing glimpse into a disaster zone, albeit one girl’s experience that encapsulates what it felt like, and allows readers a tiny glimpse into what it is like to be in a cyclone.