Captain Thunderbolt’s Recital by Jane Jolly, illustrated by Liz Duthie

Title: Captain Thunderbolt’s Recital

Author: Jane Jolly, illustrated by Liz Duthie

Genre: Historical

Publisher: National Library of Australia Publications

Published: 1^st July 2023

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 40

Price: $24.99

Synopsis: Captain Thunderbolt was known as the ‘gentleman bushranger’. He didn’t like violence, was always polite, and even paid back most of the money he stole. In Captain Thunderbolt’s Recital, author Jane Jolly retells the tale of one of the bushranger’s most famous robberies with comic effect.

When Thunderbolt held up Wirth’s German brass band, he took their money, asked them to play some music for him and promised to pay the money back. Sure enough, when the men returned home, there was a postal order waiting for them, with the exact amount he had stolen. 

Illustrations by Liz Duthie perfectly capture the funny text, bringing to life the quirky band members as well as the impish Captain Thunderbolt.

Ernst fumbled with his bassoon.
Johannes nervously held his tuba to his mouth.
Peter’s moustache quivered as he raised his trombone. Jacob picked up his flugelhorn with trembling hands.

A bushranger ambushes a travelling German band, taking their hard-earned money and demanding a concert! He plays his whistle and dances a jig as the men brrroo and oom pah pah on their instruments in fear. But this is the famed ‘gentleman bushranger’ Captain Thunderbolt, and this true story has a surprising end!

~*~

There are many aspects and stories of Australia’s history since 1788 that have become part of the nation’s identity and mythology, or at least become part of the fabric that makes up a complex and diverse history. There are some aspects that are widely talked about, others that are ignored, and others that have become very much a part of how Australia is seen. One aspect of Australian history that is often covered in schools and can be shrouded in mythology is that of bushrangers. One of these bushrangers is Captain Thunderbolt, who was known as the ‘gentleman bushranger’, because unlike other bushrangers, he tended to avoid violence, and there are many stories about him. Jane Jolly has used one of these stories as the basis for her new picture book published by NLA. During his time as a bushranger, as Captain Thunderbolt’s Recital, Captain Thunderbolt held up a travelling German band. In Jolly’s retelling, he demands their money and asks them to play for him, promising to return the money – something that some of the stories I read about him suggest that he did – though he used less than honest means to do so. Jane’s story portrays Thunderbolt as a gentleman as the stories and legends about him tell us. This is a stark contrast to someone like Ned Kelly, who was violent and whose deeds made him notorious. Everyone knows about Ned Kelly, but there are bushrangers like Captain Thunderbolt who are perhaps less well known, and that is where books like this can bring them to life. It makes history accessible as well, which I always like and I think the accompanying teacher’s notes on the NLA website will help construct lessons around the book and bushrangers to broaden understandings of the role bushrangers had and the fact that they were criminals, and allowing children to see the reality behind the romanticised notions of these figures.

Jane Jolly doesn’t celebrate Captain Thunderbolt and bushrangers like other stories might have, or might have represented an unproblematic, romanticised version of them that fitted with how Australians viewed their anti-authoritarian stance through the mythologising of bushrangers as the anti-hero. Instead, she takes a single event from his time as a bushranger – he evaded capture for six years between 1874 and 1870 – and through her story and Liz Duthrie’s accompanying illustrations, uses history to show the sort of things that earned Thunderbolt his nickname ‘the gentleman bushranger’. I like that Jane showed the kind of man Thunderbolt was thought to be, but also, the impact that he had on his victims, in this case, the Wirth German band. Their fear was palpable and flowed with the story and illustrations. Whilst the story is told in a light and easy-to-read way, there is still a sense of worry when Thunderbolt holds up the band, and hides from the police, because nobody knows what is going to happen. I think showing this reality – that bushrangers could be unpredictable, that everybody expected them to be violent – can open up discussions about history, and the representations of history and how they can become romanticised or distorted.

Another thing I liked about this book was that it took an historical figure people may not know much about, and an event in his life that from my searches didn’t pop up that often and brings them to life so that children and adults can learn about them at home, and in school. There are many stories like this portrayed in picture books for older readers and this can be an asset to education. Novels and picture books like this can bring the facts in a text book to life, to show the reality clearly and give a human face to the names in the text, even if is an artist’s impression based on imagery available. I did like that there was an honesty in this text – Thunderbolt wasn’t good, he was still a bushranger, and if the story is true, he was a gentleman – even if he was only a gentleman in some circumstances. The story does leave out some of Thunderbolt’s other crimes – but a longer book would be able to deal with everything, where a picture book like this encapsulates one part of his life and personality based on accounts and stories about one event in his life. It will help to give context to his story and shows that there are many stories in Australia that are still being told or brought into the light, and this is just one example. It is an interesting book that will educate and entertain.