The Rebels of Mount Buffalo by Helen Edwards

Title: The Rebels of Mount Buffalo

Author: Helen Edwards

Genre: Historical Fiction

Publisher: Riveted Press

Published: 11^th October 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 240

Price: $16.95

Synopsis: The Rebels of Mount Buffalo is a captivating time-slip tale in which a girl lost to grief meets a daring rebel on a misty mountain, who guides her to rediscover her courage and find her way home.

It’s 1998 and Clara and her parents are staying at the Mount Buffalo Chalet for the national park centenary celebrations. It couldn’t be more different from their last visit – they were a family of four then.

With her twin brother Darius gone, Clara has no reference point anymore, no guide. It’s like being lost in the bush without a compass. 

Without him, she doesn’t really know who she is.

After a strange night, Clara wakes up in 1893. There she meets Alice, a girl who lives within the fern-filled valleys at the base of Mount Buffalo. To her surprise, Clara realises she is Guide Alice, considered a rebel of her time, an adventurous non-conformist who spent much of her life boldly leading people along the rugged trails between granite tors and misty mountain peaks.

The 1890s were a difficult era in Australia’s history. The country is in the grip of a terrible Depression, and desperate people can be dangerous. When Alice’s life is threatened, Clara must rediscover the courage she has always had, and become the girl she was always meant to be. 

Bringing in themes of early feminism and issues such as bullying, never being a bystander, managing grief and finding your courage, this engaging middle-grade time-slip story draws on the true history of Mount Buffalo and the incredible role the Manfield family, and Guide Alice in particular, played in the preservation of the National Park and the development of tourism in the Mount Buffalo region.

~*~

In March 1998, thirteen-year-old Clara is off on a family holiday with her estranged parents to Mount Buffalo for the Centenary – yet this time, her twin brother, Darius, isn’t with them. He hasn’t be for many years, and Clara feels lost without him. She’s always been a twin, and without Darius, she’s not sure who she is – and her parents refuse to talk about him at all.

During the first night of the Centenary celebrations whilst dressed as a maid, Clara discovers Guide Alice’s camera whilst exploring the exhibition display when she starts to feel funny and falls asleep. When she wakes up, it’s 1893, and she’s no longer in the chalet – but where Guide Alice once lived. When Clara meets Alice, she tells her she’s headed up the Mount to where the chalet is, and Alice and her family deduce that Clara is the new maid for Carlile – but inclement weather keeps her at the Manfield’s place for days until Alice is able to help her make the trek up the Mount. Whilst there, the Manfields host John Monash, and a range of other figures from Melbourne, known to Clara from history as the 1893 economic crisis hits. And when Clara and Alice are on their way to the chalet and their lives are threatened, Clara must find a way to be brave if she is to save Alice and get home.

The Rebels of Mount Buffalo is Helen’s debut middle grade novel, combining history, time travel, grief, family, and early feminism. Helen’s main character, Clara, is still dealing with familial grief – her brother’s death three or four years prior to the start of the novel, and the subsequent separation of her parents. This trip to Mount Buffalo is their first in years – but with Darius missing, Clara’s not sure how things will go. Clara’s story shows that she has been forced to grow up, and I felt that she hadn’t been allowed to process her feelings properly – that everyone had had to put what they wanted to aside and get on with their lives. I really wanted to help Clara, because I could see that she was hurting and needed to talk. But as this was set in part back in the 1990s, I think it played with the idea that there were ways of grieving and being – ways of dealing with things that meant you didn’t talk about them, and where it almost felt like Clara and her father were walking on eggshells around things at times, putting the feelings of others ahead of their own.

It is Alice whom Clara opens up to, and I felt this was exactly what she needed – someone to talk to, who wouldn’t judge her or shut her out like her parents seemed to be doing. I sensed that Clara felt really alone and was very happy when Alice came along – it gave her a strength she didn’t know she had and was very well written – I loved both characters and wanted to be in the story with them. 

It was in the past when Clara really came into being. Where she became the person she always was, but needed an impetus, something taking her wholly out of her comfort zone to show her that there were different types of bravery and being strong. That she was her own person, as well as a twin. The story explores attitudes that Guide Alice had to fight against in her own time, and the way that both girls sought to prove themselves – yet they needed each other to bring that out. Or Clara needed Alice, at least. I have been looking forward to this book ever since I was approached to review it and was very excited when I got home to it one day. This is a feminist story, celebrating the lives and achievements of women throughout history, centring a real woman, Guide Alice, at the heart of this story. I never knew about Guide Alice, and this is a wonderful introduction to her, and I think a good way to educate readers of all ages about her. Women like Alice should be included when we study explorers and guides, to give an even and in-depth understanding of how different people approached colonial Australia.

This was a very engaging book, and I do like time travel books – they’re so clever and they bring history to life, pulling the character and the reader into the time wholly, at least for me. It ensures that you experience what everyone else does at the same time they do. It was as though I was alongside Clara and Alice, and everything they experienced and did. Helen cleverly ensured that Clara’s knowledge of the future was not revealed dramatically yet allowed the past and future – for Clara – to come together. I loved this novel and I hope others do as well. It was one where I kept reading because I couldn’t wait to find out what had happened, and I desperately needed to see Clara get back to her own time. A fantastic debut novel.