'One, two, three, breath. When a juvenile detention exercise off the coast of the Kimberley goes wrong, sixteen-year-old Sparrow must swim to shore. There are sharks and crocs around him but the monsters he fears most live in the dark spaces in his mind. He's swimming away from his prison life and towards a desolate, rocky coastland and the hollow promise of freedom. He'll eat or be eaten, kill or be killed. With no voice, no family and the odds stacked against him, Sparrow has nothing left to lose. But to survive he'll need something more potent than desperation, something more dangerous than a makeshift knife. Hope.' (Publication summary)
Teachers' notes from publisher’s website.
'The following books each contain something unexpected.' (Introduction)
'Sparrow opens through an uncompromising window into a harsh world - a party of eight people and their adult supervisors on a broken-down boat travelling back to Derby in the north of Western Australia after a weeks boot camp. Radcliffe, volatile at the best of times, but totally unpredictable off his 'meds', puts a ho;e in the fuel line and the fuel tank (and the boat) blows blows up. Our main character, known then only as 'the boy' dives overboard and turns his back on the mess of the boat and the mess of his prison life.' (Introduction)
'Sparrow opens through an uncompromising window into a harsh world - a party of eight people and their adult supervisors on a broken-down boat travelling back to Derby in the north of Western Australia after a weeks boot camp. Radcliffe, volatile at the best of times, but totally unpredictable off his 'meds', puts a ho;e in the fuel line and the fuel tank (and the boat) blows blows up. Our main character, known then only as 'the boy' dives overboard and turns his back on the mess of the boat and the mess of his prison life.' (Introduction)
'The following books each contain something unexpected.' (Introduction)
