'This is a coming-of-age novel, set in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne and in the English classroom of a local high school. It is, as one reviewer put it, "a story about a teacher, two students and a grandfather looking for places where openness can live, at least for a little while, in an adult world of closures."
'The story is told from multiple perspectives about intersecting worlds. As a second reviewer has written, "It's a story that has all sorts of stories inside it. It's a book in which worlds overlap, collide and intersect, and where truth is complex. Yet the book is full of hope."
'For the eleven years since the death of her parents, fifteen-year old Harriet Henderson and her grandfather Max have made their home into something of a haven. But Harriet is no longer a little girl. There are changes, inevitable changes, changes that her grandfather finds himself resisting.
'Harriet - thoughtful and free-spirited - is restless. School, up until now, has been dull. But there's a new English teacher, Molly McInness, who encourages Harriet to see herself as a writer. And for Molly herself, there's nothing more satisfying than having a student like Harriet Henderson. This promises to be a special relationship for both of them.
'But not everyone shares their excitement.
'Zeph, the boy who in the dark of night paints on vacant walls, is untouched; nothing, it seems, penetrates the barriers he has erected around his solitary self. Tran, son of an influential politician, is confused and incensed.
'There are murmurings in the staffroom, too, and the school's Principal, glib Eliott Sullivan, sees potential threats to the smooth operation of his systems.
'Tensions build at home and at school. And then, in a single impulsive moment, Harriet makes a decision that changes everything.
'This is a novel that is full of surprises, where the reader is never entirely sure what genre he or she is being drawn into. As one reader wrote, 'The further I got into the novel, the more intrigued I became. Where was it going? Every time you expect it to zig, it zags. I was continually surprised, thrown off scent. This is a subtle and beautiful book that doesn't shout at people, so much as lead them by the hand and let go of them in the middle of a labyrinth."
'It's a story that will be of particular interest to all those - students, parents and teachers - interested in the nature of English teaching in our secondary schools. It is a novel about writing, about the mythopoetic, about imagination and intuition, and about the role of stories and storytelling in our lives. It's also a novel about the present state of our troubled world and the impact this is having on the younger generation.' (Publication summary)
'Steve Shann’s latest book is a novel called The Worlds of Harriet Henderson. It’s about 15-year-old Harriet Henderson who has a new English teacher, Molly McInness, and all at once school seems full of possibilities. But, inspired by Molly and impelled by her own adolescent restlessness, Harriet makes an impulsive decision, a decision that takes her, her teacher and her new friend into complex and dangerous worlds. The novel is a natural extension of Shann’s earlier articles and books arguing that mythopoetics – the use of intuition and imagination to reveal the ordinarily unseen – is a legitimate scholarly methodology. In this article, Shann uses extracts from a 2015 journal he kept as he began to think about writing a novel.' (Publication abstract)
'Steve Shann’s latest book is a novel called The Worlds of Harriet Henderson. It’s about 15-year-old Harriet Henderson who has a new English teacher, Molly McInness, and all at once school seems full of possibilities. But, inspired by Molly and impelled by her own adolescent restlessness, Harriet makes an impulsive decision, a decision that takes her, her teacher and her new friend into complex and dangerous worlds. The novel is a natural extension of Shann’s earlier articles and books arguing that mythopoetics – the use of intuition and imagination to reveal the ordinarily unseen – is a legitimate scholarly methodology. In this article, Shann uses extracts from a 2015 journal he kept as he began to think about writing a novel.' (Publication abstract)
