Tristan BancksBesprekingen

A missing father. A drowned town. A buried secret. Three friends on a dangerous mission to uncover the truth. Seven years after Old Scarborough was drowned, a house is emerging from the water. Will and his friends Dar and Juno dare each other to explore it. But when they find bones - and a stash of cash - they realise they’re not the only ones interested in its secrets. Now they’re fighting for their lives against the men who want what they found. Will can’t leave the mystery alone, though. What if the bones belong to his missing dad?

Tristan Bancks can always be trusted to write a gripping novel for younger teens and "Scar Town" was no exception. With a good blend of action, suspense, mystery and adventure, this novel will appeal to a large audience and it will be one I will be recommending to our Year 7 and Year 8 students looking for a book that is a quick, exciting read!½

Trigger warnings: abusive parent, kidnapping, abduction

6.5/10, looking back at the first book I've read from Tristan Bancks this was an enjoyable read but now I see a lot of glaring flaws in this however I still would read other books he made that might be better than this like Detention and The Fall and I've read another book from him that I've enjoyed which was called Cop and Robber. It begins with the main character Ben Silver living his apparently normal life until police arrive and apparently interrogate his parents, suddenly he, his sister and parents are in the car and arrive at an old cabin in the forest to escape from the police, but for what reason I don't know yet but I found out when I read more of the book. Anyways as I read on I discovered why Ben was on the run and it was because his father was hiding a sinister secret and it was that he hid a lot of money that he got illegally and so Ben ran off on his own into another part of a forest next to a river which took up the middle part of the book. Towards the end Ben finds his way back to civilisation, tells the police what happened so they arrest his father and that wraps up the book nicely.

7/10, this was a good novel, but I'm not sure if this is a middle grade or young adult novel, but I enjoyed this one nonetheless. The characters were very interesting, Nash's mother is a police officer, his father is a criminal who didn't have any purpose in life after he was beaten in a boxing match, and thus decided to live a life of crime, and Nash is just caught in the middle of all of this. The story was action packed most of the time, but the pacing can slow down for the main character to interact with other characters, which didn't drag the story down at all. The ending was very emotional, Nash couldn't really forgive himself for trying to help his father rob the school to pay some other criminals until the end, and Nash's mother made a difficult decision to let him rob the school, then let him get arrested, to not get Nash and his father killed. I also liked seeing Nash being a runner, he even won a running race in the end, which was heartwarming. If you like an action packed novel, this is the book for you.

Three boys go exploring an old house that has risen from falling dam waters. Inside they find a wad of money and a human skeleton. They decide to tell no-one except Will feels terrible because the skeleton could be his missing Dad, a policeman who was investigating shady dealings in the town.

Written for younger teens, "Detention" was quite a fast-paced read dealing with some serious issues, specifically Australia's handling of asylum seekers. However, the story wasn't political. Instead, it focused on Sima, a refugee from Afghanistan who separated from her parents when they escaped the detention centre, and Dan, a boy living it rough who finds Sima hiding in the school's toilet block. Set over the course of six hours. and told from both Sima's and Dan's points of view, Detention was an emotional, suspenseful and engaging read.

Not Bancks finest work for a number of reasons - but generally because of a big red flag raised by the plot for me. The story is as follows:_
Nash splits his time between his Mum who is a cop and his Dad who isn't. The book opens with Nash's Dad robbing a petrol station and getting away with it and Nash soon discovers that his father owes some money to some nasty types who give his Dad three days to come up with a quarter of a million dollars. Nash becomes entangled in his Dad's scheme to rob the school of its takings from their big fun fair day by spying on what is the combination to the school safe. But at the last minute, his conscience gets the better of him, and he comes clean to his Mum about what is going to happen. His Mum tells him its "all sorted" but then Nash sees her driving his Dad's getaway car!
This is where Bancks lost me! The blurring of right and wrong and the struggle Nash feels is turned on its head with this and he leaves his main character floundering with no moral compass except a token effort from the school Principal at the end. I get that he is trying to say that mothers will do anything to protect their children but I think the Mum character would have turned herself in after the robbery - it didn't fit with how she was portrayed at the start of the book. I was left feeling a bit flat and wondering if young adults would take the message that the ends justifies the means when reading this. Two and a half stars only.½

Told over a period of 7 hours from when Sima (a refugee about to be sent back to Afghanistan from Australia) breaks free of a detention center and tries to hide in a school, this alternates between Sima and a boy called Dan who lives in a caravan park. When the school is put into lockdown, Dan thinks it is because he has rescued a beaten dog from the highway and tied it up behind the bike shed. He soon discovers that he is not the cause of giant AFP agents/swat teams going all around the school and it is really Sima and her fellow escapees that the cops are looking for. Worried about the dog dehydrating on the hot Summer morning, he convinces a policeman and his teacher that he is busting to go to the toilet, in the hope of getting some water to the dog. However, he discovers Sima trying to struggle her way out of a window in the boy's toilets. What happens next will surprise everyone.

I loved the chapters with the lock down scenes from the classroom. They are very funny and could be read aloud to a class.Page 56 - p61.

Sam witnesses a man fall to his death at 2am from a block of flats where he is staying with his Dad. This tells of what happens in the 48hrs after. Is his Dad , an investigative crime reporter somehow involved? The Fall tells a tale of a boy who has never known his father until he is 12 years old , who has built his father up to be some super hero, so much so that he has ever drawn a comic book about his adventures. But this is not the truth, his father is any but the hero he imagined.
After confiding to his father what he has seen, Sam is confined to the apartment, and hile watching the news, he realises that the dead man is an investigative journalist like his dad.
Parts of this are great...the suspense and the "rules" of life are great, but I did think that some of the idioms that Sam used were beyond the knowledge of your average 12 year old.

The book deals with some hard issues (parents lying, parents running from law,...).
My boys enjoyed the suspense, the action, the mystery.
It took me awhile to figure out we weren't in America (probably missed the clues and assumed everything happens here :) but that wasn't totally essential for understanding the book. (Mum should have been a give-away.)
Resolution wasn't simple which made for a 'real' book.

I read this in one sitting. Very exciting and suspenseful and a really lovely coming-of-age story. The characters are interesting and well-rounded and they all grow as the story unfurls. Brilliant job, Tristan!

What do you do when you realize your parents have committed a crime and now the family is on the run? Eleven-year-old Ben, an aspiring police detective, wrestles between his conscience and blood connection. The twists and chapter cliff-hangers come fast and furious as Ben discovers facts about what happened and plots to escape his parents' life on the lam.

This ended up being a good, little survival story. I liked thirteen-year-old Ben, the main protagonist. He is insecure, a bit of a loner and a thinker, and when he grows up he wants to be a detective. After misgivings about his parents behaviour, he gathers evidence and slowly pieces together what they have done. This leads to unexpected consequences as Ben battles with moral and ethical decisions - choosing what is right or protecting one's family? Throughout the book Ben grows in strength physically, mentally and emotionally until, at the end, he comes face-to-face with his nemesis. Although less than 200 hundred pages, there is lots to discuss after reading this book: right and wrong, family responsibilities, resilience, moral values and choices. A worthwhile read.

This is a very different book to my life and other stuff .
Gripping story for younger readers that maintains the suspense until the very last page!
Set in Australia, Ben and his little sister Olive are startled when the police turn up at their door looking for their parents who are both at work at their father's wrecking business. Ben, who wants to be a policeman when he grows up is immediately suspicious and these fears are confirmed when his parents suddenly drive up, throw the kids in the car and announce that they are going on an impromptu holiday...even though Olive and Ben are still in their school uniforms, and they leave their dog Golden behind!
What happens next tests Ben's loyalty to his parents, his faith in his mother's judgement and his nerves to breaking point. What do you do when the people you should trust most in the world, don't deserve to be trusted? Ben must make some tough, heartbreaking decisions in an action packed yet also at times, heartbreaking story. Highly recommended for years 5 upwards.

Starts off a bit weak but gets better as it goes along. A collection of short, funny stories set in Australia. There's the big sister threat - lick vegemite off my toe or I'll tell Mum story, the kamikaze magpies attack story (reads like Hitchcock's the Birds) where Tom wears an ice-cream container on his head, but the best story is "My Nan's tougher than yours." where Tom and his best mate have their two grandmothers meet in an alleyway for a punch up! Like DOAWK for Australian kids.

Nerds Mac and his friend Paul are given the chance to become one of the cool hunters. Grand adventures as these underdogs seek to win out over cool Cat. Great characters coupled with fast action and grand adventures sure to be appeal to boys with promise of more books to follow.

The Coolhunters have come to Kings Bay, Mac Slater's hometown, and they are looking for their next online correspondent. After watching Mac ride (and crash) his flying bike invention, they ask him to compete for the job by posting videos daily of the hottest and coolest trends he sees in Kings Bay. Unfortunately, they've also made the offer to Cat DeVrees, the most power-hungry and fame-obsessed girl in town. Cat has wealthy parents, a huge wardrobe, and a boyfriend who's willing to intimidate anyone getting in his girl's way. Mac and Cat each post videos, with the winner receiving the most votes on the Coolhunters' website each day, and Cat thinks the job (and the cash, free stuff and trip to New York) are hers for the taking. But sometimes, cool is thinking out of the box, and seeing things in a different way... and there Mac might have a chance. His family is an oddball hippie mix, and he's always been the sideshow geek in school. Which view will the online world respond to more? Lots of fun -- 6th grade and up.

Not as good as book one, the main character needs more likeability in this volume. Plot is a bit hard to follow sometimes.

Book Type1 Novel
Genre Adventure
Reading age 10 to 14
Series Mac Slater, Coolhunter 1

Mac falls so far short of being hip that through the odd inversions of fashion he is cool. Some men keen to set up a worldwide team of coolhunters suggest he compete against others to become the Australian coolhunter.
Mac’s town, Kings Bay, is presently ‘hot’ according to Speed the coolhunter organiser, and most readers will recognise a portrait of NSW surfing town, Byron Bay. Mac however lives a frugal life with his hippie mother though he is also influenced by his father, a keen builder of things that never seem to be finished. Mac and his best friend Paul attract notice when they unsuccessfully launch their latest invention, a (non) flying bike. At the launch is rich girl Cat DeVrees, soon to be Mac’s rival in the vidblog competition to be judged by online viewers.
This is exciting reading, and the theme of loyalty and friendship is appealing, but the stereotypes are tiresome. For something about ‘coolness’ the author tends to turn to some worn out situations. As well there is not a single girl or woman who is favoured except perhaps Mac’s mum, as long as she keeps the food and support coming.
First in a series.
See also Westerfeld’s novel about cool hunting, So Yesterday, set in New York.

Themes in this book:
Adolescents. Boys. Building. Change. Cheating. Competition. Creativity. Individuality. Inventions. Possessions. Problem solving. Video.

Review from Magpies