This review covered three "series" novels, all suitable for middle school readers. It was published in The Melbourne Age in December 2001

Have Courage, Hazel Green! by Odo Hirsch

Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Binding: paperback
ISBN: 1-86508-466-2

Toad Heaven by Morris Gleitzman

Publisher: Penguin Australia
Binding: paperback
ISBN: 0-14-130880-X

Time Stops for No Mouse by Michael Hoeye

Publisher: Penguin Australia
Binding: paperback
ISBN: 0-670-04021-5

There’s a fine tradition of children’s authors revisiting favourite characters in subsequent books, be they stand alone titles or follow-on sequels. Ethel Turner revisited the Woolcott children in two sequels and a companion to Seven Little Australians, and ground-breaking US writer Louise Fitzhugh reprised Harriet from Harriet the Spy in guest appearances in The Long Summer and Sport. Decades after their first appearances, younger children still delight in the various adventures of Madeleine and Eloise. There’s a comfort and a pleasure in spending time in the company of a fictional friend, and in knowing that there’s more to come after the pages of one book are closed.

Fans of Odo Hirsch’s loyal, literal heroine Hazel Green will settle happily into her latest outing, Have Courage, Hazel Green! The defining features of Hazel’s world are in place: the balcony from which she observes her city, the cast of fabulously talented shopkeepers, and the motley tribe of kids from the Moodey Building all return. Hazel’s mathematical genius friend the Yak is again on hand to help her solve — and create — conundrums, Marcus Bunn resumes duty as Hazel’s devoted if somewhat put-upon follower, and her nemesis Leon Davis continues to challenge and provoke her.

Yet Have Courage is not merely "more of the same". In it, as in the second Hazel Green book, Something’s Fishy, Hazel Green, Hirsch has expanded upon and deepened both characterisation and the thematic concerns established in the first novel, Hazel Green. In each book, Hazel has faced an increasingly complex moral challenge. In the first book, she is wrongly accused of giving away a secret recipe of gifted pastry cook Mr Volio. In the second, she must find a way of assisting the fishmonger Mr Petrusca without giving away the shameful secret of his illiteracy. In both these books, Hazel’s efforts to stay true to her sense of loyalty and of right end up getting her into deeper strife before she emerges wiser and stronger for her efforts.

Have Courage, Hazel Green! takes Hazel into yet more challenging and darker ethical waters. Early one morning she overhears an adult resident of the Moodey Building berating the building’s janitor, Mr Egozian: "You think you’ll have a job here forever? You think I can’t get rid of you?… I don’t like you and I don’t like your kind. Don’t like a single one of you. You’re all the same." Hazel is outraged. She decides to shame Mr Davis — yes, Leon’s father — into apologising to Mr Egozian by replicating the scene in a pre-planned confrontation with the Yak. Instead, the tables are turned on her — she is accused of bullying the Yak, and of lying about Mr Davis when she explains her actions to an inquisition of unsympathetic adults (including her own parents, possibly the only false note in the book). These same adults decide to punish Hazel, by refusing to allow her to attend a party being thrown for the whole building unless she apologises to Mr Davis. If she lies, in other words, she can go to the party (and if you know Hirsch’s — and Hazel’s! — predilection for mouth-watering food, you’ll know what a punishment that is!). Hazel, as we can only expect of this steadfast and determined child, refuses to compromise her own integrity, and instead sets out to both understand the motivations behind Mr Davis’ apparent bigotry and to protect Mr Egozian’s job. Almost as an afterthought, she reinstates her own reputation of loyalty and honesty.

It all sounds rather heavy-handed, so it’s important to make clear that one of Hirsch’s great gifts as a children’s novelist (and he has many) is his ability to present challenging philosophical concepts without abandoning humour, whimsy, and a beautiful command of language.

Morris Gleitzman achieved the impossible in Toad Rage — he made it possible to feel compassion and affection for Australia’s great environmental bogey-man, the cane toad. He’s brought back his warty hero, Limpy, in the sequel Toad Heaven. These books demonstrate how his skills have matured over his decade-plus career as a best-selling children’s novelist. Gleitzman’s child heroes frequently possess a degree of naivete, yet in some of the early novels their actions sometimes seemed illogical, even a bit stupid. Limpy, however, is a true innocent, and Gleitzman’s logic — even in a comically far-fetched plot — is impeccable. In his first adventure, Limpy — who genuinely cannot understand why humans hate cane toads with such raw, murderous passion — sets out to convert them/us to affection for him and his "rellies" by pitching the cane toad as an Olympic mascot. In Toad Heaven, Limpy hears word of a National Park, where animals are protected, and figures this is a haven for cane toads, where they will be safe from road trains and four wheel drives.

Gleitzman’s humour is the hallmark of his work, and what sets him apart from lesser comic writers is that his jokes always serve a purpose. Jokes and comic set-pieces which initially may seem like a throw-away generally come back to serve a purpose for plot or character. His humour is both situational and linguistic, and like Hirsch, his entertaining stories contain deeper truths of friendship and loyalty and, in Toad Heaven, environmentalism and true humanity without once patronising or preaching.

I find it less likely that young readers will engage whole-heartedly with the rather odd Time Stops for No Mouse. The first in a planned trilogy about mouse-hero Hermux Tantamoq, Time was initially self-published before being snapped up in one of those in-your-dream deals by US publisher Penguin Putnam. Hermux is thrown into an unlikely adventure to rescue adventuress Linka Perflinger, for whom he has developed a distant crush, and to thwart the evil plans of the psychotic cosmetic doctor Hiril Mennus to steal the formula for an elixir of immortality. The book is an adventure story and a romance, yet I wonder how children will respond to its themes of aging and beauty. The decision to make all the characters rodents — rats, mice, moles, etc — is what makes this a children’s, rather than an adult title, yet they are really just adult characters, concerned with adult concepts, in animal guise. It’s a pleasant read, if not particularly compelling, and I for one don’t feel a great need to follow Hermux in subsequent adventures.