Secret Sparrow by Jackie French
About Jackie French
Jackie French AM is an award-winning writer, wombat negotiator, the 2014–2015 Australian Children’s Laureate and the 2015 Senior Australian of the Year. In 2016 Jackie became a Member of the Order of Australia for her contribution to children’s literature and her advocacy for youth literacy. She is regarded as one of Australia’s most popular children’s authors and writes across all genres — from picture books, history, fantasy, ecology and sci-fi to her much loved historical fiction for a variety of age groups.
Quote from Jackie French
“The job of an historian is to find the truth. The job of a writer is to tell a story so compelling that the reader is immersed- and secrets die. It has been a joy and privilege in The Secret Sparrow to find the truth, then tell the story of some of those indomitable women and girls in WW1. It is impossible to express my joy at the ARA shortlisting. Thank you, all of you, not just for myself, but on behalf of those whose heroism has been hidden for so long.”
About Secret Sparrow
In 1917 sixteen-year-old Jean McLain is working as a post-office assistant in England. But when she wins a national Morse code competition, the British army makes a request Jean cannot refuse – to take a secret position as a signaller in France.
If Jean can keep the signals flowing between headquarters and the soldiers at the Front, Britain might possibly win the war.
But the British army are determined to hide its desperation – and will go on to burn every document that showed how women and girls were working behind the scenes, in the trenches and even in battles during World War I.
Decades later, an old woman tells the story of ‘the telegraph girl’: the friends she lost, the man who loved her, and the happiness she so surprisingly found again.
Based on true events, this story of adventure, courage and unshakable loyalty restores women and girls to their place in history that the authorities tried to erase.
From the Judging Panel
Jackie French spent over ten years researching the hidden story of women who were used as signallers on the front line in World War 1, then turned this into a nail-biting novel using her evocative word-painting brush. Secret Sparrow opens in 1978 with a teenage boy fleeing from floodwaters, rescued by an elderly stranger. As the two spend the night watching ‘moonlit ripples coiling across the drowned land’ the woman gradually reveals her past. The horrors of her life as a signaller in World War 1 are cleverly counterbalanced by touches of humour, a love interest, and the image of a teenage boy sheltering from floodwaters in a rubbish bin.
