The Freedom Finders series by Emily Conolan
Break your chains Allen & Unwin, ISBN 9781760294915
Touch the sun Allen & Unwin, ISBN 9781760294922
(Age: 9-13) Emily Conolan was a fan of 'Choose your own adventure'
books as a child. She loved how you could control the outcomes of
the story by selecting different pathways at crucial points in the
plot but instead of fantasy and sci-fi stories, Emily decided she
would choose real life situations. In the real world, people have to
make choices that can either help or hinder their future and there
are times when the reader can make disastrous choices, resulting in
death of the main character.
The series looks at how children have to discover ways to find
freedom and escape life threatening situations, they are 'Freedom
Finders', hence the name of the series.
The author has added a fact section at the back of each book to
provide information to understand the background to each child's
life.
In Break your chains, a young girl living in 1825 Ireland
discovers her father has been arrested and her mother dies from
disease. The reader tries to help her find refuge and safety and she
is transported to colonial Australia. A poor and vulnerable girl,
she is chosen to work in a homestead in Van Diemen's Land where she
discovers a secret about the local bushrangers. She befriends the
local Aboriginal people who disappear from the area due to the
impact of white settlers.
The seven gemstones the convict girl is given on a bracelet are
broken apart and find their way into each of the Freedom Finder
books.
In Touch the sun, a Somalian boy needs to escape war-torn
Mogadishu. Set in 2011, a terrorist organisation tries to kill both
him and his little sister. He has to survive a desert, refugee camp
and people smugglers.
Emily Conolan has a background of working with refugees in Tasmania,
winning the Tasmanian of the Year, Hobart Citizen of the Year, and
the Tasmanian Human Rights Award.
This is an exciting, interactive series, where the reader can make
decisions that have life or death consequences. I recommend these
books for primary school students aged 9 to 13 years.
Jane Moore