The Valley Between

by Colin Thiele

Rigby, 1981, [First Edition], ISBN 0727014706, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, front endpaper clipped, previous owners’ inscription on front endpaper, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, small marking to front jacket, minor discolouration (see photographs)

“It is late in the 1920s and Benno Schulz has just left school in the little country town of Gonunda, South Australia. At thirteen, he sees the prospect of working on his father’s farm as secondary to the promise of endless fun and adventure.  But circumstances seem to put him right at the centre whenever there is skylarking, trouble, or catastrophe.
Benno ambles through the sunny days, observing with his friends the oddities of adult behaviours and stumbling for an explanation as he disgraces himself at the beach with his hand-knitted bathers, accidentally causes his father to break a leg, squirts the pastor with an enormous stream of milk from Daisy the prize milker, veers wildly through the night on his old bicycle with a large apparition of a scarecrow strapped to his back, witnesses two crashes on the railway line, and narrowly avers a third.
Crowding the pages are characters young and old, kind, crusty, curious, and comic.  The relationships between families are marked by pranks among the very young, blossoming romances between their older brothers and sisters, and immovable friendships and rivalries among their parents.  They meet day by day in the general store, marvel at strange new mechanical creations from cars to harvesters, and gather to celebrate special events – the annual beach picnic, sheep-dog trials, a social in the local hall.”

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