February Dragon

© 1965; reprinted 2018

New Holland, Frenchs Forest, NSW

Set in “the highly fire-prone dry sclerophyll forests of the southeastern corner of South Australia” February Dragon is directed at a Primary School audience. The main protagonists, three children, enjoy a care-free existence on the borderline between the world of nature on the one hand and human society on the other. Alas, the border is mutable, not fixed, and will change over time (as they leave childhood) and in space (nature may reclaim territory previously imagined to be domesticated). February is the height of summer in southern Australia and the dragon is one of those bushfires that devour what European Australians had believed to be their permanent home. First published in 1965, on the heels of Ivan Southall’s Ash Road, Thiele’s novel avoids the American redemption motif trap and remains steadfastly realistic.