"The Year the Maps Changed"

Danielle Binks is an author and literary agent from Melbourne, Australia. The Year the Maps Changed was her debut novel and has been shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award and was a Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Book. She has since written her first young adult novel, The Monster of Her Age, and has edited and contributed to Begin, End, Begin, an anthology of new Australian young adult writing, which won an Australian Book Industry Award.

Binks applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, The Year the Maps Changed, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Mr. Khouri lifted a hand to rub between his eyes. “We do not condone bullying or intimidation of any kind at this school—you both understand that, don’t you?”

I’m not convinced the Page 69 Test quite works for my book – only because mine has a few story layers (kind of like the contour lines on a topographic map, if you will) and this is just one of those lines, showing a bit of friction between Fred and Sam, her new ‘kind of’ adopted brother – the son of her father’s new partner. But this test doesn’t show the background also happening, which is the Kosovo War conflict heightening and the Australian Government preparing Fred’s hometown to be a ‘safe haven’ location.

I do like that it’s a scene with Mr. Khouri – Sam and Fred’s teacher – who is the font of a lot of wisdom. In fact, I think Mr. Khouri says something (before page 69!) that hints at why this limited view of a story doesn’t quite work. It’s something that Fred decides of her worldview, shaped by a Mr. Khouri teaching; I have decided that memories are a little like mountains. You need to hike to the top and get some height—what Mr. Khouri calls perspective—so you can look down at how far you’ve come, and see all the people and choices that make up the map of your life.

Visit Danielle Binks's website.

Q&A with Danielle Binks.

My Book, The Movie: The Year the Maps Changed.

--Marshal Zeringue