Storm Boy, Colin Thiele’s much-loved classic, has never been out of print. Its iconic 1976 film version, with David Gulpilil as Fingerbone, turns 50 this year – and it has long been hailed one of Australia’s greatest books. On publication in 1963, the Times Literary Supplement argued for it to earn a place among the few “lasting children’s classics”.
Storm Boy, whose mother is dead, lives with his father, an isolated man called Hide-Away Tom, close to nature on South Australia’s Coorong, a spectacular saline lagoon and wetland of international significance. Storm Boy befriends Ngarrindjeri man Fingerbone Bill, who becomes his mentor and guide when he rescues three pelican chicks. Storm Boy becomes close to one of the pelicans, Mr Percival – until the outside world violently intervenes.
