While the world goes ga-ga at the thought of Stephen King hanging up his pen, spare a thought for Colin Thiele. Nearly 40 years ago, Storm Boy was hailed as an Australian classic; the 1977 film version will be screened this month in the Adelaide Festival. Colin Thiele is now 82 and Swan Song will probably be his last book. Swan Song is something of a reprise of that great book. It takes us back to the Coorong-South Australia's coastal wilderness south of Adelaide and the setting for Storm Boy-where Mitch lives with his parents, Fos and Meg. Fos, a wildlife ranger, is the Dad from central casting: `a strong active man, very firm and thorough and always neatly dressed in his ranger's uniform'. Civilisation arrives in the shape of correspondence lessons, which still leave Mitch plenty of time alone to explore the estuaries and sandhills. Mitch raises a baby swan and two pelicans and is on the lookout for Hardy Blight, a hoon in a dune buggy. If it misses the elemental charge of Storm Boy, Swan Song succeeds in its evocation of place and for the feelings of freedom and adventure open only to children.

Mike Shuttleworth is a Melbourne writer and editor.

C. 2002 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors

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