The camping trip was going to be special. A week on their own in a secluded area with no parents in sight. How little did they know that the world they were going to return to would be nothing like the one they left behind? Ellie had seen the planes flying in tight formation with the night as their cover. A military exercise maybe? If only.
The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden sees Australia invaded by a powerful, foreign military force which manage to quickly take control of key strategic locations - including Cobblers' Bay and the small town Ellie and her friends come from. The books are written from Ellie's perspective (a high-school senior) and relates what the group goes through as they try to make sense of a world where death is but a mistake away and where they have no one else to look to but themselves. They find themselves having to choose either to stay safely hidden and wait out the war (which could take years) or form a guerrilla war band and fight back.
My first contact with the series was the movie Tomorrow when the war began which was made from the first book. I read the first two books in the series after that. To avoid confusion, I'll just babble about the story as it is in both the book and the movie (which stuck really close to canon) before making distinctions between the two.
What is there to like?
Just about everything.
Tomorrow when the war began is really well thought out. It's not about kids doing impossible things in improbable situations. No one in the group acts unfazed or is perfect or bulletproof and Marsden made a lot of effort to bring that point home. They make foolish, youthful choices which often only succeed (if in fact they do succeed) through some desperate action, an enemy's mistake or fluke. These aren't trained combatants and they aren't suddenly, magically transformed into such.Each richly developed character has his or her own unique background, opinion, strengths and weaknesses. And each of them grow through the story while never losing their individuality.
What is very refreshing about Tomorrow is that it is really an Australian story without it being an AUSTRALIAN!!! story. What do I mean by that? They didn't make every word some obscure slang that no one can figure out and thus make is "Australian". Not every landscape is something one could put on a tourism promotional board. The teens aren't sitting in a huddle talking about their country to give their non-corporeal audience something to go "ooohhh" about. And I love that. I love that the story is simply Australian without trying to be. I've seen too many Australian and African movies/literature that want to showcase the location more than they want to tell the story. And I hate that.
Book vs Movie
I really enjoyed both. In fact, there are things in the movie that I felt brought a lot of character development which had not transpired in the book. The movie sticks close enough to the book that I would suggest rather watching the movie if you're super sensitive to animal suffering. My mom watched the movie and made a very smooth transition to the second book. So yeah, if you can't deal with animal stuff, rather go that route.
Woaaahhh... why?? Because Marsden keeps the story's sense of realism throughout. And it's simply unrealistic to think animals are all going to be able to successfully fend for themselves once their owners are dragged away. This whole upsetting discovery happens within the first thirty pages of the book and fortunately doesn't rear its head again afterwards... but it's still really upsetting. It upset me enough not to touch the book for a week and leave my dogs DAYS worth of food every morning before I left for work. They must've thought it's Christmas.
Conclusion
I'm not a survival genre fan, but I really enjoyed the movie and the book. I'm also not an action junkie and could really get myself behind these teens. Yes, it is young adult, but that shouldn't push you away from a really good story. It's definitely not young in the slightest. There's a copy of it on my bookshelf and I'm actually planning on getting the dvd too. I reckon it's worth it.
