God it's been a while, hasn't it!

I’ll preface this review by saying that I read this book because it looked nice. I read this due to being in the shortlist for the CBCA and I want to look like a reputable critic, so I chose the nicest looking one, and ignoring the one about drugs and domestic and animal abuse (if you that sounds interesting to you, first go to a counselor, then read “The Bogan Mondrian”, but you’re not going to fool me into reading about something I don’t like with your fancy made up art words, Herrick).

So, I picked up “The Art of Taxidermy” by Sharon Kernot because I thought it would be a nice little exercise into the life of a taxidermist. How fun it is collecting dead animals, having barely any friends, staring into the soulless eyes of thousands of marsupials, reptiles and birds, and, in general, just being surrounded by death. You might be shouting into the computer screen: “You fool! You insolent fool! You’re probably so insolent that you had to Google what insolent meant! Why would you think a book about death would be a pleasant read!” And you’re right on all terms, but even though the subject matter wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it’s probably one of the nicer YA books out there.

“The Art of Taxidermy” is, first and foremost, a verse novel, and it’s the first verse novel I’ve liked. If you don’t know what a verse novel is, it’s essentially a story told through poetry. I still have no idea how it works (my childlike sensibilities were screaming throughout the book “None of the lines rhyme!”) but I appreciate it just the same. Being a verse novel, it isn’t a very long read. It took me about 2 hours, but it was a great two hours. I remember putting down the book, and immediately thinking “Wow, I can’t wait to read this again!” which is high praise.

The novel follows a young eleven-year-old Australian-German girl called Charlotte (Lottie for short) growing up in a post-World War 2 Australia. All her life she’s been surrounded by death, whether it was her long dead Opa, her not-so-long dead mother, or other people that are dead around her (spoilers!) and she has to cope with it somehow, even if it is romanticizing dead animals as beautiful artworks. After her collection of decaying animals… decay, a trip to the museum enlightens her on the lovely world of taxidermy. However, her intention isn’t to preserve the dead animals. It’s to reanimate them.

Unlike what I implied a sentence ago, it doesn’t have any sci-fi twist or fantasy zing or thriller bedazzling. Surprisingly, it’s extremely grounded and kept in a world of rules and limits. There are consequences. Early in the book, Lottie’s stash of dead, rotting animals are eaten by ants because of course they are (You insolent fool!), and it just reminds you that there are rules, and you can’t just leave the picnic basket out in the middle of the field and not expect for all of your egg sandwiches to be covered in hungry ants.

A couple of warnings about the book: first of all, her over-romanticization of dead animals means that there is a lot of graphic explanations of dead, rotting corpses. Another thing is that it is, at times, repetitive. Aunt Hilda, Lottie’s aunt (who would’ve figured) finds, then disposes of the dead animals. It’s always heartbreaking, but after the first couple times, it kind of loses it’s magic.

But aside from those minor issues, the book is wonderful and beautiful, and I hope it wins the CBCA book of the year (older readers) prize. Again, this is a short book, but worth every second. 4/5.