Dingo by Charles de Lint

ISBN: 0142408166
224 pages
published in 2008.

This book was just astonishingly lovely. I know I am biased in very many ways – I love the author, I love Australia, I love Australian wildlife and the subject matter of the book seemed to have been written just for me. But Dingo is just an extraordinarily original work of young adult fantasy. This story is about Miguel, a 17-year-old highschool senior with a father that owns a store that caters to comic books and vintage music and the day this beautiful teenage girl from Australia with red-gold hair works into his shop with her curious looking dog. Suddenly he is tied up in a fantasy story involving animals and bloodlines and Aboriginal mythology. I’ve been dying for someone to write a novel involving Aboriginal Australian mythology forever and I couldn’t be more pleased with how this one was done.

Although there was no mention of my particular animal, I loved the descriptions of other native Australian wildlife – the pademelons and kangaroos and baobab trees and gum trees and all manners of ferns and other things. I love how the story tied into real mythology and the respect de Lint had for these things. He seemed to capture a real essence with this tale. You could feel yourself falling in love with Lainey just as the main character did and the world that they exist in. I can’t believe how fast this book went. It ended far too soon. Gorgeous, rich novel.

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