This is the story of a little girl born in 1901. Alice was born in Sawyer’s Gully, in the Hunter Valley north of Sydney, with its fertile farmland. In the morning she rides on her father’s shoulders to the milking shed and tastes the milk spurting from the udders of the cows. Her brothers are noisy as they arrive from running home from school, carefree with the dog panting and grinning alongside them. Alice is dressed in an embroidered gown and white satin shoes for her christening day. But she wiggles her toes and pulls those shoes right off.
One day Alice has a red-hot fever. All night and all day the fever continues until finally, she sleeps. When she wakes her mother’s face appears smudged, her voice far away. It is as if the world is muffled by a large grey blanket. She closes her eyes and sticks her fingers in her ears but Alice can’t see or hear. The doctor says that Alice is deafblind.
Alice’s life has changed but that does not stop her from feeling the world. She can feel the rattle of the wheels on the train home from the doctor. She walks bare-foot around the house. The floorboards are smooth. Her fingers trace the pattern of the tiles on the kitchen floor as she strokes the cat. The tiles feel cool and damp. She kicks and splashes as she sits in a warm soapy bath. She sings at church and feels the vibrations of the church organ.
Finally Alice is old enough to go to school. Miss Reid, her teacher smells of lavender. On Alice’s palm Miss Reid makes four finger signs. She repeats this every day and places a shoe in Alice’s hand each time. Eventually Alice has a lightbulb moment. She has learned the sign for the word shoe. She had found the key to unlock the door to a whole new world.
This picture book tells the remarkable tale of Alice Betteridge, the first deafblind child to be educated in the country.
Miss Reid helped Alice to learn signing the deafblind alphabet. In a few months Alice knew 200 nouns and several verbs, including run, jump, and laugh. It wasn’t long before she was reading braille. Alice graduated as dux of the school, after which she returned as a teacher for nine years, before returning to the family farm.
Alice’s Shoe is an important book telling an important life story. It is one that should be shared in every classroom. The illustrations perfectly depict the era but also the warmth of a little girl experiencing the joy of living, no matter the challenges given to her.
Reviewed by Jane Stephens
Age Guide 4+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julie Anne Thorndyke graduated with merit from the Master of Creative Writing program at the University of Sydney. She has published poems and stories in many literary journals. A winner in the US based Tanka Splendor competition in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009, she was also awarded an honourable mention in 6th International Tanka Festival Competition 2009 (Japan).
She has facilitated a tanka-writers’ group, participated in collaborative poetry presentations and led creative writing workshops. Julie won the 2011, 2015, 2017 and 2020 Fellowship of Australian Writers Pauline Walsh short story competitions and the 2018 John Kelly Short Story competition for an original myth, folk or fairy tale. Her short story The Maid’s Room was shortlisted in the FAW Marjorie Barnard Award 2019.
Her novel Mrs Rickaby’s Lullaby was published by Ginninderra Press in 2019, and it was Shortlisted in the Society of Women Writers Member Book Awards (Fiction) in 2020. Divertimento (her short story collection) was published in 2021, and launched by Judith Tribe at Mount Wilson during Julie’s Artist Residency at The Old School, Mount Wilson, in June 2021.
Julie was the recipient of the Society of Women Writers New South Wales Inaugural Writers’ Grant in 2019, and received a Highly Commended certificate in the Society of Women Writers Victoria Nance Donkin Literary Award 2021. Her poem Doing their Sum won an award in the Society of Women Writers New South Wales National Writing Competition 2021
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