Colin Thiele · 1964 · coming-of-age

Colin Thiele's 1964 novella, fifty pages long and read by three generations of Australian schoolchildren. A boy lives with his beachcomber father in a humpy on the Coorong, raises three orphaned pelican chicks, and keeps the one that will not leave - and the book is about what happens when men with guns come down for the duck season.

1. 1
   The Coorong

   A hundred kilometres of shallow lagoon behind a dune peninsula, with the Southern Ocean slamming the other side of it - and a humpy in the dunes where Hide-Away Tom and his son live on what the beach gives them.

2. 2
   The Murray Mouth

   Where the river finally reaches the sea, and where Storm Boy and Fingerbone Bill find three pelican chicks after their mother is shot - Mr Proud, Mr Ponder and Mr Percival, of whom only one comes back.

3. 3
   Goolwa

   The town across the barrage, and the tugboat and the ketch that go aground in the storm - and Mr Percival flying a line out through the surf to the wreck, which is the only reason anybody comes off it alive.

4. 4
   Adelaide

   After the duck shooters kill Mr Percival and he is buried in a sandhill looking out to sea, Storm Boy takes the offer of school in the city - and Thiele lets him go, which is the whole cost of the ending.