Annabel Smith reads Whisky Charlie Foxtrot
Classified variously as young adult, ‘new adult’ and adult, Whisky Charlie Foxtrot is a great read for senior secondary students. In this post, we invite you to listen to author Annabel Smith as she reads from the novel. A student activity and comprehensive teaching notes are available below.
Student activity
Watch the video of Annabel Smith reading from the book. Although the novel is written in the third person point of view, instead of an omniscient narrator we are limited to Charlie’s perspective for the majority of the text. In the chapter entitled ‘Echo’ Smith writes, ‘Charlie became a historian of his own life … [he] spun the thread of what he wanted to remember and discarded the rest.’ (p. 44) But it is not until the chapter entitled ‘Quebec’ that Charlie actually begins to question himself and his attitude: ‘Was it just his imagination that Whisky had always had the upper hand, a convenient fiction he had created?’ (p. 183)
- Find four or five other quotes that show the third person limited point of view and in each case consider how the incident described may have been viewed differently by one or more of the other characters in the novel.
- Choose one incident from the novel involving both Charlie and Whisky.
a. Write a journal entry from Whisky’s point of view.
b. Rewrite the narrative from the third person point of view limited to the perspective
of Whisky rather than Charlie.
