The Champion - First Episode

The champion doesn’t have such a strong storyline. This is much more a story of character than incident, which is why I think it will appeal to older children.

– Writer Maurice Gee in The Listener, 7 October 1989, page 29

You'd better shake yourself up my girl, this isn't a pā.

– Teacher Miss Betts (Augusta McDonald) checks on the schoolwork of Dawn Stewart (Louise Perry)

My one worry is that it’s a bittersweet story and the bitter is quite strong. I feel it would have been better placed in a late-night time slot. I think it would be good for parents to sit with their younger children, especially over the last couple of episodes.

– Writer Maurice Gee in The Listener, 7 October 1989

There were acres of mangroves . . . I can’t imagine growing up without those two things — three things — mud, mangroves, warm brown tidal water.

– Rex in chapter two of Maurice Gee's novel The Champion, page 18

I wrote away. They asked us to in the paper. And I got one — a special one.

– Bernice Pascoe (Sarah Pierse) on the American soldier she is about to billet

Now tell me, why is bookmaking a crime? People have gotta have fun.

– Alf Pascoe (Alistair Douglas) tries to pretend he isn't a bookmaker, to Bob (Don Selwyn), the local cop

Jackson Coop, a black American soldier, comes to stay with the Pascoe family to recuperate from injuries sustained in action in the Pacific region. His visit is only two weeks in length, but acts as a lightning rod for the racism inherent in the community . . . Rex Pascoe, 12 years old at the time of the action [is forced] to confront his own limited assumptions about race and the nature of heroism.

– Diane Hebley describes Maurice Gee's novel of The Champion, in 2014 book Maurice Gee A Liteary Companion: The Fiction for Young Readers, page 62

It was the outside world coming to town. It was the USA in Kettle Creek.

– Rex Pascoe, in Maurice Gee's 1989 novel inspired by the TV series, page 98

...the fictional township of Kettle Creek seems to have been named to evoke, as Rex puts it, a 'tin-pot town'. However, with its creeks, swamps and mud, it recalls the battlefields of Guadalcanal, which is explicitly mentioned in the novel. Indeed Rex , the 12-year-old protagonist . . . and Jack (who shelters in Kettle Creek after fighting in Guadalcanal, and whom the younger Rex befriends), both see the landscape in terms of Guadalcanal's battles, creatures and terrain.

– Vivien van Rij in 2014 book Maurice Gee A Literary Companion: The Fiction for Younger Readers, page 147