[The Shadow on the Hills] has, despite some incidents rife with action and drama, less story line than most of Thiele's fiction, but the lack of sustained plot is compensated for more than adequately by the vivid evocation of place—a small town in Australia—and of time—a depression year in which financial stress creates a tension that is a catalyst for dramatic events. Yet the chief appeal of the book is probably in the immediacy of a boy's involvement in the pattern of rural life, the mores of a German-Australian community, the humorous predicaments … or the more serious ones….