My Books of the Year 2020

My best of the best 

This year I have not always completely agreed about the quality of some of the children’s books lauded on social media. I have to admit that some new titles by writers I much admire have rather disappointed. I have nevertheless had many wonderful reads, some of which seem to pass by with less media attention than others. I have tried throughout the year to highlight these whenever I could.  

Here are the books that have thrilled me the most; the ones that, had I still been teaching, I would have been recommending the most enthusiastically to young readers. There will of course have been many others I have missed. I can only hope that I will catch up with some of them in the future.

Continued brilliance

For starters, there were three eagerly anticipated additions to outstanding sequences that most certainly did not disappoint. Celine Kiernan’s trilogy The Wild Magic is one of the most original and engaging children’s fantasy creations of recent years and The Promise Witch has now brought it to a thrilling conclusion, adding layers of rich, fresh imagination to the resonance of traditional Irish storytelling. 

Michelle Paver’s Wolf Brother sequence is already a classic of contemporary children’s fiction and deservedly so. Combining fantasy elements with a prehistoric setting, it brings not only compulsive adventure but also an intense sensitivity to both the reality and the spirituality of the natural world. For a long while, we all thought the series had ended, and the author had moved on, but she has now returned to it with Viper’s Daughter. With this new addition she has taken up seamlessly and gloriously from where she left off, albeit with now slightly older protagonists.   

Way top of this little group, though, comes the new instalment of The Wizards of Once from Cressida Cowell. This series had been a joyful triumph from the start, and now this fourth part, Never and Forever, is its crowning glory. In my original review I called it ‘the apotheosis of children’s fantasy fiction’ and I stand by that view. A riot of fun and fantasy, visual as well as verbal, it ensures delightful entertainment. But there are depths here too for readers to explore and grow through. Cressida Cowell’s writing has a thoughtfulness behind its infectious energy, and, amongst other things, has much to say about the importance of story itself. 

Classic storytelling

Here are two stand-out books that epitomise good, old-fashioned storytelling, in the very best sense. They each construct narrative that, even if far-fetched and at times melodramatic, is nevertheless compulsively gripping. However, they also underlay its many conflicts and dramas with a wholesome warm-heartedness that promotes such eternally important qualities as friendship, loyalty and courage. They are the sort of stories where you can be sure that goodness will prevail and wrongs will, in the end, he righted, however bleak events along the way. In this they belong to a fine tradition of children’s fiction that traces right back to the likes of Frances Hodgson Burnett and Edith Nesbit. Lucy Strange’s The Ghost of Gosswater is not so much a ghost story as a historical Romance, a sort of young readers’ Jane Eyre, whilst Natasha Farrant’s Voyage of the Sparrowhawk is a most endearing example of a classic children’s adventure, set against a background of WWI. These are not books to change the world, but they are wonderful books to snuggle up with and lose yourself in. 

My top three novels for 9-12s

My top favourite books are here because they are not simply entertaining reads, but examples of the highest quality writing. They are also refreshingly original and have a great deal to say to young readers about the world we live in and the people we share it with. Two of these titles are from US authors, but both have been published this year here in the UK, so I have no hesitation in including them in recommendations for a British audience, As happens, each of these three novels, in its own particular way, speaks very eloquently about our relationship with nature, contrasting this tellingly with the man-made realities with which we all have to deal on a daily basis. 

The novel that made the biggest impression on me this year was undoubtedly Katya Balen’s breathtaking October, October.

This book is stunningly beautiful in both its thought and its language. It takes us intimately inside the mind of a fellow-human being in a way that is both enriching and deeply moving. Its intensity and passion bring both the experiences of its young protagonists and those of its readers into fresh sharp focus in way that is truly life-enhancing. It is a very fine book indeed.

Not very far behind at all in my estimation is Lauren Wolk’s Echo Mountain. This explores many of the same themes,  but in the very different context of rural, ‘back woods’ America. Any feeling of unfamiliarity with the setting is, however, rapidly banished by the immersive qualities of the storytelling. Again the writing is superb and the book’s captivating characters and evocative world-building are completely mesmerising; deeply human and richly humanising. This author has already written several brilliant children’s books, and this new one certainly joins them in my not-to-be-missed category.

Sara Pennypacker’s Here in the Real World tackles head on the tensions between a need to live in the world as it is and a desparate wish to improve it. Yet it does this in a simple but intensely lyrical way, by intimately sharing the experiences of two children as they try to build their own personal ‘paradise’ on a patch of waste ground. The narrative is built around some of the most telling, and moving, dialogue that I have come across in many years. This book is funny and honest, original, idiosyncratic, specific and yet universal. Much of its unique potency is almost impossible to describe and it is a classic candidate for a recommendation that says, ‘Just read it.’

All three of these novels are challenging. They are what might be called quiet books and will appeal to sensitive, committed readers, rather than to those seeking easy entertainment. They are, however, also powerful books that will reward hugely children who are open to the many layers of  richness within their gentle, thoughtful storytelling.

The very best of YA

In and amongst the many contemporary YA titles are to be found examples of truly high quality literature; books which can stand comparison with the finest from any genre. Here to prove the case are three such novels. They are stunningly written, original and utterly compelling. 

Patrick Ness already has an reputation of considerable standing, and his latest book Burn is amongst his very best. A complex work, it mixes genres in a gripping story that is both fantasy and not fantasy. It it is threaded through with the most sensitive exploration of close relationships, including young love between both opposite and same sex couples. It is a passionate book, and an empowering one. It is deeply disturbing and deeply moving.  It is grotesquely violent and sweetly tender, thoughtful and yet viscerally excitingly. It is, in short, remarkable.

The Wolf Road, an equally impressive book from Richard Lambert, is all the more remarkable for being this author’s debut. Here, the intense loss felt by an adolescent boy after the sudden, traumatic death of both parents is played out against a bleak Lake District landscape, where nature provides potent images of his journey through grief. As befits its subject, this is a harrowing book and its narrative grips like a hand around the throat. Not for the young, or indeed for the faint-hearted, it illuminates humanity by focusing on its contorted shadow. It is a masterclass in both writing and storytelling.

Although set in the seventeenth century, Finbar Hawkins’s Witch does not so much tell a historical story of ‘witches’, but rather uses this context as background for what is essentially an exploration of character. And a very powerful study it is too. It is a violent, sometimes horrific tale. But at its heart is a story about the power and potency of sisterhood, both within and beyond the family. It celebrates a collective female strength that can move beyond the oppression of a male-dominated world: it is a book that boys need to read as well as girls.The author conjures a potent feeling of period, pressingly real without ever seeming artificially archaic. Yet he creates a voice that speaks directly to us and to our world. By distancing things from us, he brings everything nearer. He shows us the past as a mirror, not as an oil painting. When the power of language and the power of story meld as thrillingly together as they do here, they make something very special, and very important.

And that which was lost . . .

Even though it is not a novel like these others, I cannot end this round up of my 2020 favourite children’s books without mentioning The Lost Spells, Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane’s follow up to the phenomenally, and deservedly, successful The Lost Words. The breathtaking effect of that earlier publication was much enhanced by the huge size of the pages themselves. This much smaller format book inevitably does not have quite  the same impact.  However both its spell poems and its art work are just as devastating and their creators’ passionate commitment to the wonders of the natural world around us is just as great. In fact the physically smaller volume has a special quality all of its own. It feels almost like a handbook for sensitising its readers to nature. And that is a wonderful thing.

The Ghost of Gosswater by Lucy Strange

Cover and illustrations: Helen Crawford-White

‘I am midnight. Neither one day nor the next. Yesterday is behind me, and a new day is ahead. But right now there is only darkness . . .’  (p 148)

Strangely good

Lucy Strange has already made her mark in children’s fiction with two excellent novels, The Secret of Nightingale Wood and     Our Castle by the Sea, but this, her third, is even better and fully confirms her place in the canon of the finest children’s literature. 

When authors cite their literary influences, or share their own favourite authors  from childhood, it can be difficult to detect those influences in their own work. But that does not apply here. Lucy Strange quotes the Brontës, Stevenson, Hodgson Burnett and Ransome as inspiration. The ghosts of Jane Eyre, David Balfour and Mary Lennox and Nancy Blackett certainly do haunt the periphery of this novel, never as actually present, or anything like, but as the merest echoes of an earlier existence, just occasionally caught out of the very corner of the mind’s eye. Even more, this new title brought to mind the later ‘romances’ of Eva Ibbotson,  like The Star of Kazan. This is because, despite adopting the current vogue for present tense narration, The Ghost of Gosswater is good, old-fashioned storytelling. And I mean that as an enormous compliment. It sits within a fine tradition of fiction writing for children and is captivating escapism of the very highest order.

All in the mix

Although there is indeed a ghost, who plays a significant role in the narrative, this is not really a ghost story. Rather it is the most compelling of Romantic adventures. It has many features, archetypical of this genre, a young girl cheated out of her considerable inheritance; a dastardly older cousin, hell-bent on doing her down and aggrandising himself at her expense; a discovered friendship with a boy of ‘lowly status’; a father unjustly imprisoned; an eccentric recluse and a secret  story of love tragically lost. And all is set against the equally Romantic and evocative setting of a Lake District conjured from imagination as much as from geography, which can therefore offer, in addition to fells and lakes, a rambling gothic mansion, a bleak mountain pass, its summit marked by a ram’s skull, and an eerie graveyard island. 

The story’s central character, is rich and complex. She is both Lady Agatha, the child of Gosswater Hall, and farm girl, Aggie. She is full of anger and bitterness as well as of love and kindness. She is lost and lonely as much as she is fiercely brave. Like the geese she adopts into her care, she can be different things at the same time.

‘The geese huddle close, their warmth and softness surrounding me, keeping me safe. They can be soft and they can be fierce. It is possible to be more than one thing.’  (p 164)

This ambivalence adds to the story’s tension, and hence to its excitement.  

All of these ingredients contribute to a quite wonderfully constructed narrative, that, interspersed with precious, if brief, lulls of warm positivity, rolls from one gripping crisis to the next, tension ever mounting as Aggie deals with one drama after another . Just  as the reader’s  passionate desire for everything to be alright grows almost desperate, things only get worse.  And if , at the tale’s climax, events teeter on the brink of melodrama, then they provide breathless reading excitement in the process.

Great escape 

Ultimately the story celebrates the triumph of goodness over malice, as all such tales should. It endorses the power of love, friendship and true family to see us through, whatever adversity may throw at us. These are values important to us all, and to our lives. Nonetheless, the essential value of a book like The Ghost of Gosswater is not to help its readers explore everyday reality. Quite the contrary; it provides a temporary, and perhaps very welcome, escape from it. But that is no bad thing. No bad thing at all. It offers a respite, a sanctuary that many children need in their lives, as a recovery that all need at some point, Lucy Strange’s book is a celebration of story, and the power of story to take us away from where we are. It is pure story. Not story as anything, except story as story. And, as such, it is something very special indeed. 

The Wolf Road by Richard Lambert

Cover: Holly Ovenden

‘The American tribes believe that the wolf can move between this world and the spirit world. That the Milky Way is the Wolf Road down which the first wolf travelled, and that when human beings killed the first wolf that was when death entered the world.’ (p 276)

There are many strong examples of the psychological thriller amongst contemporary adult literature. However, it is less common for a writer to bring this particular genre successfully to a YA audience. However, Richard Lambert does so here  with the same powerfully gripping compulsion and moving engagement as the very best of them.

Wolf death

As the genre demands, this is an intense book. It is often a harrowing one, too. Its language is taut and powerful with fractured sentences and repeated fragments often used to particularly striking effect. Its protagonist, Lucas, is hurtled (literally) into horrific tragedy within sentences of the opening, witnessing the gruesome death of both of his parents in a car crash.  His trauma is profound and its effects protracted, worked out in difficult relationships with a handful of other people, none of whom are themselves spared life’s pains, the best brittle and distant, the worst violently hostile. All of this is played out against a winter landscape portraying the Lake District, where Lucas has to live with his taciturn grandmother, at its most bleak and isolated. Then behind and through the whole narrative runs the wolf, both creature and metaphor, death and life, hunter and hunted. Above all the wolf is wilderness, glorious and cruel, vicious and gentle. It brought death to Lucas’s parents, can it bring life to their son? This narrative grips like a hand around the throat. It is one of those books that many will devour (and be devoured by) in a single sitting; if only because of a desperate need to breathe again. Not for the young, or indeed for the faint-hearted, it illuminates humanity by focusing on its contorted shadow. It is a masterclass in both writing and storytelling, and those who can live with it may never again live without it.

Richard Lambert’s is an unsentimental book, but not a cynical one. Although it is intensely bleak and troubling, it does, in the end, offer consolation and hope; close connections forged between individuals that may not be ideal, but are at least real.

‘Love - that difficult country, always at your back.’ (p 344)

Whilst not a tyger, this wolf burns bright in the fells of the night, and has a truly fearful symmetry.

Kindred beast 

There were several times when The Wolf Road reminded me of Janni Howker’s The Nature of the Beast from the 1980s. The two books share the haunting presence of a speculative wild beast, although in the case of the earlier title it is a big cat on the moors rather than a wolf on the fells.

Both are outstanding titles, and, in mentioning this parallel, I do not mean any diminution of the originality of either novel. Merely that those who, like me, enjoy comparing and contrasting books that share common themes, may be interested to seek out this earlier title too.

Knowable by its cover

The jacket of The Wolf Road, illustrated and designed by Holly Ovenden, is very striking and wonderfully apt; it is a pity that she is not given rather more acknowledgement that the minuscule credit on the back. 

Never and Forever: Wizards of Once Book 4 by Cressida Cowell

‘The crucible of the story changes those who listen to it, those who are within it, and the person who is telling it, all at the same time.’ (p 380)

(No) more to be said?

I have written enthusiastically about the Wizards of Once series so many times now, (well, once, twice, three times actually, most recently in May 2019 - see previous posts) that I have little left to say. Except that this concluding book of the quartet fizzes and crackles with all the thrillingly entertaining magic of the previous three, and a good deal more too. Cressida Cowell certainly proves to have a great deal of value still to say.

As one, so the other

As ever, her own exuberant illustrations are strewn across the pages. Her anarchic line and sprawled captions pull in her excited readers, their imagination freed by the freedom of the images. Like the pictures in the best graphic novels (although most certainly not confined in rectilinear frames) they are not perceived as static but create momentum, propelling both the characters they represent and the reader through the story with breathtaking drive. Whether conjuring the swooping of a flying door, materialising a rider clinging on for dear life to the fur of a jet-propelled bear, or simply capturing the downward drift of a gifted feather, these pictures both move and move. They are funny, terrifying , thrilling, touching, bewildering and bewitching. They can be incredibly sensitive too, and that is a big part of Cressida Cowell’s genius; she creates hilarious scrawls of fantastic creations that are often deeply compassionate and somehow profoundly human. Us as not us. (Or is that vice versa?)

And as the artist so the writer. Cressida Cowell’s story is all these same things too, and more besides. This book, these books, are the apotheosis of young children’s fantasy. They are pure reading joy. They have just about every kid-pleasing element and have it in spades (and enchanted spoonfuls). But they have more besides (did I say that already?). Her story changes and changes us. 

Meta matter

Ultimately this is metafiction for young readers. And that is a hard thing to pull off. But Cressida Cowell can do it. This is a story wrapped in story. It is old story wrapped in new story. Rich legend wrapped in wild invention. It is story of story yet to unfold, told through stories told before. It is steeped in lore as much, as the tales of, say, Alan Garner or Susan Cooper. It just wears its erudition more lightly. It is sometimes ‘magical and invisible in the quiet still darkness of the sheltering trees.’ (p 380) At other times, it lurks in gleeful laughter But though its echoes often chortle, they resonate no less for all that. 

Through four wonderful books Cressida Cowell has developed the intriguing mystery of which character in her story is the secret  narrator. In this volume, all is finally revealed. I am most certainly not going to tell you who it is.  But that which was lost is found, and that which was found is lost. Study the faces, and you may just spot the face. And if young readers are puzzled by the esoteric esthetic of the denouement, then many will think too, and is that not the purpose of a puzzle? Of a story? Of a fantasy? We are story. We are fantasy. (Or is that verse vica?)

Four-ever?

This title , like the series, is a triumphant tour de force from one of our very finest children’s book creators. But is this really the end of the story of Wish and Xar? The author is at pains to point out that a story never truly ends. Will there be more? Hopefully, never say

NEVER AND FOREVER. 

I did find a bit more to say, after all. 

Little in response to much.

Major Award Winner: October,October by Katya Balen

‘Let neither friend nor foe this secret know.

In the wild world flies Stig 2450’  (p 267)

For the present

Here on the edge of the Yorkshire Wolds, not many miles from the Humber, October has felt like the month of the wild geese. Thousands have arrived to roost on the islands of the estuary and now head inland daily to feed on the stubble fields left behind by the recent grain harvest. My regular walk has been enlivened by the spectacle of wave after wave of pink-footed geese flying overhead in huge, ragged V formations, their incessant honking unmissable.

Reading Katya Balen’s book has seemed particularly apt at this time, not simply because of her protagonist’s name, but because I have felt a close kinship with eleven year-old October’s love of autumnal nature.

I am actually no great fan of fictional narrative written in the present tense, especially now that it has become so ubiquitous. There are notable exceptions, though. It seems to me this viewpoint is most truly effective when an author has a very particular narrative reason for the wanting the reader to share a protagonist’s intense, moment-to-moment experience. A few years back YA novelist Sally Green was shockingly arresting when she used such a present tense narration to capture the stream of consciousness of Half Bad ‘witch’, Nathan Byrn. The effect was disturbed, disturbing and quite devastating. More recently Christopher Edge  has used first person, present tense narration to great effect in books like The Longest Night of Charlie Noon, where time and the perception of time play a pivotal part. And now here is another remarkable exception. Katya Balen’s chosen style captures brilliantly a sensual receptiveness in her young protagonist, October,  that amounts almost  to a perpetual state of mindfulness. She is intensely aware of every moment she lives, responding to the natural world around her with committed passion. October’s voice is utterly captivating and her story would not be the one it is were it written in any other way. Which is exactly how a fine novel should feel.

Wild woods and terrifying town

However, this intensity is conjured not solely by the narrative perspective but also by the author’s stunningly beautiful use of language. Her construction of prose is often breathtaking in its mastery, as is her occasional use of arresting typography. Whilst never obtrusively ‘arty’, her writing has an intrinsic lyricism that enchants the reading ear, thrills the senses, and stimulates the mind with its vivid conjuring of experience. Nor is it only October’s adoration of her life living wild in the woods with her father that is caught with persuasive truthfulness. This is contrasted quite wonderfully with her horrified reaction to everything around her when, after a serious incident, she is forced to live instead with her estranged mother in London. Her appalled terror at  the unfamiliar oppression of the sights, sounds and smells of the city is also conveyed with devastating potency.

Inside and out

There is also much of huge implicit importance in Katya Balen’s book,  caught as effectively through her clever writing as it is through her storytelling. In first establishing October in the context of the wild, wood-living life that she experiences as so idyllic, our empathy for her is deeply established. This means that when, in the city, she exhibits behaviours that could well be experienced as strange or ‘difficult’, we already see and understand things completely from her perspective. We fully appreciate her ‘normal’, even when it may be very different from that of others. It is therefore a book that engenders understanding in a truly vital and compelling way. More than this, without any feeling of  didacticism, it also shows how beneficial to children experiencing dislocation and loss can be the patience, acceptances and appropriate love of others, whether they be a parent, friend or teacher.

Naturally the best

As happens, I am also a huge fan of Angela Harding’s art work. For several years now her Advent calendars have taken our family’s countdown to Christmas to a whole new level of loveliness, and many special celebrations have been marked by the sending of one of her magical greetings cards. She captures a vibrant and deeply effecting essence of the natural world quite breathtakingly, and her jacket for October, October is a perfect example of this. It is almost impossible to think of there being a more fitting cover for any book. Equally apt and moving are her vignettes of  Stig, the owl that October rescues. Interspersed  through the text, they echo Katy’s Balen’s story in leading the reader towards the final heart-lifting image of freedom and flight.

Wild anywhere 

This book captures so vividly and powerfully the potency of the wild, with its healing and invigorating potential, that even young readers who have no direct experience of wildness will be able to find it vicariously through October. In her they can discover the value of wildness in their own lives and world, whatever the context of their current living. There is a somewhat different, if related, theme in the book too, that also has much to offer young readers. This is the idea encapsulated in the activity of  Thames Mudlarking, rediscovering lost treasures from the past, and not only rediscovering them but ‘hearing’ and telling their stories. All this, of course, is in addition to the most valuable insight into the lives and minds of others who may appear to think differently from us but have so much to offer in and through that difference. And, above everything, October, October is a thoroughly enchanting and engaging read that ravishes with its writing. There is so much treasure for young readers (or indeed older ones too) to discover in this wonderful book.

‘All the world is wild and waiting for me.’  says October. (p 287). It is waiting now for us all. In the present. Which is exactly where it should be. Where it is. 

In my last post I flagged Finbar Hawkins’ Witch as my YA book of the year so far. Now October, October leaps into my other top spot, as front runner for children’s novel of the year. In fact, it is way ahead of the field. 

The same but different 

Back when I was a teacher I loved to explore comparisons and contrasts with my class. If I were reading October, October with them (which I certainly would have been, were it around then) I would compare it with American author Lauren Wolk’s equally superb Echo Mountain, which also explores wildness, of both nature and character, but within the context of a very different landscape  and culture. I would also contrast Katya Balen’s story with one of the several excellent children’s novels about evacuees in World War II, where the experience of children was so often exactly the opposite of October’s, being uprooted  from urban life and moved into the alien countryside. 

Major awards

October, October has now won the 2022 Yoto Carnegie Medal and the 2022 UKLA Book Award in the 7-10+ category. Congratulations to a wonderful writer. 

Witch by Finbar Hawkins

Jacket: Edward Bettison 

Internal illustration: by the author

‘I had found my witching way. And it felt so good. Now I must finish my spell.’ (p 269)

Witch seeker

As a boy in East Lancashire, I was more or less brought up with stories of The Pendle Witches. Later, when our own children were young, we lived for quite a few years in the shadow of Pendle Hill itself. Robert Neil’s book Mist Over Pendle was one of the first ‘grown up’ books I ever read. It was amongst the few novels my father owned and the same volume, very tatty now, still stands on my own, much fuller shelves. That particular book about the Lancashire Witches is not exactly a literary masterpiece, but, even so, it made a big impression, and I have had a particular interest in seeking out historical fiction about seventeenth century ‘witches’ ever since.

There have been quite a few in the intervening years, both adult and YA, some truly  excellent, others rather less so. But Finbar Hawkins’ new contribution is one of the very best. In fact this astonishing debut goes straight onto my list of books of the year and, ironically, makes the list shorter by being there. How so? Well,  because it has raised the bar for me considerably. I have read only a few other novels this year that can stand comparison with the breathtaking quality of this one.

Now and then

Witch does not, in fact, so much tell a historical story of ‘witches’, but rather uses the seventeenth century context as background for what is essentially an exploration of character. And a very powerful study it is too. Superficially, teenaged Evey seeks to revenge the brutal murder of her mother, a country woman of benign ‘witching ways’, devoted to births and healing. Her targets are the perpetrators, a gleefully vicious gang of witch-hunting men. However Evey’s less conscious quest is to discover her own identity, particularly in relation to the dead mother and living sister she resents because of her own perceived lack of their power. It is just as much a story of our time as it is of its setting, for it is the very fact that men would deny Evey her own integrity, indeed her own life, that gives her the incentive to find it. She needs the shared strength of sisters too, though - and that too resonates. Finbar Hawkins borrows from the historical period  men’s  appalling degradation of women; men whose fear of women’s true power threatens their own tenuous dominance and superiority. His ‘tall  man’ based very loosely on the historical ‘Witchfinder General’, Matthew Hopkins provides his archetype and Evey’s nemesis. But it all speaks to us still. 

Make no mistake, this is no book for young children, It is a violent, sometimes horrific story, just as the emotions Evey has to work through are violent and destructive. But it is at heart a story about the power and potency of sisterhood, both within and beyond the family, the collective strength that can resist, move beyond, the oppression of a male-orientated world. It is also untimately about the triumph of goodness over evil, of the benign use of the ‘witching way’ over its destructive potential. But the triumph is ultimate. Very ultimate.Thank goodness the tale includes one ‘good man’ within its world  of obnoxiously gross, but not exaggerated, misogyny. There is one corrupt and malign female too, to restore a little balance. Yet, even though this overwhelmingly a story of sistershood, it does not mean it is only for ‘sisters’, but I will come to that.

Bewitching writing

There is something even more to say first, for special as all of this is, the narrative itself is, for me, not the crowning glory of  this novel . Witch is not simply its story, powerful though it is, in more ways than one. It is not simply its story, but the way it is told that makes it very special indeed.

The brusque, single word Witch, feels like a very fitting title for this work. It reflects its style well, for the components  of Finbar Hawkins’ prose, its sentences, are themselves, generally terse. They are short and powerful, crafted, honed. In the voice of Evey, and in the conjuring of the settings, he achieves something very difficult. He gives a real feeling of period, pressingly real without ever seeming artificially archaic. Yet he creates a voice that speaks directly to us and to our world too. By distancing things from us, he brings everything nearer. He shows us the past as a mirror, not as an oil painting. 

Often the narrative fractures. Particularly at moments of high drama and explosive emotion, which often in Witch  amount to the same thing, the storytelling fragments into a kaleidoscope of language, images, events and impressions. It floats across the page like blown seed-down, it scatters like dead leaves, then it swoops like a murderous flock of crows. 

Many fine authors enrich their language with powerful images, and Finbar Hawkins does so excitingly, but, like a great film maker, he also builds his narrative through visual images, conjured in the mind’s eye of the reader. And sometimes it is the events described in the narrative, or the objects that are its catalyst, that are themselves the images. It is all most marvellously done. It is not only the pivotal images, like  the birds and  the scrying stone, that burn into the memory long after this story is done, but the kicked gallows bench, the wood ash on the face and the ash wood on the hill. The magnificently crafted chapter, I think it was number twenty two, where agonising news is learned during the spilling of a bowl of apples, bites deep and will live long. So too does the one about Evey’s stealing through a dark market. And these quieter scenes only serve to throw into high relief the trauma of chaos in the hanging square and the subsequent storm-fed battles on the hill. 

Images of images

Finbar Hawkins’ own skilful drawings front each chapter and add wonderfully to the atmosphere, as well as foreshadowing themes, becoming partners with the words in creating  rich imagery. One of his particular touches of  design genius is the way small silhouettes creep across the text pages, around chapter heads and into blank spaces in the text block; leaves, feathers, creatures, dandelion seeds. They draw the eye and the mind of the reader through the story and deeper into its meaning. And, oh, the blood magic! Oh, those crows!

I have seen this book classified as ‘Women’s and Girls’ YA’. However, it would be a crying shame if its audience were limited, even to such an important one. Men and boys need to read it too.Even those who themselves stand with the ‘good man’, and I hope there are many, will rightly cringe at the despicable acts their sex commit. All the more reason they need to read it. More important though, no avid reader who is old enough should miss this wonderful writing from a debut writer.

When the power of language and the power of story meld so thrillingly together, they make something very special, and important - witching magic. They leave us

‘Dancers all of the day’ 

The Book of Hopes Edited by Katherine Rundell

Cover: Axel Scheiffler 

Hopes come . .

Ever since it arrived in this morning’s post, from the wonderful Sam Read Bookshop in Grasmere, I have spend today’s down-time browsing this delightful anthology. It is a true treasure chest, and, quite the opposite of Pandora’s box. Open it and out fly clouds of glowing enchantment: poems, illustrations and short prose passages from many of our very finest children’s writers and book artists. Each, in their own way, brings a warm message  of hope, optimism and encouragement. Their multitude of bright colours truly glow in a world that might at present feel particularly dull and bleak.

. . . not single spies . . .

These are little gems for our times, but far more too. The need for hope, comfort and inspiration extends far beyond our current pandemic and I am sure this book will have much to offer to many children (and perhaps others too) in many places, and under many circumstances, for many years to come. 

As well as for children themselves, this book is a real gift for parents, carers, grandparents and teachers.The numerous lovely little snippets make it ideal for just picking up, dipping into and sharing at odd moments of time, odd moments of need. And it has more to offer too than just its comfort and encouragement. It will also act as an introduction for children and their adults to many quite wonderful writers and illustrators that they may not yet know, but will surely, after this, want to explore further. Were I still teaching, this book would be always to hand on  my desk, ready to pick up and share whenever those few spare minutes arise, precious little oases before the next thing in class life needs to happen.

. . . but in battalions 

The lists of ‘Further Reading’ that Katherine Randell has added to the end of the book, are themselves a wonderful source of inspiration. Herself one of our finest contemporary writers for young people, she clearly has extensive awareness of some of the very special books currently around for each age group. Perhaps because it is her own main audience, her suggestions for ‘Older Readers’ (MG) are particularly rich and extensive. I would be surprised if even avid readers don’t find some titles here that they do not yet know and are encouraged to seek out. 

It is yet another bonus that proceeds from the sale of this book are supporting ‘NHS Charities Together’. Buy it. Treasure it. Share it. And like the figure on Lauren Child’s brilliantly simple but evocative endpaper, look out to see bright birds of hope. 

Lauren Child

The Lost Spells by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris

‘Let the wild world’s whispers call you in.’

Lost and found 

I generally do not like to follow the crowd and simply post on here yet another rave review for a book that is already lauded widely all over the internet. However, when two of our most treasured advocates for the natural world produce yet another stunning volume what can I do but add my voice to the thousands already praising their incantations of ‘lost’ wonder?

Following the breathtaking impact of The Lost Words, this wordsmith-astist duo have now produced more of the same in The Lost Spells. And whilst ‘more of the same’ can sometimes be a rather derogatory description, it is categorically not so in this case When the original is unspeakably wonderful, and the follow-up every bit as special, how can ‘more of the same’ be anything but gloriously welcome. 

Spellbinding words

Here again are Robert Macfarlane’s skilfully crafted orchestrations of words, sounds, rhymes and rhythms that delight eye , ear, and mind. At the same time they take us right into the spirit, into the soul of the very creatures and plants that are his subjects - and often into our own souls too, showing just how connected we really are. He truly helps us to see; see things that have always been there, but that we never knew, had forgotten, or never really appreciated; indeed, things we had lost. In bringing alive particular wonders of the British countryside, he brings the whole alive, and makes us alive to it, alive to life itself. His spells conjure little things, little things that are big things, simple things that are the very depth of everything.

Spellbinding images

When illustrations are successful, we often speaks of them as enhancing the text. Here it is almost the reverse, as Robert Macfarlane’s words complement page after of Jackie Morris’s breathtakingly beautiful art. Her images of animals and plants manage somehow to be free and flowing yet still to give the impression of sharp detail. Her colours are vivid, yet simultaneously subtle. What she sets before us are, very obviously, painted images, artifice, yet they are more ‘real’ than photographs, capturing not only the look but the spirit of a thing. Fixed as they are they so often create the most magical feeling of movement, the swirl, the prowl, the sweep of things; the float of a feather through air, the slap of a grey seal’s tail against water, the silent beating of a pale moth’s wings. I want to say the height of perfection in her art is to be seen in the simple shape of a white egret against a vast double page of sky. That is, until I come across the downward swoop of an owl, the drama of starlings against a red brick wall, or find myself stopped in mid breath by the mesmerising eyes of a fox. 

The more you look, the more you read, the more images and words dance together, echo each other, say the same things, tell the same truths, and help us rediscover the lost.

Then larger, now smaller . . .

Yet, there is one way in which the new books could not be more different from its predecessor, in its format. The Lost Words is a huge and opulent volume. It drips gold, as a background to many of the images, and strews it across the lettered pages. It is huge and radiant in its impact as well as its size. It is stunning, almost iridescent.

The Lost Spells is, by contrast, a much smaller book, thicker but less ostentation than its older sibling. But, in its way, it is equally captivating. Rather than make you want to stand back, this book invites you in. Its greater number of pages allows for fuller exploration of each subject. If the earlier book is a portable gallery, this follow-up has more of the feel of a pocket field guide, although I would no more cram such a beautiful object into a pocket that I would take it into a muddy field. But its message, its songs, its spells will for ever go with me, out into field or woods, when I walk, when I conjure up awareness.

The Lost Words and The Lost Spells are much the same, but very different. Very special in their sameness, and very special in their difference.

One minor drawback of the new smaller, thicker volume, is that some of Jackie Morris’s double spread images get slightly distorted by the depth of the fold. The curved bill of the curlew is a particular casualty. But this is nowhere near enough to detract from another triumph: another not-to-be-missed, gem of a book. We should be enormously grateful to its creators for what they have once again given to our children, and to all of us; for what they have done for us as human beings, and for what they are doing for our lives - and for our world. 

Let their whispers call you in.

Let the seal and the moth call you in. Let the oak and the daisy call you in. Let the owl and the fox call you in.

The Otherwhere Emporium (Nowhere Emporium 3) by Ross MacKenzie

Cover: Manuel Sumberac

So far . . .

Having recently read (and enjoyed) some quite intense and reflective children’s books, it was a refreshing change  to come again to an action-packed, imagination-fest of a story. However, in the end, this one turned out to be something rather more too.

I was very excited by the first book in this series, The Nowhere Emporium, when it was published a few years ago. (See my review from May ‘15). It was one of my children’s fantasy highlights of that year and deservedly won popular awards. Ross MacKenzie followed it up by an excellent stand-alone fantasy horror novel, Shadowsmith, before returning with a second enjoyable Emporium title. Then, again, he penned a stand-alone, spine-tingler, Evernight, before returning to his Emporium sequence.

. . . so good

However, I am delighted that he has now added a further title to complete the trilogy. Although the two intervening stand-alone books are hugely enjoyable, it is his creation of this world of the Emporium, that, for me,  marks him as one of today’s most enchanting writers of compelling fantasy for children.

Those who have not yet discovered the ‘Nowhere Emporium’, need to envisage a creation that stands somewhere towards the middle of a (highly speculative) spectrum stretching from Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree to Erin Morgenstern’s Night Circus. That is to say it provides a portal to a transient and sometimes rather elusive world of diverse wonders. However, in this case, the world conjured is far more thrillingly imaginative than the lands at the top of Blyton’s tree, whilst not as adultly sophisticated as Morgenstern’s circus. Against this background, Ross MacKenzie tells what is essentially the classic tale of MG fantasy, that of an orphan child  discovering that they have magical powers and filling a special destiny, often saving the world on the way. 

The early books in the sequence therefore press many of the most crucial buttons for a hugely successful children’s fantasy, and, inevitably, leave the question as to how effectively the author can develop and ultimately resolve his narrative in a ‘series finale’. However Ross MacKenzie achieves exactly this with successful skill in The Otherwhere Emporium.

Before

This third book is built around an interesting structure that interleaves a narrative from the relatively recent past with one happening in the present. 

Over a period of years a girl called Susie makes periodic visits to the  Emporium where she encounters Daniel, the protagonist from the earlier books, who is  now its ‘owner’. Susie too is developing magical powers, perhaps even stronger that Daniel’s. In fact there is a pivotal chapter in this final novel (Chapter 10) that seems, in many ways, to represent the apotheosis of children’s fantasy. In it Susie begins to come to terms with her beloved grandfather’s death when, revisiting the Emporium, she is able to create a very special new ‘wonder’ in his memory. It is a relatively straightforward, but beautifully sensitive piece of writing, where, by beginning to discover her own magic, Susie essentially takes over from Daniel as the archetypal protagonist for all children’s fantasy.

However Susie’s relationship with Daniel and the Emporium is far from straightforward, and becomes increasingly dark and disturbing as the influence of an evil magician, Sharpe, begins to intrude upon Daniel’s control of the ‘wonders’.

Now

In the present, Mirren, who copes wonderfully with life despite having lost most of one arm in an accident, is joined by two companions, sympathetic Luke and difficult, edgy Robyn, in a quest to rescue Mirren’s  mother, who seems to have become trapped in the Emporium. The three adventure through the now rather corrupted world of wonders, somewhat like a cross between the Pevensey children and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It is all very exciting and engaging stuff, and as the connections between the two strands of the story begin to emerge, Ross MacKenzie pulls everything together with both imagination and masterly storytelling, a riveting climax and satisfactory resolution to the whole are indeed achieved.

More 

However, The Otherwhere Emporium is not simply about children’s discovery of their magic, but about the fragility, the transience of that particular period in their growth; of how the wonders of imagination can potentially be lost, as well as found. This elevates it from being another fine example of conventional children’s fantasy to something more, something somewhat deeper and more resonant.

It is particularly pleasing to see a mainstream children’s book promoting a positive image of a ‘disabled’ child, who is, in fact, not disabled by their ‘disability’ at all. This, together with the book’s many other qualities, should make it, and indeed the whole completed trilogy, a very welcome addition to the reading diet currently offered to children of around 9-12 years.

Catching up on Sharon Creech

Unmissable US children’s author

Sharon Creech is a US author with a fully deserved international reputation. Her best known novel, Walk Two Moons, from back in 1984,  won the Newbury Medal. It would  unhesitatingly go onto my list of greatest children’s books and is one of those that I hope that every child will encounter sometime during their growing  years (and come back to later, as well). It is not one jot less fine, moving or memorable a read now than when it was written.

She went on to become the first ever American author to win the UK’s prestigious Carnegie Medal in 2002, for Ruby Holler. With now more than twenty stand-alone titles to her name,  many quite individual in character, it is inevitable that some will be more to some readers’ taste than others. However she is a truly fine writer and everything she crafts carries her own distinctive mark of quality. Yet, despite her reputation, she is not always as prominent in British homes and classrooms, as I think her writing merits. A couple of brand new UK editions make this a great time to catch up.

A good feeling about Sharon Creech

Sharon Creech generally writes feel-good books. Even when they genuinely and realistically treat of children with issues, as they often do, they are basically warm-hearted. But, you see, the thing  about feel-good books is that they make you feel good. And surely that’s a very good thing. Sometimes we seem to think that to be really great a book has to put us through the emotional wringer, fling us hard into the face of life’s many unpleasant realities. And, yes, we do I suppose need some books like that. But we should not scorn books that make us feel good. Feel-good books can be a wonderful tonic for those feeling low and a security for those feeling vulnerable. 

‘When she  was feeling as if everything was dark and scary and putrid, Dallas would paint word pictures that would fly into her mind and scatter the dark scary things.’ (Ruby Holler, p 196)

And feeling good about life, about our selves, often puts us in a stronger position to try to do something about those bad things.  Feel-good is only a problem if writers leave us wallowing in saccharine sweetness, and Sharon Creech never does that. 

Just out: One Time

Illustration: Jori van der Linde

A lot to teach

Way back when I was a young teacher, I was very influenced by a little book from the early 1960s, a short discourse about her experience in the classroom by Margaret Langdon, called Let the Children Write. I found it very relevant then and actually believe it still has much of value to say, even though the school context described now seems somewhat old fashioned.*

That book was brought strongly back to mind because Sharon Creech’s latest, One Time, also paints a wonderful picture of how much good can be done by a sensitive teacher who understands that children need to be freed to write rather than constrained to do so. Even though this book is more about prose writing rather than poetry, in this respect it has a close link to her earlier  title, Love that Dog. (See below.) It also makes it at least a distant cousin of another wonderful work of children’s fiction about inspirational teaching, Mrs Bixby’s Last Day, by John David Anderson. (Reviewed here March 2019.)

A lot to learn

One Time is a quiet, gentle book. It contains no rollercoaster adventures, no dastardly villains, no magical superpowers. It is a book about a young person and her everyday experiences. Yet through a simple, relatively uneventful narrative it explores life and in a deeply affecting way. It explores people and the way they affect each other, and how some people and some relationships become part of what you are. It explores who we are and what we can become all the more meaningfully for doing so quietly. It uses words to explore words. It uses life to explore life. And in its gentle way, it is quite wonderful.

Themes and influences

Interestingly, in this little book, Sharon Creech draws together many themes and images from her other work. Here there is a boy who appears and then goes again, an Italian angel, a special teacher, a noisy, ramshackle family. But then perhaps, after all, it is the other way around. I will not spoil the end of this very special book by giving it away, but I think those who know this author’s work well may start to get there before she does. They will only love and value this very special book the more if they do. 

May her many influences influence many others, like the reflection of  moonlight on water, when each enhances the other. I feel sure they will.

Much of this story revolves around daily life in an American School. The behaviours and routines of both children and teachers will feel strange to many young U.K. readers. But dig just a little beneath the surface and the children themselves and what affects them will affect our children too.

Another recent book: Saving Winslow

Illustrations: Sarah Horne

Even by Sharon Creech standards, this relatively short book, published in the UK only a few weeks ago,  is something very special. It is certainly a classic feel-good and there is, indeed, much about this story of a boy trying to raise a sickly baby donkey that could have been sentimental.  But it is a deeper, richer, more sensitive story than might appear from a bland synopsis.  And it is so for several reasons.

Louie

One of the principal reasons is the boy, Louie, himself,  for he is a boy who responds deeply and sensitively to the world around him. He is moved  equally by seeing an indigo bunting perched atop a sunflower and by observing a thin, unkempt man lying on a brown wooden bench. He is a boy awakened by strong moonlight, who needs to be reassured that it is nothing unusual. He is a boy who was born very prematurely and believes that he almost remembers the experience. He is a boy who deeply misses his older brother, recently gone off to the army, even though the two are very different in temperament.

In Louie, Sharon Creech creates a character of depth and persuasive humanity to whom the reader cannot help but be drawn.

Nora

Further riches are added in the story’s second protagonist (if you don’t count the donkey, Winslow, in this role, which, actually, you probably should). Nora is a superficially edgy, angsty girl, drawn into what becomes a three-way relationship with Louie and Winslow. Much of her back story is implied as much as stated, but nevertheless has a strong contribution to make to both the impact of the book, and the thoughtfulness that lies behind and within it. 

Simply splendid 

And then there is this highly experienced author’s incredibly skilful use of language. Never heavy or pretentious, in fact  apparently very simple, it draws the reader in with vivid and visceral effectiveness, so that you live so many moments of this touching story with its characters. Never more so than when Louie has to give regular injections to the sick little donkey.  You feel the needle in the animal’s flesh just as vividly as you experience the young boy’s trepidation about performing the procedure. 

This is a book that can please at many levels, from a totally endearing story of a boy’s attachment to a young animal, to an deeply human exploration of separation and loss, common experience dealt with in an individual way. It is another book that as a teacher I would have just loved to share with a class (Y4 or Y5 perhaps?) and one which I believe would lead them into deeper understanding of both literature and life, in the kindest, the most generous of ways. It is a true little gem of a book. Saying something simply is not at all the same as saying something simple. 

Nappies?

Sarah Horne’s illustrations are delightful, and will undoubtedly add to the appeal of the book for many, although they relate more to the superficial charm of the characters that to their rich depths. 

It is relatively rare for an American book to be re-edited for a UK audience (although I think the reverse is rather more common) but this one seems to have been. Perversely, I found it rather disconcerting for American children to be talking about the baby donkey wearing ‘nappies’ rather than ‘diapers’. Nevertheless we should be grateful to Guppy Books for bringing us this big little treasure. 

Too good to miss: The Great Unexpected 

Illustrations: Zdenko Basic

‘How is it you can be close friends with a person, deeply close friends, closer than sisters maybe, and then one day you want that person to disappear off the face of the earth?’ (p 97)

One of the things that impresses me so much about Sharon Creech is that she has written so many different books; not simply that there are so many, but that they are all so very different. Almost all her novels being stand alone, it is hard to say she writes a particular style, or particular type, yet she certainly has a signature. And that signature involves a set of characteristic qualities, the most significant of which is her outstanding skill as a storyteller. In this particular respect she reminds me of the UK’s own Geraldine McCaughrean.

I love many of Sharon Creech’s titles, but if I had to perform the rather silly task of selecting a favourite, it would probably be this one.

The Great Unexpected is something of a book of two halves. Further it is a book of two halves in more ways than one, if that makes sense. Firstly it is a split narrative, split between a story of two ‘adopted’ orphans in a small US town, ‘Blackbird Tree and it’s cocoon of protection and its people rooted to that small patch of earth.’ (p 153). The other part of the narrative concerns an elderly woman and her companion living through the same period in an Irish country mansion, known as Rooks Orchard. Both parts of the tale evoke a great deal of mystery and intrigue, in their different ways, without initially appearing to have any connection with each other.

The other way the story splits for me is that its first half is a quite simply feast of delightful entertainment. The two principal protagonists of the main Blackbird Tree narrative are young girls of contrasting character: quiet, thoughtful Naomi and loquacious, emotional Lizzie. Their lifelong friendship (thus far) is thrown into some disarray when an unknown but charming and good looking boy, Finn, literally falls out of a tree in front of them. The relationship and the way it is explored is a joy, their banter, is constant amusement, and Sharon Creech exploits their small-town naïveté as a vehicle for no little wit of her own. Only rarely do books make me guffaw aloud, but this one did.

In contrast, the later part of the book, introduces much more genuine pathos  and the dark mystery of the narrative threads real sadness through the lives of characters the reader has come to invest in emotionally.

Yet this is most certainly not a book of two separate halves. Quite the reverse. It is a book where the separate elements are cleverly and quite beautifully woven together. In fact connections are very much at its heart and the way they are made the essence of its greatness. 

And perhaps, after all, I should have said it is a book of three halves. For just when Ireland and the ‘New World’ come together in what promises to be as sweet an ending as might be found in one of Eva Ibbotson’s more sugary romances, things slip again and in creeps just a hint of magic, the magic of ‘Old Ireland’. Two worlds remain, perhaps, more connected that one might think, but are they the Old World and the New, or are they the mundane world and that of faery?

It is a book that asks possibly one of the most important questions of all: ‘What is “real”?’ (p 188)

Oh, and it manages a strong shout out for feminism too!

Well worth a catch up: Ruby Holler

UK cover.                             US cover

‘“How do we know who we are?” (Dallas) asked Florida. “How do we know what we will be?” . . .

“We might be big and clumsy and stupid like we are now,” she said, “or maybe we’ll get some brains and turn into geniuses or something. How the crawly crud should I know?”’ (p 44)

I am not sure if this title, first published in 2002, actually counts as recent (I suppose it depends on how old you are), but it is the book that won the UK Carnegie Medal, and is possibly one of the most feel-good of all Sharon Creech’s novels, as well as being one of the most appealing . So I am going to include it anyway. 

Boxton Creek

In some ways, this story about a pair of orphan twins, who, after a darkly difficult life, find themselves living in the wild but beautiful countryside with a caring older couple, is a strange mixture. But it is a mixture that, surprisingly, works beautifully. Florida and Dallas, though with all the closeness of twins, have interestingly contrasted characters, and their dialogue is consistently entertaining and often very funny. Mr. and Mrs. Trepid, the horrendous couple who run Boxton Creek, the children’s home where Florida and Dallas initially live, are exaggerated monsters, They might be the American cousins of The Dursleys, from Harry Potter, but are perhaps even more akin to some of the child-hating adult figures in Roald Dahl’s children’s books. Their later antics in the story, grossly amusing in their avaricious stupidity, also belong in the same, almost comic book, category. It is gleefully gratifying when they finally receive their due comeuppance,

Ruby Holler 

In contrast, Sairy and Tiller, the old couple from Ruby Holler, have a warm truthfulness about them, particularly in their relationship to one another and in the poignant way they miss their grown-up children. Similarly the actual location of Ruby Holler is evocatively conjured with the sensitive pen of one who knows and loves wild places. Even if life there is a little idealised, it still feels richly and genuinely desirable.

Narratively speaking, the characters of the twins might have stretched uncomfortably between these two worlds, but thanks to skilful writing, they actually bridge them seamlessly. The book amuses and entertains just as easily as it pulls at the heart strings. Sharon Creech once again saves what could have been sugary sentiment, with both lightness and genuinely human concern. We very much feel for the twins, whether they are being berated by the dastardly Trepid, or nourished, both physically and emotionally, by the deeply caring Sairy.

Love to the loveless

In fact, there is much to learn here for teachers, social workers, parents and other carers - and of course for children too, who are the teachers, social workers and parents of the future. The story overall is an object lesson in how it is kindness and love, not meanness and punishment, that makes ‘difficult’ children better: ‘Love to the loveless shown, that they might lovely be.’ 

It is interesting to compare this novel with Patricia Reilly Giff’s Pictures of Hollis Woods, Lauren Wolk’s Beyond the Bright Sea, and even our own Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mister Tom. All have themes in common as well as much individual and special to say.  

Unmissable for teachers: Love that Dog

Cover: Nathan Burton

‘I don’t want to 

because boys

don’t write poetry.’ 

For don’ts, won’ts and can’ts

If I’m going back as far as the early 2000s, then I have to mention this book too, because it is a miniature masterpiece. In a short, often amusing, but hugely effective (and affecting) story, a young boy who is initially reluctant to write poetry grows in confidence in response to an inspired and inspiring teacher. The clever narrative is told entirely through the boy’s own attempts at writing, supplemented only, at the end, with the actual poems his teacher has used as stimuli. It is an object lesson in inference as well as in the potential of poetry, yet it is gloriously accessible and renders the quite challenging poetry quoted less obscure too.

Were I still teaching upper KS2 and wanting to explore the writing of poetry (as opposed to verse) as a way of capturing experience, thoughts and feelings (which I certainly would be), then this little gem would constitute an essential resource. Inspiration for me as well as my children. 

Sharon Creech later produced a follow-up, Hate that Cat. It was never going to have quite the same impact as the first book, but is also excellent.

Coming soon: Moo

We are finally back to what is indisputably a recent book in Moo.

I have  several times seen this new title hailed as a successor to Love that Dog and Hate that Cat as the story is told through a mixture of prose and (largely) free form poetry. However, unlike those earlier books, Moo, is not really about the poetry itself or about writing poetry. In fact it had more to say about art, about drawing, than about poetry itself. Rather here the poetry is simply used as a storytelling medium. And how very effective are both the story and its telling.

The tale itself is one that you might call archetypal Sharon Creech. A young girl is uprooted from the city home in which she has grown up, and moved to Maine. The landscape and atmosphere of this area of New England are beautifully evoked, but much of her life suddenly changes. The process of adapting is considerably helped for her by a developing relationship with a very difficult (‘onery’) cow, not to mention the beast’s elderly and, in her way, equally difficult owner.

At heart it is a story about change. About accepting change, taking advantage of change; change in circumstances, but also change as a person. It is a most endearing story but also a gently challenging one,

The format does not make it difficult to read. In fact, quite the reverse. However, it does serve to enhance the storytelling very considerably. The poetic text adds a flow to the language and an intensity to events and their underlying emotions. It is often very funny too. Whilst I am a great enthusiast for reading aloud (to children), this particular text does need be seen, rather than heard -or at least both. Layout and typography are significant contributors.

I started this post discussing Sharon Creech as a feel-good writer, and I do not retract from that in the slightest. However, she does not draw back from the difficult issues of life, or skimp in addressing some of the challenging questions about our lives and humanity. Rather, she takes a positive, supportive line through our difficulties and weaknesses. She helps us find a way forward, with sympathy and compassion, helps us see the good in our lives, and helps us find it when it seems to be missing. Young readers everywhere should be enormously grateful to her for it. As should we all.

It appears that Moo is due to be published in the UK, again by Guppy Books, in April 2021. Look out for it. It will hopefully be in (independent) bookshops around then, and is a moo-st read. (Sorry.)

Note: 

*At the time of writing there seem to be quite a few used copies of the Margaret Langdon book available fairly inexpensively from AbeBooks.

Two stunning books by new Children’s Laureate, Joseph Coelho

Illustrations: Freya Hartas                       Illustrations: Kate Milner

Differently the same 

A: Zombierella

Sometimes, you know, you can tell a book from its cover.

Within its vibrant, flap-folded cards

chockablock with every 

spooky

Halloweney

whatever-you-do-don’t-go-into-that-housey 

(I told you not to)

hide-under-the-bedclothesey 

sort of image 

(drawn by Freya Hartas quite delightfully)

this is

A

kid pleaser.

teacher scarer

parent shocker

you can’t read that

choose a proper book

sort of book.

A

scary funny

funny scary

laugh yourself into

an early grave

sort of book.

A 

story you know 

but not as you know it

(though perhaps as you always wanted to

without knowing it)

sort of book.

A 

bring you up short

jolt to your thinking

just occasionally rhyming

sure fire best seller

Zombierella

sort of book

As grim as Grimm.

More so than Perrault.

It is

a

feast of a book that will go down a treat

with kids

who will gleefully 🤪

lap up the trickling blood of severed legs

devour words that conjure resurrected flesh 

gnaw the rattling bones of a long dead steed

savour the fetid stink of a fungal coach.

A

super-imaginative 

joy

of a book

for which the aforementioned Freya

must share the credit.

But wait.

It is written out in

little

short

lines

as if it were a poem.

Perhaps it is.

Despite its lines

it is not quite Revolting Rhymes.

Kids scared by the book (in a good way)

may

in consequence 

be less scared of poetry

And that is most certainly

a good thing.

But don’t  go yet.

There is more.

Its language is evocative.

There is real pathos

amid the scares.

This Zombie girl

has lost a father

she loved

and loves still

lost a horse

she loved

and loves still.

This graveyard tale

had depth

beneath its gravestones

life in its corpses

in more ways than one.

Form. 

          Images. 

                      Humanity.

It really is a

poem

and a very special one.

B: The Girl Who Became a Tree

In a book near you

Not just a novel but a collection

of very fine 

very special poems.

Not just a collection of poems but

a very fine

very special novel.

Optical Verbal illusion

Here is 

sensitivity

that lies at the heart

of sensitivity.

Sensitivity that lights images

we have seen before

and never seen before.

Sensitivity 

true poets know

and know to share.

Here is 

involvement

empathy

with someone other

who may not be other at all.

Involvement

that turns pages

compells us to know more

travel further

reach the end

and never reach the end.

Involvement 

true storytellers know

and know to share.

Sometimes before

we have been gifted 

fiction in verse

sometimes

narrative poetry

but rarely (if ever)

a book with

such fine poems

making such fine fiction

both.

It moves

more than either

enriches

more than either would.

Images too

of nightmare passion 

and compassion

from Kate Milner

are essential 

to the glory.

Daphne

This is a girl of legend

from the resonance of time.

A story told long ago

that lives on and on 

through the screens of mobile phones,

library computers

Xboxes

iPads 

at the heart of all her suffering.

Library

Grief acted out

in a theatre of books.

Childhood lost

in a forest of pages.

Haiku

A girl’s private pain

seeping out between the cracks

of his poem’s lines

A mobile rings

Although it is demanding

although it is never trite

simplistic

although  it is deeply painful

this book charts a journey 

through the forest and out again

beyond childhood and into

life.

It is a book for all daughters

and fathers

not least soon gone ones 

(don’t I feel it)

and mothers

sons too.

It is the trauma at the heart of joyous life.

It is the trauma that gives joyous life.

It is a great

book

in so many ways.

A + B

So here you have it.

One book for kids 

(whoever they may be)

one book for teens

(or whoever may read it).

Each book about a girl who becomes a tree.

(If you doubt me,

just see Zombierella clad all in leaves.)

Each a girl 

with a father dead and gone.

Each a girl

with a zombie life.

And in the end 

each a girl 

who rides away 

with a new old love

she knows already

and has only just found.

How much more the same

Can two such different stories be?

Sensitive.

Involving.

Drawn all in images

(verbal visual)

that draw us

                      in

                          and through

                                              and out.

Two portraits

of one and the same.

One girl

painted by Picasso

and Rembrandt?

No.

Not that.

One hand.

One mind.

One wild imagination free.

One remarkable poet

Two remarkable books

Like us

So differently the same.

Note:

For any who don’t already know it, Joseph Coelho’s earlier collection of poems Overheard in a Tower Block (also illustrated by Kate Milner) is another must read, as well as a must for classroom poetry shelves.