The Box and the Dragonfly by Ted Sanders

 

My last review was of The Mark of the Dragonfly. Now here is The Box and the Dragonfly. It would seem to be dragonfly season.

This is another wonderful book. It is the first volume of a intended sequence, The Keepers. Final judgments need to be reserved until we see if the whole lives up to the enormous promise of this opener, but the potential for greatness is most certainly here. Regardless, this is a very fine book in its own right. I am delighted that UK publisher Hot Key have picked up the children's debut of this hugely talented US writer and brought it straight over here.

This is a true children's book. It is not one of the more complex, multi-layered or sophisticated novelsI have included here recently. It is not resonant with the tropes of myth and archetype. Nor does it particularly explore the depths of our human condition as do such gems as Doll Bones and Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy. It is very much a fantasy adventure story. But it is none the worse for that and has many delights, and indeed depths, of its own.

The core of its story is built around some of the key conventions of children's fantasy literature. Its central characters of a boy and girl are drawn into a world which they discover beneath the surface our own reality, but of which most people around them are unaware. There they are selected for their qualities to play significant roles in a mission to defeat great evil. Horace and Chloe, the young protagonists, are brought under the influence of a couple of older mentor figures, the 'Wardens', and each of the children is chosen to become the 'keeper' of a very special 'instrument'. These endow them with particular abilities but place them in direct conflict with malevolent forces who predictably want to take over these instruments to augment their own power. All this is very familiar territory to children's fantasy readers.

Here, however, conventionality ends and much fresh vivid imagination is brought to bear by this exciting author. Being a 'keeper' quickly involves each child in the formation of a deep psychological/emotional bond with their instrument. Further, as one of the characters explains, the powers which accompany each instrument - seeing into the future for Horace, passing through solid objects for Chloe, floating into the air for another child - are not so much 'magic' as extensions of science. They extend what we know and understand to be true just beyond what we know and understand to be possible. They transpose some of the recently discovered principles of post-Einsteinian, quantum physics back onto everyday experience, exploiting anomalies in space and time.

Yet The Keepers is not quite Science Fiction either. The gradual and subtle introduction of romantic, invented nomenclature - 'Fel'Daera ' for the box through which Horace sees the future, 'Alvalaithen' for Chloe's dragonfly instrument, 'Kesh'kiri' for the hidden race - keeps everything within the compass of fantasy. It is a fascinating and intriguing amalgam and one that I have not encountered before in quite this form.

The Box and the Dragonfly is, then a thinking book, a book for the thinking reader. Concepts are explored thoughtfully, logically, or at least ultra-logically. The implications of Horace's ability to see the future for the way he acts and the paths he chooses are worked through both by the author and ultimately by Horace himself. This is in stark contrast to the rather facile and logic-defeating time travelling that is to be found in many children's books. Here is a book which allows space for the exploration and explanation of ideas and for reflection upon them, both by the characters and by the reader. Despite some dramatic and exciting incidents, much of the first two thirds of this fairly long novel has, in consequence, an overall pace which some might consider slow. It is a book for committed readers rather that those just seeking an introduction to extended reading. However I hope that even these latter may eventually find their way to this remarkable work, for its pace, it's reflection are integral to its ultimately engrossing power. Making sense of what is happening, and then exploiting that understanding, is very much what the story is about.

Another huge plus of this book's length and pace is the opportunity it gives its author to truly develop characters and relationships. This too he does to great effect. Both the questioning Horace and the often chippy, but wonderfully brave and loyal, Chloe are rich creations with whom the readers are given ample opportunity to become involved. Their relationships, with each other and with other key characters evolve and change in engrossing style . It is a considerable authorial coup, for example, that he can devote a whole chapter to Horace playing chess with his mother, which apparently forwards the action of the story very little, yet deepens its humanity very considerably. It is clever and important too that, within a superficial framework of good v evil, much about many of the characters remains ambivolent and uncertain. Neither Horace nor Chloe are ever truly certain whether they trust or even approve of the motives of their two mentor 'Wardens'.

Yet for all the slower pace and thoughtfulness of so much of the book, the final 150 or so pages avalanche into a most wonderfully gripping narrative climax. Suddenly, to see the future through Horace's eyes, through his wonderous box, and yet still to want desperately to know if it will actually happen, is an exquisite excitement. This combines with an empathetic sharing of the emotional trauma when both Horace and Chloe are torn from their bonded instruments, their 'tan'ji'. This is an experience not unlike the severing of a character from their daemon in Philip Pullman's Northern Lights and creates devastating tension. What we experience towards the close of this book is a clever drawing together of the elements of the author's detailed build-up into one of the most exciting and gripping climaxes to any novel I have read in a good while. It is a stunning piece of invention and a thrilling piece of writing.

There is one further feature of this book that cries out for accolades - and that is the sheer quality and skill of its language constructions. I have heard pianists talk about the way that in some great compositions the notes just seem to fall comfortably under the fingers. In this book the words, phrases, sentences fall equally comfortably under the eye - or perhaps more accurately onto the inner ear of the reader. This writing is sometimes beautiful, as for example is the description of what Horace first sees through his box. It is often dramatic. It is sometimes deeply affecting, as when Horace and Chloe are severed from their instruments. But it is always pleasing, always apt, always effectively communicative. Words, phrases and sentences feel right. This requires great writerly skill, and Ted Sanders has it in spades.

By the end of the book the fact that it is the first of a new sequence becomes a cause for much rejoicing. This first volume feels in many ways almost like a prelude to a story, but those ways are all good ones. There is so much unexplored and unresolved. There are so many intriguing things yet to discover about characters to whom we have become fully committed and about their conflict with the malevolent Riven. There are other characters too about whom we as yet know so little. It is to be sincerely hoped that we are to discover stories and even back-stories to complement fascinating glimpses of the likes of Gabriel, Neptune and the flute-playing Ingrid, not to mention Beck and of course, astoundingly, Horace's . . . but no spoilers. Suffice it to say that what appears initially to be the story's wind-down coda turns out to contain one of the most profound and devastating surprises of the whole tale.

The Keepers has all the makings of a great addition to the canon of children's fantasy literature. Even as a stand-alone The Box and the Dragonfly is a cracker of a book.

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The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson

It is one of the classic formats of fantasy fiction for the narrative to be built around a journey. The Mark of the Dragonfly sits securely within this tradition and the protagonist, Piper, sets herself the mission of taking the lost and amnesiac Anna back to her supposed home in the distant 'Dragonfly Territories'. It is however unique in my experience of reading children's fantasy for almost all of such a journey to be made on board an old and very special steam train, as it is in Jaleigh Johnson's exciting debut.

And this is far from the only imaginatively mould breaking element of her book.

 

At the core of the world this writer creates is a dystopian society operating with rather crude mechanics (essentially 'steampunk' ), where disparate and largely broken elements of 'our' more advanced civilisation are scavenged as treasures. This is, in itself, a set up that I have encountered in so many recent books that is in danger of becoming over worked and rather tired as a concept. In addition the geography of the relatively small world of her narrative is split into two rival kingdoms clearly close to the brink of war. This is another fantasy trope that hangs for me on balance between convention and cliché. However here Jayleigh Johnson revitalises these elements by mixing them with other surprising and superficially rather inconsistent elements. Her creation has elements of pure science fiction in that, alongside the human inhabitants of her world, live a race of completely non- humans, the tentacled 'sarnuns' . Their place, at least In this particular narrative, is almost incidental and close to feeling gratuitous. Yet their presence does give the world a strong feeling of 'otherness' and challenges what could otherwise have been an easy assumption that this is simply part of our own earth projected into some post apocalyptic future. On top of this, or perhaps more accurately within it, are elements which belong far more to high fantasy. Not the least of these comes with the realisation that one of the story's key characters belongs to yet another race of beings and is in fact a shape shifter who can transform from his human form into a winged, rather dragonish, creature. There is magic too, at least of a kind, and the protagonist, Piper, discovers that she is a 'synergist', with the power to command and control mechanisms, both constructively and also with dramatically destructive force. This is all very strange - but in a good way, in fact a wonderful way. All these elements could feel very disparate and confused, yet Jayleigh Johnson manages to meld them very effectively into a totally convincing and enthralling world.

 

The great strengths of the book lie in its story-telling, which skilfully provides both compelling narrative drive and rich character development. The plot is gripping and has many surprising, even shocking, twists and turns. Edge of the seat excitement abounds. Yet the author also allows her story space and time. It is relatively long for a first children's novel, but here this is an asset. It gives ample opportunity for reflection on and enrichment of her world and her characters. The protagonist, Piper, together with Anna and Gee, who develop into her two very close friends - she is just a little young for outright romance - are all splendid creations. They are complex, endearing without being saccharine and certainly not idealised. Their development is as much a gripping element of the story as is the action which precipitates it. Other characters are strongly drawn as well, both the good guys on the train and those met en route. The chief 'baddie' is appropriately chilling too, and also turns out to be somewhat more complex that first painted. However this is very much Piper's story and it is excellent to have found yet another great fantasy adventure with a strong and feisty female lead. I hope we are moving steadily towards blurring or even erradicating silly distinctions between girls' and boys' books and through literature, licencing the young of each gender to identify with the thoughts and feelings of the other. We may then truly move closer towards genuine 'He for She/She for He' society. This book should certainly help. It deserves to reach a wide audience and I hope it will shortly be published over here as well as in the US. However, thanks to the Internet I am pleased to say that it is already fairly easily obtainable.

Strangely, neither this volume nor its accompanying website make any specific mention of a sequel. I hope and trust there is actually more on the way, and soon. Here is a story crying out to be developed into, say, a trilogy or quartet. Despite this book's warm and satisfying ending, there is so much in both this world and these characters which the reader is left aching to know more about. As it stands, this is an excellent fantasy read. If the author can extend its potential into a cohensive, fully developed and resolved sequence, then it could be the start of a great work of children's literature.

 

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Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy by Karen Foxlee

 

 

Here is another stunningly good find from publishing house Hot Key who seem to have been signing up some wonderful writers recently.

It is good too to have made my first recent discovery of a great new book by an Australian author. There is such a strong tradition of outstanding children's literature from Australia. Going back a while, I would certainly place Patricia Wrightson on my list of all-time greats, and there are many deserved classics like Ruth Park's Playing Beatie Bow. More recently Sonya Hartnett and Morris Gleitzman spring to mind (especially the latter's deeply affecting Once, Then, Now and After sequence) and there are many more

Karen Foxlee certainly proves herself to be a writer fully worthy of this rich heritage. However Ophelia and the Marvellous Boy also belongs to a tradition of children's literature to which I refered in a vey recent post (on Holly Black's Doll Bones), that in which young people's traumatic issues are worked out through a (metaphorical) involvement in fantasy, often in the form of reimagined or reinvented fairy tale. This is a sub-genre which I primarily associate with US writers, although of course there is a lot of cultural interchange between The States and Australia. Ophelia is certainly a splendid addition to this important strand of children's literature. The tradition has already provided many all time greats and there is good reason to think that here we have another.

Superficially, however, there are several basic aspects of this book that seem rather a long way from being particularly original. The central issue of the book concerns a young girl, the eponymous Ophelia, trying to cope with the recent early death from serious illness of her mother. Such bereavement of children has already been the subject matter of a good many notable antecedents. It is, of course, an important topic and will come as fresh and vital to many of this book's young audience. However, in children's literature terms, it has been rather well worked already.

In the fairy tale world which intrudes itself into Ophelia's life the principal character is an evil Snow Queen who is holding the land in perpetual winter. Of course, one of the features of fairy tale is that it uses easily recognisable archetypes. Certainly too this queen is an excellent metaphor for the frozen emotions that Ophelia's family experience following the bereavement. However, it is also a figure that has already been very well used in children's story, not least of course by C S Lewis. Is it perhaps getting over-worked? The idea of this fairy tale persona eventually conflating with the principal adult character of the 'real' story is again not new.

The setting too, a museum, although offering lots of fascinating potential is one that has already featured in numerous children's books. And then the core of the inner narrative revolves around a 'prophesy', the fulfilment of which eventually inevitably emerges as falling to Ophelia. If any story device in a fantasy book is likely set my alarm bells ringing it is that old chestnut the prophesy!

In fairness, Karen Foxlee does add to these familiar elements many imaginative and inventive features of her own. The whole character and story of the Marvellous Boy himself, the unlikely hero who has been sent to find the 'Other One' needed to defeat the Winter Queen, is charming and original. Additionally many of the witch's minion creatures, not least the 'misery birds', do very potently conjour up nightmarish fears.

However it is not the plot as such, nor even the basic theme, important and potent as it is, that makes this book so very compelling. It is the way that the novel is written. This is quite wonderful and undoubtedly transforms what could have been a good but slightly unoriginal story into an all-time gem of children's literature.

Three things particularly excite me about Karen Foxlee's writing, although I could go on for ages about its many delights and stunningly effective qualities.

The first is her use of language itself. What is remarkable here is not so much the vocabulary she employes, although this is has that quality of apt and deceptive simplicity that makes it easily readable yet immediately communicative. Rather it is her turn of phrase, her imagery, and her patterning of language which is such a constant delight. Often mellifluous, always fresh and exciting, this writer can build words together in ways which constantly enlighten and enliven her storytelling. Her wording really draws the reader into her characters, as well as into the two initially different, but gradually integrating, worlds of her story. There is a richness that continually catches both the imagination and the inner ear of the reader. It unobtrusively but surely beguiles that reader to enter right inside her narrative. Karen Foxlee's creation proves, is effect, not to be that of an impoverished or derivative voice, but of an enormously rich and lively authorial imagination. Over and again she demonstrates a lightness but sureness of touch which belies very considerable writing skill. One particular aspect of this is that she is almost obsessed by lists. But not in a bad way, in a totally entertaining and delightful way. The beautifully constructed and patterned lists which permeate this narrative - lists of the museum rooms through which Ophelia runs, lists of her putative names for the Marvellous Boy, lists of the thoughts of the ghost girls who haunt one of the rooms - give it an energy and rhythm which verge on the poetic and would make it a wonderful text to read aloud. And there are not only actual lists, but stylistic 'lists' too. Karen Foxlee makes frequent and effective use of those rhetorical devices of repeated words and phrases which are often associated with Churchillian speeches; things like anaphora and isocolon, if we want tobe technical. But technicalities don't really matter here. Felicities abound.

The second feature of this writing which so impressed and thrilled me is the clever subtlety with which character, plot and theme are in practice revealed and communicated. This writer never hits you over the head with exposition or explanation. Rather she reveals gently, often briefly, but always tellingly too. And what she reveals is therefore all the more believable and all the more affecting. A great of example of this is the way in which, once we have been introduced to her little behaviours, it only takes a simple statement that Ophelia has puffed at her inhaler, or tugged on one of her own hair plaits, casually mentioned, often without elaboration, for us to know exactly how she is feeling and reacting. All the depth of thought and feeling associated with the loss of her mother is dealt with in exactly the same casually simple but profoundly revealing way. In fact the central character, Ophelia herself, is so cleverly and sensitively drawn that she ends up as one of the most endearing and moving protagonists that I have encountered in a children's novel for a long time. In her own way she is very much a Frodo. She is basically insecure, lost, afraid, and yet she presses on with doing the difficult things which need to be done in a way that shows character and bravery far exceeding flashy heroics. This is epitomised in one of my very favourite lines, spoken by Ophelia after the Marvellous a Boy has thanked her for rescuing him: 'I probably shouldn't do it again. I have very bad asthma.'

The third aspect of the writing that I found so compelling was the structuring of the whole narrative. The way the 'back story ' of the Marvellous Boy Is integrated through the early sections is beautifully handled with gently differing styles distinguishing the two realities. Even more telling is the way the two world converge as Ophelia's quest evolves. The metaphorical dimension of her crucial part in defeating the Snow Queen becomes gradually clearer as her own 'real' emotional journey deepens. The resolution, which is of both the fairy story and of the real-life issue, is a small triumph of storytelling.

As well as being a book about dealing with loss and grief , this is also a book about the importance of fantasy itself. Initially Ophelia finds her security in order, rational explanation and scientific understanding, traits very much inherited from her father. By the end she has allowed her life, her thinking, and her being to be balanced by imagination, by the creativity that is the legacy of her story writing mother. Opelia has learned to follow her heart as well as her head, and this is another wonderful thing.

On the surface, this is a relatively short, easy read intended primarily for a young audience. There is no problem in that. Indeed the writing skill, the imagination and the sensitivity which have gone into its crafting have resulted in a true little gem. I am tempted to include it on my list of the real greats of twenty first century children's literature to date. In fact I will. Children who read it thoughtfully will not only have an enthralling experience but also end up more sensitised to important aspects of the human condition. Even if unaware of it, they will have experienced extremely skilful writing too - and that is another most valuable thing. They will have been enriched.

 

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The Boy with the Tiger's Heart by Linda Coggin

This is a strange book - but strange in a good way, in fact strange in a rather wonderful way.

The title is a very good one and in many ways captures the strangeness and power of the book. The boy in question, a prominent figure in the story, yet not the actual protagonist, has the heart of a tiger in both a literal and a metaphorical sense. Yet the literal is not actually possible. We are on the verge of fantasy. Reality is ambivalent.

The same quality of ambiguity is evident in the very dramatic and wonderfully apt cover illustration by Levente Szabo. The image is simultaneously of a tiger's head and of a wooded outcrop with figures. It is the trees that form the tiger 's stripes - or possibly vice versa. Perception shifts between the two depending how you look at it, in a way that approaches the old optical illusion of candlesticks and faces. The realities merge. The picture is illusive. So is the book. It has no concrete presence, just shifting images that hover between nature and fantasy.

The protagonist of the story, a girl initially unnamed but later called Nona, has been brought up by dogs, although later adopted by an odd and eccentric 'scientist'. He is an experimenter who has kept specimens of live wild aminals in a world where almost all the rest have been purged to keep the population 'safe'. However, the book does not so much explore the implications of the girl's feral upbringing, to the extent that several other fictions on this subject do. Rather it uses it as a explanation for her empathy with animals and as a symbol of her essential wildness.

When Nona's adoptive Father is hounded by the ruling authoritarian regime, he releases his specimen animals and kills himself. Wrongly accused of his murder the girl flees in search of a free, wild world beyond that in which she now lives. She sets off on a long and difficulty journey-quest, accompanied by an erstwhile dancing bear but pursued by the evil authorities. Later she meets and teams up with an abused boy, as well as the tiger-boy of the title and a number of other escapee beasts.

One of the few words I can come up with for this book is poetic. But I do not want to give a false impression. Its language is not elaborate or fanciful. Rather the reverse. It is extremely clear and straightforward; at times almost clipped, particularly in its dialogue. Rather it is poetic in the sense that its story, its characters, its actions are more image than reality, metaphors; its reality is gently shifting, vague, translucent around the edges.

Both the geographical and human landscape through which the companions travel are a strange mixture, sometimes almost fairy tale, at others dystopian grunge, almost cyber-punk in feel. Many of the incidents on the journey and the characters met are not totally credible in a naturalistic sense. The 'circus' Nona reaches part way through is not quite like any other circus, more perhaps of a freak show, though whether the humans or the aminal are freaks . . . ? The small band of children and beasts who journey on from the circus is not quite a fellowship in the Tolkein sense; all are rather prone to wander off on their own; they have their own motivations as well as a common one. A pit of innumerable snakes bars the way out of the animal-culled, allegedly danger-clear world. It seems to represent the fear of the unknown which cows and contains the inhabitants of this world. But the snakes have eaten themselves by the time the children reach it. Yet the land which they eventually succeed in reaching is no Shangri La. It has always been called and remains The Edge. It is unknown, wild and dangerous. But it is alive.

Another way to describe the world of this book might be as a dreamscape. But this too could potentially mislead. This is not a simplistic then-they-woke-up-and-it-was-all-a-dream story. Rather it is a dream in the sense that odd things happen without them seeming odd. Explanations are not always completely rational, or logical, but do not need to be. This world is engrossing yet distanced; perceived rather than experienced.

One of the features which helps create this pervading strangeness is that the story is written entirely in the historic present tense. This is an authorial device that can often seem rather pretentious and become tiresome to the reader, particularly when sustained over a whole book. Yet here it strangely works. It puts the reader at something of a distance from the action, almost watching from outside, more as you would experience a film rather than a novel, sympathising rather than empathising. Yet it is not as simple as this. The author sometimes slips from an objective narration and let the reader into the thoughts and feelings of a character. It is odd, but effective. Strange.

The book is easy and quick to read, but lingers long. It is thought-provoking, strong in message, but without haranguing. It is gently disturbing. It is exciting and frightening in parts. It is sometimes beautiful. It is certainly original, unique. It is a strange book - but strange in a good way.

 

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The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare

There are a number of reasons why I did not think I was going to like this book anywhere as near as much as I actually did.

Firstly it is a collaboration and I cannot easily think of any book authored in this way that I would call truly great. The idea of authorial collaboration often puts me in mind of that oft-quoted quip that goes: a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Now I admit right off that I think this is grossly unfair to the camel, which after all, is quite wonderfully adapted to its life and habitat. But I know what they mean. A number of folk chipping in ideas, especially where they are very creative ones, can lead to an interesting and inventive amalgam. Rarely if ever, though, does it lead to something with the same clarity of concept and design, the same sleekness and integrity of vision as the creation of an inspired individual. Certainly I find this is so with fiction writing. I sometimes love it when creative minds spark ideas off each other - and I know full well that this can be a most enjoyable and stimulating way of working. But it is the individuality and integrity of a particular authorial voice which always thrills me most as a reader. So although we have two fine writers involved here (even if Cassandra Clare's principal work does not come within the sphere of writing that interests me much personally) I did not have too high hopes of this collaboration.

Of far greater concern to me though, as I initially read further and further into The Iron Trial was that so many aspects of its core narrative are Harry Potter derivative. Here is the tale of a young boy who finds himself in his first year at a wizarding 'boarding school' where he quickly establishes firm friendship, with another boy and a very bright girl in the same initial year or grade. It appears certain, too, that this first book, representing the experiences of their first year in the school (here the 'Iron Grade' in the 'Magisterium') will be the first in a series following the experiences of the three trainee magicians through each year (with, predictably, 'Bronze', 'Silver' and 'Gold' stages still to come). In school our protagonist is plagued by the hostile and spiteful attentions of a maliciously jealous fellow pupil. On the wider front, the whole world is threatened by the monstrous evil of an 'Enemy of Death' figure, who it seems was, a former outstanding pupil of the Magesterium, now turned bad.

The book does suffer, too, from what is at times a rather episodic narrative, which possibly relates to my fear that the writing may have been parcelled out between its two writers. Nonetheless is well written and indeed captures many of the strengths of The Potter books as well 'borrowing' many of their key ingredients. It has a very great deal of the same ability to fascinate and absorb, to involve and excite. Particularly, it engenders very strong and easy identifications with its young protagonists which soon develop into something close to an emotional bond. All this means that, despite reservations, it soon develops into a very good read. There are significant differences too of course which add to the distinction and reader absorbtion of this new version. Unlike enthusiastic and wonder-struck Harry, Call, the protagonist here, is a rather unwilling and uneasy student at the wizard academy. The school itself, too, is very different indeed from Hogwarts, both physically (here a maze of underground caverns, rocky passageways and canals) and in its ethos, it's teachers and its approach to magic. All of this is most vividly created and the wonderful imaginations of thes two very experienced fantasy writers very much show through. However, I am never going to be too much impressed by such an obvious clone, well written or not.

BUT THEN (and the capitals are deliberate here) things change in most interesting ways. Around two thirds of the way through, the storyline takes a number of really very shocking and most intriguing jolts that suddenly make it very different in both content and feel from HP. It becomes clear that rather than settle for a lazy semi-pastiche, the authors have very cleverly used familiar features from this very specific fantasy genre in order to set up expectations that they then intend to thwart. And they do so to quite thrilling effect. Suddenly we have a very different book and a see totally different level of authorial skill. It becomes quite a read and, by the end, sets up eager anticipation of the sequel.

Descriptions along the lines of 'the best thing since Harry Potter' are so overused and abused in publishers' hype as to have become, infuriating, hilarious or simply derisible. However this is the only book I have read that so well feeds on the HP tradition, but then subverts it in a shocking but totally enthralling and entertaining way. In doing so it comes close to recapturing the same quality of reading engagement as its illustrious predecessor whilst adding enough difference to be truly special.

However the jury must remain out on the impending full series until there is more to read. In a sense the big shock has now been sprung. It will be most intriguing to see how its implications are worked through. The question is can these two skilled authors maintain and develop interest through several more years at the Magesterium, in ways that are original and special enough to fulfil the promise of greatness this debut instalment now makes?

 

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Mortal Engines Quartet by a Philip Reeve

 

Some months ago I missed out this wonderful work from my full listing because it did not quite fit my definition of magical fantasy. Now I have tried to free myself from some of these sillier constraints and it just has to be included. It is without doubt one of the greats of children's literature of recent years.

The Mortal Engines quartet, now re-titled Predator Cities, (Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices, A Darkling Plain) does not have wizards but is nevertheless a most wonderful and imaginative fantasy. Probably more Sci-Fi than anything, it is, however, totally itself; unique and quite magnificent. Its inventiveness is truly magical and the spells cast by its vast array of incredibly-imagined characters are over the reader if not over each other. Its protagonists are some of the most engagingly and sensitively developed of recent creations (the kind you leave behind with almost a sense of bereavement at the end of a book) and its plot progressions are complex, rich and gripping; always vastly entertaining. It is quite simply a masterwork of contemporary children's literature - terrifying, exciting, jokey, humane, thought- provoking and staggeringly original.

 

 

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Doll Bones by Holly Black

Holly Black's best known work, The Spiderwick Chronicles, is an authorial collaboration (with Tony DiTerlizzi), as is her very recent fantasy, The Iron Trial (this time with Cassandra Clare). These books almost inevitably suffer from some lack of individual distinctiveness of voice. This is not, of course, to say that they do not do what they do exceptionally well. The enormous popularity of the Spiderwick books speaks for itself. They very effectively bring the engrossing thrill of good fantasy into the scope of very young readers. These short, accessible books provide what is probably one of the very best introductions to this genre for children who are ready to make their first moves into independent novel reading. In this sense they do for modern children what the books of Edith Nesbit did for children in the early 20th century, those of Enid Blyton for those of the postwar generations, and Roald Dahl in the later years of the century; they provide accessible reading that is at once both exciting and comforting, highly imaginative adventuring from the safety of the sofa, vicarious escape from the constraint of adults that involves no need to leave home.

For more confident and experienced young readers The Iron Trial builds from established conventions to provides what is one of the very best if-you-enjoyed-Harry-Potter-you-will-love-this reads that I have come across in a long time.

However it is in the quite remarkable, independently authored Doll Bones that I feel the writing of Holly Black really comes into its own. This is a work of truly original voice, stunning imagination, deep sensitivity and enriching humanity.

I would not really call Doll Bones a fantasy novel, yet I have no hesitation in including it here because it is in every aspect a book about fantasy. Despite any impression to the contrary that the titular doll and its accompanying dominant cover illustration might give, this is to me very much a boys' book, or at least a book about a boy. Although two of its three principal characters are girls, feisty Poppy and the somewhat dreamier Alice, we only really know and discover them in so far as the book's real protagonist, Zach, comes to know and discover them. Although not a first person narrative, we see them, and indeed the whole world of the book through his eyes.

The girls are the collaborators in Zach's world of 'play' and they share an elaborate and ongoing game of imaginative world-building and role enactment, supported by their various collections of old toys, dolls and action figures, who represent its cast of heroes and villains. The lives of these three children are rich in story and enriched by make-believe. They clearly read widely and then use their own imaginations to extend and elaborate the worlds they have found in their books, to make them 'real' for themselves and to keep themselves within them. Their sharing in this 'play' bonds them closely together in a very special friendship.

Yet Zach is twelve. He is on the verge of growing past such things, or at least in the eyes of many around him. However he is not yet ready to move on. Although he sometimes feels he should, he does not really want to.

The catalyst of both the action and the development in the story is Zach's father who particularly desperately wants his son to 'get real' and 'man up'. He almost succeeds in destroying the boy's imaginary world when one day he removes and destroys the action figures which are Zach's story props.

Devastated, Zach feels he can no longer 'play' with the girls. His characters have been killed off and therefore the whole game terminated. But Poppy soon succeeds in reeling him back in by taking one of their existing characters, an antique doll from a cabinet in her home, and building around it a new and 'spooky' story about a girl wo was killed and whose bones were subsequently ground down to create the china from which the doll is made. This doll now wishes to be taken home and buried there so that she can find 'closure' and rest.

Both of the girls in the story introduce a confusion between imagination and reality, although in very different ways. Poppy wants so much to keep him sharing her story life that she gets him to play out in actuality a fantasy adventure, the quest to quiet the 'ghost' of the titular doll. Alice, on the other hand, although ambivolently still attached to the imaginative world of their 'play', wants to pull Zach back with her to the real world because of embryonic romantic feelings for him.

Whether or not this is a real ghost story remains ambiguous; it is the tale of the doll and the way in which Zach is drawn in to acting it out which is far more important.

In this book Holly Black has stepped aside from writing in the fantasy tradition itself, although it is that very tradition which so influences her characters. It is clear that Zach, Poppy and Alice are avid readers and the books of Tolkein, Rowling, Riorden, Paver and their like are what feed their imaginations. In contrast, her own book, for me, sits in that wonderful tradition of American children's fiction where the very real issues of its its young protagonists are played out through exploration of their imaganitive lives. I suppose the classic of the genre is Katherine Patterson's The Bridge to Terabithia, although there are other wonderful,examples from the likes of Betsy Byers, Lowis Lowry, and more recently Anne Ursu's Breadcrumbs.

Yet Holly Black's creation is not in the least derivative. It takes an imaginative, sensitive boy's issues in beginning to face adolescence and the emerging demands of 'being a man' and explores them through his interactions with two girl friends, each going through their own growing. It is both an exciting adventure and an intriguingly spooky story. Superficially it is a reckless road trip, inwardly it is a magical, mystical quest.

The book's greatest triumph of all is that its resolution is quite wonderfully affirmative. At its end Zach, together with Poppy and Alice, faces a real future which is uncertain and very probably difficult. But he has learned that it is possible to live out and, indeed, fulfil a quest; stories can and will continue, imagination will still play a huge part in his life. The corollary is that stories can play a part in all our lives too. We need never grow out of them. And this is a wonderful message.

It is a book for which fully deserves the accolades and awards it has achieved. It is a small masterpiece and a must for imaginative boys everywhere. It should become another classic of the canon.

 

 

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