The Legend of Sally Jones by Jakob Wegelius

Those many who, like me, are already captivated by Jakob Wegelius's uber-charming gorilla, Sally Jones, will not be able to resist this ravishing supplement to her life. Any who have not yet read The Murderer's Ape* could well be tempted by this beguiling introduction to discover the novel itself. I do hope so, because it is one of the most enjoyable, and original, highlights of recent children's fiction. 

This prequel to the novel itself has a somewhat different format, somewhere, perhaps, between a graphic novel and an older children's picture book. As such it does not provide the wondrously engrossing extended read of its 'big sister'. However it does fill in the back story of Sally Jones' life fascinatingly, including an explanation of how she got her somewhat surprising and incongruous name. Hers is, in fact, an early existence strewn with misfortune, as she is misled, betrayed, exploited and abused time after tragic time. Yet her story is ultimately a heart-warming, rather than as a heart-rending, one . Sally Jones is emotionally vulnerable in ways that will resonate with many of her readers, but she is also intelligent and resourceful; above all she is a survivor, and we ultimately rejoice in the real and lasting friendship which supports her through everything. 

What The Legend of Sally Jones lacks in the narrative detail of The Murderer's Ape, it fully makes up for in one glorious respect, its copious illustration. Whilst the longer novel beguiled us with scattered examples of Jakob Wegelius' arresting and idiosyncratic art work, this book glows with it on every single page, in ravishing pastel colour. His pictures can be amusing, intriguing, touching or beautiful. They are often all of these at the same time, altogether a delight. The different page layouts are most attractive too. If the other book is a testament to the glories of the author's enthralling storytelling , as it indeed is, then this one is a peon to the wonders of his imaginative image-making.  

Neither are to be missed at any price. Sally Jones is an ape well worth getting to know, verbally and visually. She will enrich the lives of countless children (and I suspect adults too) for many years to come.  

*See my review from Sept '17. 

Dragon Daughter by Liz Flanagan

'Milla saw a smooth, glistening expanse nestling in a deep velvet surround. There was a rounded dome inside, a light turquoise blue, dotted with dark gold speckles like the first drops of rain on stone. Gently, she wiggled her fingers down the sides and lifted it out.' (p 52)

Inside the outside

Some books you can wrap yourself in, like a cozy duvet. But you only sleep when they're finished.

The cover of Dragon Daughter has attracted much admiration on social media, and deservedly so. Angelo Rinaldi's illustration is indeed stunning. However, it would be a tragedy if interest stopped there, because the novel it envelopes is one of the most engrossing children's fantasy reads of recent years. This is a case where we really do get 'what it says on the tin'. From the jacket, the penetratingly magical eyes of a superbly imagined blue dragon shower us with fiery sparks. On its back rides the small but defiant figure of a girl,  a vision of hope glowing from from her young face. The rose light of a new dawn catches the fringes of  her lifting hair. And everything this striking image promises, Liz Flanagan's story delivers - everything and more. 

Even though it was a long time ago, I have clear memories of trailing home from school through grey streets, in a depressing downpour, my belted gabardine raincoat and schoolboy cap soaking in more water than they repelled. I huddled swiftly along, not so much because of the weather but because of what was waiting for me,  a world of comfort to which I ached to return, the world of a book. In those day it was probably an Arthur Ransome or a Malcolm Saville, although a  very first reading of The Lord of the Rings was not far ahead. These were books I lived in, books that I simultaneously longed to finish and wanted never to end. I was desperate to get to the final pages, not simply to find out what happened, but to reach that place when everything turned out all right. At the same time I wanted the book to go on and on; I didn't want to leave its world and, perhaps most of all, I didn't want to leave the company of its characters, who felt like my very special friends. I wanted to be with them, to be like them, to be them. And, whilst I was reading, I was. 

Only very rarely since then have I found books that immersed me in quite that way. Dragon Daughter is one of them 

The dragon's egg

At the heart of this new book protagonist, Milla, is present at the hatching of a dragon and the two pair for life. 

Of course, stories about dragons abound in fantasy literature. A good number of these are dragons that, on hatching, form a unique bond with a particular human, who subsequently becomes their rider. Perhaps the most deservedly famous of authors to exploit this idea is adult sci-fi/fantasy writer Anne McCaffery. Her Harper Hall Trilogy (Dragonsong; Dragonsinger; Dragondrums), is the element within her vast Dragonriders of Pern sequence most clearly aimed towards a Young Adult audience. It particularly stands out as amongst my all time most enjoyable reads. There are many children's books too that feature dragons, hatching eggs and riders. Amongst others writers, Cornelia Funke, Angie Sage and Cressida Cowell have all, in different ways, woven wonderful magic from these particular story elements  

So, if is is not originality of concept, then what is it that makes Dragon Daughter such an outstanding  book?

New world, new friends

For starters,  Liz Flanagan builds a convincing 'high' fantasy world of compelling intrigue that almost immediately draws us in. In has a rich balance of familiarity and freshness that we enter willingly together with that mixture  of comfort and excited stimulation that constitutes a really good read. Added to this Milla and her small group of friends are not just interesting but completely credible as characters - and hugely likeable too. It is easy to identify with them.  What happens to them as the story develops swiftly engenders that very state of mind where we desperately want things to work out well, but fear that they won't - for a good while at least.

When we are reading this book, it does not matter one jot that stories about dragon riders have been written before because we are living through every engrossing moment of this one. Only this particular story is important. This place matters because it is the one we are in.  This situation matters because it is the one we are experiencing. These characters are the ones we care about, not in some abstract way, but right here, right now. This author's imagining of the events comes alive. Everything that happens matters to Milla, so it matters to us. 

I don't know exactly what it is in the writing that creates this effect, but it is the mark of a very talented children's author.

Compelling

'In the days that followed, Milla would be glad of those wakeful hours she'd spent with her dragon. She held the memory of their closeness like a blanket around her against what happened next.' (p 294) By the later stages of the story we readers know exactly how she felt. We need all the warmth and feel good of the earlier chapters to survive the shocking trauma and heartache of the climactic later ones.

Dragon Daughter is an outstanding example of the power of story. Although the development of the narrative involves descent into revolution and bloody warfare, it remains very much the tale of Milla and her friends - and, of course, their dragons. Perhaps, indeed, this is where its true power lies. It has a human scale, whilst still dealing with huge events and themes. 

Deep wrongs

And there lies the essence of of it. The greatest thing of all about Liz Flanagan's writing, is that this book is not just a story. Into its plot she subtly but surely weaves some of today's most real and concerning themes. Embedded within her narrative is an exploration of racism, with examples of its most fundamental and heinous expression. Although seen through the veils of fantasy, its presence immediately resonates with our own world. A ' superior' society  that  treats with blatant unfairness and careless cruelty those it considers inferior feels all too familiar. Impoverished and neglected 'camps' of unwelcome immigrants only add to the picture. And, when individuals are forced, by draconian law, to wear symbols sewn on their clothing to externally badge their racial status, the horrendous parallels are obvious. 

Strident beneath all this is the despotism of  the ruling Duke. It is abundantly clear that his tyranny, and its pervasive abhorrent attitudes, stem directly from a male dominance and and unconcerned determination to maintain perceived masculine power and superiority at any cost.  Fortunately Milla, and a good few other strong female characters, are there to oppose him. It is highly pertinent, too, that they seek to replace those attitudes, not with an alternative tyranny, but with a new, inclusive and tolerant way of living in their world. It is quietly, but powerfully, a very feminist book. And three cheers for that. 

However, unlike some of the most strident feminist writers, Liz Flanagan does not demonise all males. Once imprinted by his dragon, the Duke's son, Vigo, becomes very much a 'new man', fighting alongside Milla for freedoms that should belong to all people equally. There also are other boys and men in the story, willing to stand up for what is right, and pay the cost, alongside the girls and women. And three cheers for that too.

Politics and fantasy

After writing Tehanu, the much later sequel to her renowned Earthsea trilogy, Ursula Le Guin was accused of  'politicising her delightful fantasy world'. In response she reminded us that, 'The world apart of a fantasy inevitably refers back to this world. All the moral weight of it is real weight. The politics of fairyland are ours.' * I can think of few better examples of this than Dragon Daughter. The fact that Liz Flanagan achieves it whilst still keeping everything fully accessible to a young audience, and entertainin them hugely to boot, is much to her credit. She does not lecture, but embodies her messages in her characters and their actions - and that is what great fiction does. 

'Milla's new knowledge of her own heritage still felt dangerous, incendiary as firepowder. She circled it warily. But one distant day, if they won this fight, she resolved to sit in the palace library and read every book, every sentence, every word that had ever been written (about that heritage).' (p 322). 

Thankfully there are now many books that can help girls, and indeed boys too, to envision the world as it can and should be. And this is one of them. 

Flying with a dragon

There is something very special in the idea of a dragon hatchling imprinting on a human child, of the two developing a lifelong, emotional, almost physical, bond. I think it is, perhaps, a perfect metaphor for the desire, the need, in all of us to bond with the world of fantasy, of imagination, of magic; to discover its power and its freedom; to fly our own dragon through life. Liz Flanagan capitalises upon our need for such a dragon  as convincingly and captivatingly as any children's writer I have encountered. 

But there is more to Dragon Daughter even than this. Its messages, both overt and subliminal, are profoundly important. 

'The dragon's must belong to everyone. The new eggs must hatch before everyone. We have to do things differently.' (p 322)

It is about revisioning the world. 

'Milla and the dragon stared at each other and the world was remade.' (p 122) So it is for readers of this wondrous book, for its duration at least - and, perhaps, through their power to imagine things being different, for ever. Now that's magic. 

Note:

* In a lecture of 1992, later published under the title Earthsea Revisioned. 

The Clockwork Crow by Catherine Fisher

'All the house was strange. Snow-glimmer lit ceilings and odd corners with a reflected whiteness. . . It was as if the house wanted her to flit silently through its secrets.'  (p 133)

An older magic

The fact that award-winning author Catherine Fisher was appointed as the inaugural Young Person's Laureate for Wales in 2014 is testament to her stature as a children's writer - if indeed any were needed beyond her considerable body of wonderful writing. 

I have been a huge fan of hers since she started writing, at the beginning of the 1990s. In those days she produced a number of outstanding fantasies for older children, much in the tradition of Alan Garner; terse, enigmatic works that drew potently on Celtic myth, particularly that of her native Wales. Three of theses first novels, The Conjuror's Game, Fintan's Tower and The Candle Man were subsequently republished together as The Glass Tower. She followed with another outstanding trilogy The Snow-Walker. All are still most definitely worth seeking out, both by adults interested in children's literature and by young readers themselves. 

Later, her powerful, imaginative writing developed more for a young adult audience. Of her many wonderful titles and sequences Incarceron stands out as one of the masterworks of the genre, although my own favourites remain those most strongly drawing on Celtic myth, to which she returns time and again, notably Darkhenge and Corbenic. 

Now she has produced what I think is her first major novel for younger children (7 upwards, I would say). And most welcome it is too, particularly as works of this fine quality are comparatively rare for the age-group. Beautifully crafted and sensitively written it is intriguing and exciting. It chills with its tale of snowy winter, both in landscape and atmosphere, whilst simultaneously warming with deep charm and inventive humour. 

Supreme storytelling 

Catherine Fisher's language is superficially accessible, as befits her audience, yet she proves herself brilliant at evoking place, character and atmosphere. Her word-painting shows all the honed skill of art that conceals art. It is a testament to this skill that it was only a few pages into the book before this reader felt completely drawn into the world of her protagonist. And a very cold world it is too. This is a book to read wrapped  a warm sweater, hugging a mug of  hot chocolate. 

Initially this 'Victorian' tale has something of the feel of The Secret Garden, as orphan Seren ('Star' in Welsh) arrives in a large house left desolate by the mysterious disappearance of the son of the household. Peopled with a small cast of strongly drawn characters, gripping intrigue drives the narrative relentlessly, if chillingly, forward, until it gradually morphs into something more ephemeral. Fantasy seeps in and, in the later stages, the story becomes deeply magical as it draws further into its Celtic roots. Here it is enigmatic, mysterious, almost poetic, in a way that gently echoes Catherine Fisher's earlier books, and it immerses its young audience in a  world of fantasy very different from, say, Harry Potter, but, perhaps, far more potent too. Its key is a drop of blood and a single tear. 

A crow, couplets and Christmas 

One of the imaginative triumphs of the novel is the creation of the titular clockwork crow. Superficially gruff and irascible, and indeed possibly mendacious , this tatty assembly of a creature nevertheless adds humour and warmth to the tale, and his relationship with protagonist Seren is ultimately central to a cleverly paced and structured plot.

Another of the the delightful features of the book is the inclusion, at each chapter head, of an intriguing rhyming couplet:

'Walls of ice, stars of silver,

Winter ways you'll walk forever.' (p 143)

These enhance the text magically, and add up to a lyrical synopsis of the essential story; a summation well worth the assembling. 

This is 'Fairy Tale' if you like. But it is not the Fairy Tale of Grimm or Perrault. Nor yet are these fairies from the bottom of  a Victorian garden. These folk are snow cold and terrifying.  There are perhaps echoes of Greek myth, emphasising the universality of this material. There is even more of The Snow Queen. But this is deeper rooted. This is a Fairy Tale of the Celtic people, a Fairy Tale of the western realms, a tale of the Tylwyth Teg. It was here before Anderson. It was here before we were. Long before. But it will outstay us too. And Catherine Fisher's magical book will last with it. 

For teachers, I think this would make an outstanding pre-Christmas read-aloud; one that will stretch children's language and imagination, whilst showing them that story can be completely captivating through other means than roller-coaster action or knockabout silliness. In Catherine Fisher's skilful hands, together you could start to reach gently, yet engagingly, towards the numinous. And towards Christmas too. 

The Glass of Lead and Gold by Cornelia Funke

'It is hard to lose a friend, especially when you have only one.'

A writer for all ages

Cornelia Funke is a world superstar writer of fantasy for children. We, and her young readers, should all be enormously grateful for her prolific output. One of her many and varied talents is an ability to write effectively for a wide range of age groups. Of course, her Inkheart sequence, for older children, is an established classic of the genre and fully deserves to be so. For rather younger children, she has recently added a charming sequel, The Griffin's Feather to her enchanting book, The Dragon Rider. Betwixt and between come many other gems, The Thief Lord and Ghost Knight being amongst my personal favourites.

Her Reckless sequence (sometimes known as Mirrorworld) is every bit as fine a work as Inkheart, perhaps finer in its own way, but it is a dark 'fairy tale', with strong, young adult themes, and is really for a 14+ audience. This particular work has had a rather chequered publishing history but now seems to have found a home in the UK with the wonderful 'Pushkin Press', and I am delight to see it Their paperback issues of the books formerly independently published in hardback thankfully adopt the full text, including the author's stunning illustrations, and will hopefully now help bring them to the wide YA audience here that they so richly deserve. 

However, what links all of Cornelia Funke's work is a an idiosyncrasy of imagination and wonderfully powerful storytelling. It stems, perhaps, from her German background and its particular heritage of children's writing, rooting back to the Brothers Grimm and beyond into Teutonic forests. She is certainly a writer with a unique voice - and a totally captivating one. 

Something old, something new 

Now, I am thrilled to say,  she had stuck with Pushkin (or they her) for the publication of this quite delightful little volume, The Glass of Lead and Gold. This is physically a small volume and it contents essentially a long short story, or perhaps a short novella. In this sense its closest publishing parallels are perhaps the Lyra's Oxford and Once Upon a Time in the North volumes that so valuably supplement Philip Pullman's superb œvre. 

The story is set in Londra, a 'mirror' version of London, that in many ways reflects the reality of the real Victorian city, but is also inhabited by a myriad 'faery' folk, sprites, hobs , witches, trolls and many others. In this respect it does bear some relation to the Reckless books, but otherwise, despite its teenage protagonist, it is perfectly accessible to and suitable for a younger audience too. It is  essentially a Fairy Tale, but a totally new-conceived and wondrous one. It has many of the characteristics of this genre, but adds far richer and more rounded characters as well as a much more detailed and captivating setting. 

A big little book

For such a small book, this one has an awful lot going for it. Cornelia Funke usually writes in her native German, later translated into English. Here, however, she writes straight into English and clearly demonstrates that her skill in this additional language is wonderfully strong; her prose has the vivid clarity of the very best tales and often touches in its simple effectiveness. The volume itself is beautifully produced, enhanced by the author's own pencil drawings; the sprits are a particular delight. Impoverished mudlark, Tabetha, is  subtly drawn but strong protagonist. The way she is eventually able to move, by way of many emotional ups and downs, from her allegiance to the cold, dark river 'Themse'  to a commitment to 'a human river of faces and voices', is truly heartwarming. There are also clear messages about inclusion, built around the secondary character of a girl with only one hand. In all, it is a big story between small covers.  Oh . . . And it's set at Christmas too. It would make a splendid stocking filler for many a young reader. 

The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic by Cressida Cowell

'The real magic is imagination.'

Really twice magic?

Cressida Cowell was already a phenomenon, who enticed countless children into reading, and kept them reading, with her enormously entertaining How to Train Your Dragon series*. Then, last year she struck pure children's literature gold with The Wizards of Once. If ever a book were deservedly destined to joint the ranks of great children's classics, and delight generations now and to come, this is such a one. (See my review from September 2017.)

The question was could she perform the same magic twice? 

Of course, being the writer and artist she is, the answer is a resounding yes. Inevitably, revisiting the same characters and world, this sequel cannot have the original total freshness of the first in the series. However, this is a world and characters well worth revisiting, and they come back alive here just as captivatingly as they did before. Once again the adventure rollicks along, with a clever mixture of thrills and laughs at every turn. The pervasive humour can be witty or farcical and is, as ever, hugely enhanced by the author's copious, anarchic illustrations. Her sketchy drawings, inky doodles and scrawled annotations, so attractive and entertaining to her young audience, hide great artistic skill and sensitivity behind their apparent casualness. 

Deeper magic yet

Yet her characters have some real depth too, and engender emotional empathy as well as providing vicarious experience of magical power and derring do. What child does not want literally to fly off on the door of their former 'punishment cupboard'? Although providing villains aplenty, the  plot too has more to it than simple good v evil, and its  themes will make its young readers think, even amidst their guffaws, yelps and cheers. 

In fact, one of Cressida Cowell's great gifts to all of us who wish to promote children reading is that through enticing humour and excitement she leads young readers subtly towards the world of literature and fine writing. With its 'unknown narrator', changing perspectives, and relatively involved, extended plot, Twice Magic is actually a fairly sophisticated novel, introducing literary conventions with which children can begin to become accustomed whilst hardly realising it. It is fine writing in jesters clothing, a treasure hoard that will buy yet more riches into the future. 

More than anything though, Cressida Cowell's greatest gift of all is that of imagination; imagination in spades; imagination that engenders imagination. 

'The real magic is imagination', she herself writes, and this magical imagination is Cressida Cowell's. 

It is book that will truly help children to 'keep hoping, keep guessing, keep dreaming'.

The closing poem on page 386 says all. Every parent and teacher should stick it to their fridge door - and perhaps take its message to heart. 

'I am young, I am poor, I can offer you nothing,

All that I have is this bright pair of wings 

This air that I eat, these winds that I sleep on,

This star path I dance in, where the moon sings . . . '

Once. Twice. Magic. 

*And continues to do so. 

The Book of Dust: 1 La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (Paperback Edition)

If there are any children's literature enthusiasts left who haven't read La Belle Sauvage then the opportunity of its recent issue in paperback should not be missed. This sequel/prequel to His Dark Materials wonderfully extends and expands what is undoubtedly one of the  masterworks of contemporary fantasy. (See my full review from October 2017.)

However, even for those who already own a hardback copy, this new edition is worth buying for its inclusion of new original artwork by Chris Wormell. His many striking wood engravings now augment the scale, richness and intensity of the story most effectively. Like all the very best illustrations,  they help create both the detail and the drama of  the narrative without demeaning either the author's vivid text or the reader's own imagination. They are in themselves a stunning achievement and their images will long haunt this particular reader, along I suspect with many others, so that I can now hardly countenance the book without them. 

For those who have already ridden in the 'Sauvage' they provide a compelling incentive to read it all again. In fact, if you will excuse me . . . 

The Blue Cat by Ursula Dubosarsky

'My mother says you just have to live it and lump it,' said Hilda. 

'I won't lump it,' I said. 

'You have to,' said Hilda. 'That's all there is. Nothing's the same since the war. Nothing's the same any more.'

Except the sky, I thought. It was the same sky. (p 157)

A wonderful discovery

Whilst I always strongly advocate the use of real bookshops whenever possible (and preferably independent ones), I have to admit that the internet does provide some benefits for book buying. One such is that children's books published in North America, but not in the UK, are now much easier to get hold of than they used to be. Since these include many by quite wonderful authors, that has to be a great thing. Sadly, however, this accessibility does not currently apply to the same extent to Australian publications. Yet the Antipodes too have some truly outstanding children's writers. Thankfully there are exceptions to the sourcing difficulty,* but it does still mean that we miss out on some very fine children's books. For example, I think it is fair to say that Ursula Dubosarsky is very little known or read here. Yet I would place her in the very top rank of children's authors writing today. She is producing children's literature that is both groundbreaking and breathtaking - and often heartbreaking too. 

Happily, her latest novel for young readers**, The Blue Cat, has just become available to those here who are prepared to seek it out - an action that I would most strongly urge you to take. 

A sophisticated book for sophisticated readers

We need to be clear, though. Many of Ursula Dubrovsky's novels are great works of children's literature. This makes them something close to the children's equivalent of high quality literary fiction for adults. They are not 'airport reads'. They are not necessarily books for the many children who (understandably enough) look to reading for comforting escape, for amusing entertainment or for exciting  adventure. They are probably not books to entice reluctant readers. Although their actual language is relatively simple, and many incidents superficially quotidian,  they are actually deeply challenging in style and content.  This author throws in startling images, that would be easy to gloss past, but need instead to be savoured. Unlike Ellery!

'Ellery was sitting, reading a book. When he turned the pages, he did so quickly as though he could hardly wait for the words coming next, like gulps of food.' (p 43)

Readers need to stick with her books,  even when nothing much seems ,superficially, to be happening. They need to be able to read between lines to find the fascination, the mystery, the beauty, the tragedy and the human truth that are all indubitably there. 

Hers are, however, books for young readers who want to be transported to other places and other times; who want to be taken right inside lives very different from their own; who possess a deep sense of empathy and who want to understand more about the world in which they are growing up, even when that understanding comes at a price. It is for children who no longer believe that all dragons can be slain by bold warriors, (or even humble Hobbits) and that 'happily ever after' is far too simplistic an ending. The Blue Cat is no exception. 

The impact of war

It is set in Sydney in 1942, as the affects of  WWII impinge more an more on the lives of Australian children: many parents and older siblings go off to combat,  American forces become a familiar sight, refugees arrive from Europe, and the threat of Japanese invasion increases almost daily.  All of this is recorded principally through the eyes of of a young girl, Columba. In the hands of this author, her first person narrative catches the voice, and mind, of the child quite brilliantly. There are many things happening that Columba does not fully understand, and has to try to make sense of in her own terms, but she is also sensitive and intuitive . She feels more than she knows, and her feelings are often chillingly perceptive. 

'Everyone knew the Germans were winning and soon the Japanese would arrive and we would soon be killed, but most of the time we all pretend it wasn't happening. There were only those very quiet moments - when someone, or something, laid a frozen hand on my neck.' (P 61)

Images verbal and visual

In a particular act of inspiration, Ursula Dubosarsky integrates into her text sourced images, a period picture here, an ARP notice there, 'the sort of thing Columba might have seen and read as she roamed the streets of Neutral Bay in 1942'. Remarkably, what could have been mere illustrations are absorbed into her narrative,  adding further complexity to her verbal conjurings in a way that intriguingly suspends her tale on an enigmatic cusp between history and fiction; one that speaks of truth if not of actuality. 

UK readers need not fear though, that this Australian context will make it is a story our children will find distant or hard too relate to. Whilst the small differences in life and culture are fascinating, the parallels with life in wartime Britain are huge, and the book's themes universal at almost every level. 

And an enigmatic cat

In many senses The Blue Cat is a novel that reveals itself backwards,  even as its story moves forwards. That is to say, its ending throws much of the book into perspective, bringing many enigmatic images into sharper focus and diving down through layers of former simplicity. Only having finished its journey do you see where it was taking you all along - although you may well wish you had not. It is a truly remarkable book, and its  climactic scene in the amusement park one of the most skilfully written pieces of utter devastation I have ever read. It captures all the soul-rending horror of the Auschwitz gas chambers whilst describing something utterly different. Few if any other writers could pull it off. In closing the author quotes a poem of Friedrich Rückert, famously used as a text for one of Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder (Songs of the Death of Children). The irony of its superficial comfort is just about as distressing in this context as it is when accompanied by the music. Read it without screaming inside if you can. Is there comfort to be had? Only in the same reality as its searing tears.  We live under the same sky. 

No book relating to the Second World War and its horrors has moved me more since I read the life-changing 0nce sequence, by another wonderful Australian writer, Maurice Gleitzman. Although here the horrors are only conjured obliquely, through metaphor, they are no les affecting. Neither writer is 'better', they are just very differently great. You need to read both.  

The Blue Cat is not a particularly long book, but it is one that needs to be read slowly, to relish its captivating detail, to pick up its delicate nuances, and to spot the rare glimpses of the elusive blue cat amidst the seemingly commonplace experiences of a war-haunted childhood. 

'I always imagined swimming like an eel or a platypus, down in the deep water where it was black as night. If I went even deeper I would be able to see nothing at all and it would be so cold I wouldn't feel anything either. I would forget I had a body. It would be as though I had turned into water, free and invisible.' (p 10)

This is not a book for the faint hearted. Is it, then, a book for children? Yes. But it is not perhaps a book for all children. It is a book for those who have the sensitivity to let startling images speak to their hearts rather than to their superficial understanding; for those who ponder, wonder, dread, hope, empathise and care. It is a book for those most aware that we do indeed all live under the same sky. 

Also available 

Two other novels by this author were published here only a few years back (from Walker Books, labelled 'World Voices') so should still be obtainable. The Red Shoe has to be another of the very finest works of young people's fiction, but again it is challenging in both style and content. Although written before The Blue Cat, this book has a setting that is just a little later, shortly after the end of WWII. It is the story of three sisters in a family whose life is seriously affected by a father traumatised by his recent wartime experience. It is again a superlative example of capturing the voice of a young child, her thinking, her emotions, and her completely individual way of seeing the world. Matilda, the youngest of the three sisters often sees more than she understands, yet she can be sensitive and naively honest too. She is a superlative fictional creation, and it is by reading between the lines of her observations that we begin to piece together the tragedy that underlies her quiet but intense family drama. The skilful  author remarkably shows how all this can be achieved through a third person, past tense narration. Although Matilda's remains the dominant voice, Ursula Dubosarsky sometimes subtly shifts perspective between the sisters. The whole is like a master class in writing, without being in the least dry or didactic. 

Once again there is an oh-so-clever, indeed a truly mind-expanding, blending of her imagined narrative with snippets of 'found' actual material, this time extracts from the Sydney newspapers of the period. They add yet more depths to a fiction that already comprises more layers than an onion. Once again the denouement of the fiction is devastatingly shocking, but this time it is followed by a more comforting resolution - thank goodness. The whole is a true masterpiece and emphatically not to be missed. 

And more awaits

In the same series from Walker Books is also The Golden Day. I haven't read that one yet, but hope to do so very soon, along with as many of her other books as I can get my hands on. 

Note:

*International blockbuster authors like Garth Nix and John Flanagan are, of course easily found, and thankfully a some very fine writers like Karen Foxlee have secured UK (and US) publication. 

**Perhaps age 11-14ish, broadly speaking. She has also written many picture books and stories for younger children, as well as non-fiction about language itself.