Echo Mountain by Lauren Wolk

Cover: George Ermos

Serendipity

I don’t have a particular policy to review American children’s books. In fact I don’t have a policy at all, other than to write about books I have really enjoyed and can enthusiastically recommend to children, parents and teachers. I do sometimes try to avoid the trending titles that many others are blogging about, unless they are so good I can’t resist. However, it just happens that a string of US authored titles have been amongst my recent favourite reads. And perhaps it isn’t a bad thing for me to try to draw attention to them. Although we undoubtedly have some children’s writers of the very highest calibre in the UK, it would be a serious mistake for young readers here to neglect US authors. Amongst many admittedly mediocre offerings from over the Atlantic (as there are here too, of course) are to be found some of the world’s greatest contemporary children’s books and writers.

And a shining example is Lauren Wolk.  

Masterpiece

Cover: Gelrev Ongbico

‘If my life was to be just a single note in an endless symphony, how could I not sound it out for as long and as loudly as I could?’ (p 228)

Only a relatively few novelists produce a masterpiece with their first book. Richard Adams’ Watership Down and Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now come to mind as examples, and, of course, To Kill a Mockingbird. Lauren Wolk did it too with her debut young readers’ book, Wolf Hollow in 2016 *. Ever since its publication she has been awarded accolades and  lauded as ‘a worthy successor to Harper Lee’. Although I have a general skepticism towards inflated book jacket claims, I can fully see the justification for this particular comparison.

Lauren Wolk seems to specialise in books about small, remote communities and relatively recent history. Wolf Hollow sets this precedent, recounting a short period in the life of a young girl in a rural American township, towards the end of World War II. Through the exquisitely caught voice of its narrator, Annabelle, it vividly evokes the narrow, isolated life of a small township that has changed relatively little in its ways to meet the twentieth century, and even less so in its mores and attitudes. A story of school bullying, and the unreasonable violent antagonism that feeds it, evolves in a context of fear of the USSR and threats of imminent nuclear attack, perhaps exaggerated into paranoia by the politics of the times. This expands into a book about prejudice and intolerance more personally focused and directed against a strange, lone man who is actually suffering the traumatic after-effects of fighting in the First World War. 

Annabelle’s deeply compassionate, but ultimately inadequate, attempts to put this world to rights are at the heart of this profoundly human story. It is occasionally funny, but more often harrowing and deeply disturbing, made more so by the author’s skilful ability to have us live through every minute alongside her young protagonists. 

Lauren Wolk often uses a clever technique of hinting at things to come, often at the close of a chapter, without in any way explaining them. This adds an intriguing compulsiveness to read on; psychological cliff-hangers. As with other great novelists, she shows us our world in microcosm, and what we see is not always pretty. But seeing may ultimately help us to change things.It is a truly fine book, even as it is a difficult one to read. 

Is it a children’s book? It is certainly about a child, although one in the process of growing up, on many levels. Perhaps it is readers on the cusp of childhood/adulthood, whenever that many come, who will identify most readily. But it is a book for those children who are ready for it, and for all the rest of us who may not be, but should be.

Sparkling sea

Cover: Tang Yau Hong

Some of the authors who produce an early masterpiece, never seem to achieve quite the same level of inspiration again. Not so Lauren Wolk. This follow-up book is also very special indeed. It is simultaneously like and unlike her previous title. This time the small (even smaller) community is an island one, and her story set slightly earlier in history, although still not in the distant past. It is 1925 and, ever since she washed ashore in a small boat as an abandoned baby, a girl who has come to be known as Crow has been brought up by, ‘Osh’, a recluse living on a tiny island in the Elizabeths, off the coast of Massachusetts,. In this surrogate parenting he is significantly aided by Miss Maggie, a spinster from another island just across a tidal reach. 

At one level, it is another story about prejudice. Crow is aware that she is different, having  a skin colour not shared by the other islanders. Further, suspecting that she originated from a nearby leper colony, all but Osh and Miss Maggie shun her physically. However Beyond the Bright Sea is a far more lyrical book than Wolf Hollow. It is a hymn to simple, remote island life, the sea and shore and wind, as well as a condemnation of intolerance and small-mindednes . Its developing storyline does involve a pirate treasure and a malevolent villain who will will stop at nothing to get his hands on it. This gives the tale more of a feeling of a children’s adventure than her last. Yet this is not the heart of the story. The essence of the tale lies in Crow’s search to discover not only who she is, but who she wants to be. But what could, in other hands, be a cliched theme, here glows with the truth of simple humanity, expressed through the most potent writing.

Whilst Lauren Wolk does not go in for unrealistic ‘happily ever afters’, this is a more positive book than her first, heartwarming rather than harrowing, but a no less a fine a piece of writing for that. 

Echo-girl

US edition

‘I was an echo-girl. When I clubbed a fish to death, my own head ached and shuddered. When I snared a rabbit, I knew what it meant to be trapped. And when I pulled a carrot from the sheath of its earth, I, too, missed the darkness.’ (p 16)

However superb her first two books, neither of them rival the sheer lyrical potency and beauty of  language that is Echo Mountain. Ever skilful, Lauren Wolk, seems to continue to grow in skill as a writer. If Wolf Hollow is one of the most powerful books I know for young readers (and it is), then Echo Mountain is one of the most exquisitely written. Here still are the gripping narrative cliff-hangers and the devastating heart-pulls, but they are wrapped in a peon to nature; to the wild, simple, rustic life; to the place that is Echo Mountain, and all it represents; to much that is lost, and even more that could be. The intense, raw nature of the mountain and the emotional sensitivities of protagonist, Ellie, echo each other.

‘Her kind of courage (my mother’s) had very little wild in it. Very little of the mountain. Which was all I had - wildness- though plenty of it. And of several sorts: not one vast thing, but as varied as trees. As flowers.’ (p 101)

It is 1934 and, as a consequence of the Great Depression, Ellie’s family have been forced to move from city life  into a remote part of New England and there begin to follow a much poorer, but also a much simpler life, including the building of their own cabin. For most of them it is a difficult and demanding wrench, but Ellie is immediately at home there, and in many ways becomes the strength of the family, the potential for  life and growth amidst the ruins of what has been,

‘When I climbed down to sit in the bowl of that ruined house, cupped in that granite hand, sheltered by the trees growing up in it, I felt strong and able, too. A mountain girl. Smart. Quick. On my way to wise.’ (p 38)

Healing the heart

The book is essentially about healing, and Ellie is the healer, or at least the agent of healing. And hers is the healing of nature, of the mountain. 

Not long after the move, Ellie’s father is badly injured whilst felling a tree, and ends up in a deep and enduring coma. Nor is he the only one sick. Her mother seems hardened not only by the loss of her former life, but now prevented from  grieving her beloved husband only by the slenderest and most tormenting of hopes. Ellie’s older sister does not adapt much better, and the grim coping strategies of both mother and daughter barely hide much inner pain. Only Ellie’s younger brother retains the wayward vigour of his years, although he too misses his father badly. 

When Ellie discovers an old ‘hag’ living higher in the mountain, a woman who is decidedly not a witch many think her but a nature healer herself, she too turns out to be seriously hurt. And even the young boy from the ‘other side of the mountain’, himself an important and rich character in the evolving story, suffers a bad eye injury that needs Ellie’s ministrations.

The narrative develops slowly, full of fascinating, vivid detail of Ellie’s life and her gradual understanding of who she is and what she can achieve. This gifts the reader time and space to get to know her and those who make up the tiny community in which she spends her days. But it is the mountain itself that becomes a dominant element in her story. The book’s healing, Ellie’s healing, is the healing of nature. Although, in the end, conventional medicine is not denigrated, it is her ability to echo the wild, to see everything as connected, as part of the same whole, that makes her, and her apparently simple story, so powerful, so universally truthful and so relevant to us all. 

Time and again Lauren Wolf’s writing takes the breath away, with its mastery of language, its ability to catch thoughts perfectly, to express the seemingly inexpressible, to capture a moment, a feeling or an experience with a few simple but skilfully manipulated words.

‘The morning began as any morning might - a matter of yawns, squinting at the weather, wobbling on the tightrope between yesterday and tomorrow.’ (p 71)

And perhaps, in this third book, Lauren Wolk, has found a healing for her own authorial spirit too, for here, for the first time, is a truly happy ending. It is not trite or sentimental, her characters are too rich and complex for that, her language too vital, her humanity too real. But it is warm, and comforting and as wild and sweet and natural as her mountain.; an echo of love that bounces back from its crags, its forested slopes.

A present of the past

Lauren Wolk unfolds Ellie’s narrative in the past tense and, like the very best of writers, knows how to bring a recount to life through vivid evocation, leaving space for readers to draw it into their own present through the immediacy of their envisioning. 

I know of only a few current writers for young readers who can match her. Her understanding, Her affirmation of life.

She can, of course, say it much better than I. 

     ‘The closer we got to the cabin, the more I was able to see what the bear saw in the eye of the purple aster, what the crow saw from her topmost nest, what any untamed creature knew from the moment it first opened its eyes: that life is a matter of moments, strung together like rain. To try to touch just one drop at a time, to try to count them or order them or reckon their worth - each by each - was impossible.

      To stand in the rain was the thing. To be in it.

      Which I would do.’    (p 297)

Echo Mountain is recently out in a very handsome hardback, with a paperback presumably to follow fairly soon. All  Lauren Wolk’s books are available in UK editions, so there should be no problem finding them - preferably from an independent bookseller, if you wish to buy them.

Note:

*She had written a novel for adults quite a few years earlier.

The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead

Very American - in a good way

There is a certain approach to children’s literature at which certain American writers seem to excell. These are books that chronicle a particular period of daily life, but in doing so take readers right inside the thoughts and feelings of  a narrating child. They do not generally concern themselves with the ‘conditions’ which affect some children (autism, ADHD, dyslexia and the like) as do some excellent UK titles, but rather with relationships, issues of family and school life; matters that may seem relatively small in the great scheme of things, but loom very large to the children concerned. For the most part they do not recount dramatic events and exciting adventures, but by detailing the minutiae of daily experience thereby elucidate the universal. They take young readers right inside the heads of their lead characters and help them to understand more richly and deeply the lives of others, and their own.

I know of few, if any, authors who better exemplify this remarkable type of writing than Rebecca Stead. 

What is the truth?

Her book Liar and Spy gained many nominations and awards, on both sides of the Atlantic, when it was published just a few years back. Justly so; it is fully deserving of contemporary classic status, and remains a strong recommendation. It should be amongst library stock for all schools and in as many homes as possible. The voice of young Georges (named after Georges Seurat, hence the ‘s’) is beautifully caught, poignant and funny, and we really get inside his minute-by-minute perceptions of life in a most endearing way. Although the action is largely confined to a few days within a Brooklyn apartment block, into which Georges and his father have just moved, its gentle pace gradually unfolds an intriguing mystery, although it ultimately turns out to be not quite the one expected. It is an entertaining and often amusing read, but, underneath, has a great deal of importance to say about truth and lies, reality and illusion (or perhaps delusion). This author truly understands the importance of family and friends from a child’s perspective, and elucidates issues around coping with change, exposing the need to accept and value differences in others. Liar and Spy is most cleverly written and its superficial simplicity, of both language and storytelling, subtly conveys complex and rich humanity. 

Things that shouldn’t change and things that should

Rebecca Stead’s most recent book is another rather unobtrusive triumph. The List of Things That Will Not Change, is, as the title suggests, also about a child coping with change. Once again it is a quite breathtakingly skilful and poignant in capturing a child’s voice, this time that of Bea, as she copes with a parental split and the prospect of her father’s remarriage. This will bring her not only a new parent but a step-sister as well. Like Georges, Bea is often amusing, as well as touchingly honest in sharing her thoughts, hope and fears, as the wedding approaches and her domestic situation shifts and reshapes. Her situation is complicated by the fact that her father’s impending marriage will be a gay one. Although this presents no problem to Bea herself, it does to others, and the book sensitively deals with issues of prejudice and intolerance. However, its outcomes are reassuring and ultimately heartwarming. It is an understanding book that will help children understand and accept. It is vitally important that as many of our children as possible grow up with intuitive awareness of the inestimable value of all people, irrespective of gender, race or religion; that they simply accept as normal of a range of different loving relationships, partnerships and family grouping. This is exactly the sort of book that will help enormously in reaching towards such aspiration. 

US edition

Still very American - and still in a good way

I perhaps need to say again that these are books that to UK readers will feel very American. They demonstrate yet again that we are ‘two nations divided by a common language’. There were certainly occasions when I had to look up their meaning of particular words. Even more than unfamiliar  vocabulary, the social systems in which the young protagonists of these books live, their schools, food, treats, homes and families, can seem very strange to us. But I cannot see this as anything but a good thing. Such books offer young readers important insights into a national culture with considerable global influence. Through them they can come to appreciate not only what is different about America and Americans, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, how very much basic humanity we all share. They offer vital lessons in understanding and in empathy, without any hint of didacticism.

These are probably not books for novice readers, but thoughtful, sensitive children will find them life-enriching, engaging and endearing, as well as highly entertaining.

Note:

I included an earlier title from Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me, in my recent recommendations of books about time travel.I have also previously reviewed Bob, which she co-authored with  Wendy Mass and is further distinguished by copious illustrations from one of my favourite book artists, Nicholas Gannon. Both of these are well worth seeking out too.

The Witch’s Boy by Kelly Barnhill

It’s great to see a new UK paperback edition of a hugely enjoyable earlier novel from the brilliant US children’s author, Kelly Barnhill. Don’t miss this chance to catch up with it. (See my review from  January ‘15.)

Twilight Hauntings by Angie Sage

Cover: Justin Hernandez

Septimus Heap . . . and then

Angie Sage’s Septimus Heap series (Magyc, Flyte, Physik, Queste, Syren, Darke, Fyre) is one of children’s literature’s finest long fantasy sequences. It may not be the same massive cult phenomenon that is Harry Potter, but then what is? It is every bit as engaging, building a rich and highly imaginative magical fantasy world over seven wonderful stories, each as captivating as the last and building into an overall epic tale, that, whilst huge, never looses its accessibility or appeal for young readers. It is filled with engaging characters and wonderfully grotesque villains and bursts alive with both highly entertaining humour and thrilling storylines. It manages to be spine-tinglingly scary with out ever being disturbingly macabre; dark fatasy with a light touch, if you will. Septimus himself is one of the most endearing, if humanly fallible, of fantasy protagonists, and the whole saga is spot on for a readership of around 8-12. It is a children’s fantasy writing triumph.. 

Todhunter Moon . . . but too little of her

When Angie Sage rounded off  Septimus Heap it in 2011, with a seventh and seemingly final title, Fyre, it left a huge whole in many children’s reading lives, as well as the hanging question: how do you follow that? However, she soon succeeded. By continuing the world of Septimus into a new new generation, with former characters as adults and a brilliant new cast of young characters, this time led by a girl, Todhunter Moon, she kept her wonderful creation alive, whilst invigorating with a totally fresh feel. It was the perfect solution, delighting her many fans that they could come back to her books, whilst completely banishing any feeling of staleness. This new series (Pathfinder, Sandrider, Starchaser) retains all the many qualities of the first, whilst adding layers of vibrant imagination, to her hugely entertaining magical enchantments.

(By the way, the American editions, enriched with sumptuous illustrations by Mark Zug, are ravishing books to boot.)

So what is very strange, almost incredible, is that the Todhunter Moon series, seems to have come to a halt, after just three books, when it gave every impression of having the potential for a sequence equalling the first in both length and quality. It is one of the biggest disappointments in recent children’s publishing.

Instead of more of these, the author went on to publish (in America) an interesting and enjoyable, but rather untypical, stand alone novel Maximilian Fly.

And now . . . Enchanter’s Child

However, now there is some very good news. It is doubly exciting that not only does Angie Sage have a new children’s fantasy novel out, Twilight Hauntings, but it is designated as Book 1 of  ‘Enchanter’s Child’, so there is definitely more to come. 

Here the author  has created a totally new high fantasy world. Although it perhaps does not have quite as much of the wicked humour and delightful caricature of the Septimus Heap books (though it does have its moments),it is otherwise classic Angie Sage, replete with all her engaging plotting and richness of imagination. In a land where enchantment (and especially enchanters) are not only outlawed but actively hunted by an array of malevolent creatures, a former king’s enchanter is now in hiding and forced to flee from the very ‘hauntings’ he was responsible for creating. Finding an unlikely sidekick in a reluctant young magic-hunter, he sets out to seek the daughter he was forced to give away at the time of his persecution. Meanwhile, said daughter, unaware of her true father, or her own magical heritage, has to grapple with the consequences of a rather less than ideal foster family, Betrayed by a malicious step-sister, she escapes with the help of a young lemon-seller and his entertaining donkey. This new cast of principal characters and the world in which they live are vividly evoked, along with the wonderfully chilling variety of creatures sent to haunt and hunt them. Angie Sage remains a consummate storyteller and understands just how to hook young readers in and keep them enthralled and entertained. Hers is exactly that sort of page-turning story where every time you think things are getting better, they only get worse - until, of course, they don’t. Together with her earlier books (for any who don’t already know them) Enchanter’s Child is most warmly recommended. Those who like their reading to provide thrills aplenty, but in a somewhat lighter vein, for example any who have recently enjoyed Michelle Harrison’s delightful fantasies, should respond to it enthusiastically.

Available here

Although Twilight Hauntings has an American publisher, they are distributing it over here too, so it should be easily available. Be sure to seek it out (preferably from an independent bookshop). And we now have Book 2 to look forward to as well. However, we could still do with more of Todhunter Moon and the world of Septimus Heap. Young readers are missing out hugely, and children’s fantasy literature is most definitely the poorer for its lack.

Three mind-bogglingly brilliant books exploring the dimension of time

Back in time (or not?)

I read an excellent article in one of last Sunday’s papers, where children’s author Jennifer Bell, whose most recent story, Wonderscape*, features time travel, discussed her own favourite children’s books with a similar theme. Two of her suggestions were established classics, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and Philippa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight Garden. These are books I have known and loved for what feels like most of my life and I think any child who does not read them at some point will have sadly missed out. However, another of her suggestions, When You Reach Me by renowned American author  Rebecca Stead, is a much more recent title. I knew I had a copy around somewhere. Remembering  that I had enormously enjoyed it when I read it about ten years ago (before I started this blog) I sought it out to re-read. That led me on to revisit two other relatively recent books that explored something of the same concept and that I knew I had been equally blown away by, The Longest Night of Charlie Noon by Christopher Edge (which I reviewed in May ‘19) and No True Echo by Gareth P Jones  (reviewed Feb ‘16) ). I was no less enthralled by any of them second time around and back-to-back they provided one of the most thrilling, and mind-expanding, theme reads I have had for quite a while.

Reaching forward (or back?)

I was certainly right  about When I Reach You. It is one of the masterpieces of recent literature for young readers. Superficially, it chronicles the relatively mundane events of a short period in the life of a young New York girl. These include the loss of one friend and the making of new ones, the problems surrounding her walk to school and incidents while helping out in a local sandwich outlet. The author is brilliant in taking us right inside the thoughts and feelings of her protagonist, Miranda, and suffuses her first person narration with wit and insight. Yet much of what happens seems relatively unremarkable, with the only overt highlight of Miranda’s life an invitation for her single mother  to be a contestant on a TV game show. However, from the start, Rebecca Stead threads this story through with several deeply intriguing mysteries, seeding both clues and red herrings subtly through events and developments. Perhaps most remarkable of all is the way she eventually draws together what have appeared disparate narrative strands into a totally remarkable conclusion, that shakes the very foundations of many of our assumptions as a reader. It is such clever, imaginative, moving, enthralling and deeply humane writing. 

A long time (ago?)

Christopher Edge has done a superb job recently in creating imaginative fiction that explores with children some really very difficult concepts in contemporary science. His latest book, The Longest Night of Charlie Noon, remains in the same vein, but takes this even further by adding a philosophical, metaphysical, almost aesthetic, element too. It is his best book yet, which is saying a lot, because they are all outstanding. The long night of this latest title  is spent in a ‘wild wood’ where many things happen, in many ways and on many levels, whose dimensions most certainly include that of time. It is a rich story of staggering surprises, the meaning of which lies within the essence of the very tricks played on both characters and reader. It is a most important book, which carries within it an real challenge for young readers, in their lives as well as in their reading. (For a more extensive discussion of the book please refer back to my post in the blog archive.)

Echos of the past (or future?)

Gareth P Jones, has written a good number of highly entertaining children’s books, mostly in a lighter vein, and very funny they are too. However his rather more serious No True Echo, is, in my view, his finest novel to date. It explores big issues, essentially life and death, through a complex, multi-dimensional narrative, where time ‘distortions’ play a very prominent part. Yet it is not without humour and is highly engaging, as well as puzzling, shocking and moving. It is no easy, or altogether comfortable, read and is perhaps for a slightly older audience than some of his other titles. However, it rewards hugely and deserves to be far more widely read and accaimed than perhaps it has been so far. Appropriately, its time will come around, I am sure. (Again, for a much fuller appreciation I refer readers back to my original review.)

More or less?

Each of these novels is a wonderful example that ‘less is more’, even, or perhaps especially, in children’s fiction. They do not condescend one iota to their young audience, but understand children profoundly and reach the universal through the particular in ways that are deeply moving. They are each truly mind-boggling, both in their challenge to conventional thinking and in the consummate skill of their crafting. They are three of my favourite books. Although not completely new, they should still be available. In fact the Rebecca Stead title has just been reprinted in the UK. They are well worth seeking out and should have a prominent presence in homes, libraries and classrooms. 

*High on my TBR pile. Her Uncommoners books are a delight. 

Rise of the Shadow Dragons by Liz Flanagan

Cover: Angelo Rinaldi 

And now Book Two

When I read Dragon Daughter, a couple of years ago, I recognised Liz Flanagan as a very special children’s writer. Her novel was deservedly one of my ‘Books of Year 2018’, and I felt she showed qualities that put her in the very top rank of children’s authors.

As a consequence, though, picking up the next in the sequence she is calling Legends of the Sky, I felt a certain trepidation alongside my eager anticipation. After the excitement and energy of the story that starts it all off, sequels can sometimes fall sadly flat, either so like the first as to be tiresomely repetitive or so different as to seem disappointingly unrelated. Happily Liz Flanagan has not fallen into either trap, and this book is every page a worthy successor to the first. In fact it has only redoubled my opinion that she is a very special voice indeed in children’s fiction.

Child appeal

So what is it that makes this book so very special. In trying to explain I can only repeat what I said about the first one: these are books that I know my eleven year-old self would have just adored. I remember well enough  how I felt about books back then to be absolutely sure. But I am also sure because the eleven year-old that is still inside me loves them equally. They are books to feed the imagination. They are books to loose yourself in. They have main characters who you want to spend time with, who you want to get to know and who  become your friends, albeit vicariously. At least one of them is, in a sense, someone you would like to be. They live, too, in world where you want to be, where you want to imprint a baby dragon, where you want to fly an adult one, where you want to show how brave you are (even though you don’t feel it) and where you want to help save the people and the things you love. Even though you quail and suffer through some of the terrible, and even traumatic, events of the story, it is the sort of book where you know everything will turn out all right . If fact you read on, desperate to get to the end where everything will feel good, at the same time as you don’t want to get there, because then the shared experience of the story will be finished. In that sense, it is a classic sequel, where you are delighted to get back to a world you feel know well, and see what things have changed. You hope there will be many, but not too many, and Liz Flanagan gets it just right.

There are instances where I find myself thinking, even with some perfectly fine books, ‘I really hope this writer doesn’t try to extend this into a series,’ but this is decidedly not one of those cases. I desperately hope there is a series coming on here, and I am sure countless young readers will too. 

Me and my dragon

Rise of the Shadow Dragons, continues to exploit the central theme from the first book, that of children imprinting a young dragon on its hatching, and becoming inextricably linked with them for life, but here with a new generation of young protagonists. Of course, those who know Anne Mccaffrey’s brilliant sci-fi fantasy series from the 1980s, will know that this is not a new idea, and, indeed, many other authors have also exploited it since. However, Liz Flanagan manages to make the concept both totally fresh and completely her own, setting it in a skilfully imagined high fantasy world that she evokes with vivid conviction. In doing so she brings together three highly potent  triggers that unfailingly illicit potent emotional response in children, that of  a strong bond between a child and a particular animal, that of the mythical power of dragons and that of flying through the air, here on the back of a powerful magical creature. It is a winning combination. 

To this Liz Flanagan adds thrilling multi-layered storytelling, involving both personal trauma, violent conflict within the world and society she creates, and natural disaster in the form of a volcanic eruption and consequent tsunami. 

Escaping from, escaping to

Yes, reading Rise of the Shadow Dragons is escapism. But it is an escape that many children need, whether it is an escape from difficulty and unhappiness, or merely escape from the humdrum, the ordinary. Further, though, like so many of the finest fantasy writers, Liz Flanagan uses the context of an exciting, imaginative narrative to explore so much more too.  She understands some of the deepest needs of children: the bonds of  family and the need for special friends; the need to feel important even though they often perceive themselves as inadequate; the need to save the world.  In fact, the actions that the young protagonists in her book take to save their world are in many ways ‘unrealistic’. But that is the whole point. Some stories elucidate the here and now, but others, like this, provide a wonderful place to go that is not here or now, but rather how things could be.  Through such books children can taste, as it were test out, the world as they wish it were. Such reimagining of ‘reality’ can be a wonderful thing and Liz Flanagan’s dragon stories are books of exactly this wonderful kind. In this sense they are the successors of Enid Blyton (although far better written), of Malcolm Saville, of JK Rowling, and their ilk. In envisaging themselves as having the ideal friends, as being more special than they currently feel, as saving their world, children are practicing for how things could be, imaginatively exploring their own potential. Living in a real world that in many ways very much needs saving, that is a very special thing. Flying dragons now, through these wonderful stories, who knows how many readers will fly their own dragons in the future?

Got it covered 

Yet again, Angelo Rinaldi’s compelling jacket illustration perfectly captures the spirit and power of the author’s engaging storytelling. Paul Duffield’s internal illustration of the island of Arcosi is very splendid too.

Paul Duffield

Girls and boys 

One final point. Although it is both wonderful and important to find strong girl characters playing the lead role in so many current children’s novels, feisty female protagonists have recently become so ubiquitous, that it is actually a refreshing change to have a boy as the principal character here, especially one as sensitive and caring as Jowan. Girls and women are far from neglected in this book and many are, quite rightly, in significant roles in both the story and the society depicted. However, whilst I frequently try to emphasise to potential readers that books about girls are not only for girls, we must remember that boys need to be able to find themselves in the stories they read too. A balance certainly needed to be redressed, but it now also needs to be maintained.

Burn by Patrick Ness

Cover: Alejandro Colucci

‘If there were not humans around to create it, the unreality of dragons would cease to be.’ (p 379)

Rarely YA . . .

I generally read a very eclectic range of books and have to admit to what my wife considers the very bad habit of often having several different ones on the go at the same time. These generally include the children’s fantasy I continually enthuse about, but can also encompass sci-fi, thrillers, historical fiction, and much besides. Mick Heron and Ben Aaronovitch are amongst recently savoured lockdown delights.  I also enjoy non-fiction, everything from nature writing (I am a huge fan of Robert Macfarlane) to the Hornby Book of Trains (a bit niche, I know, sorry). At present I am much enjoying a history of the famous Parisienne bookshop, Shakespeare and Company; Paris and bookshops are two of my favourite  places. However, novels aimed at the ‘YA’ market rarely pique my interest, the frequent mixture of dark fantasy and adolescent romance, doesn’t much appeal.

. . . but just now and then 

However, there are a few very notable exceptions. Sally Green’s truly remarkable ‘Half’ trilogy (Half Bad; Half Wild; Half Lost) is one of the most compelling, disturbing and moving  works I have read in the past few years, as are some of the latest works from Marcus Sedgwick (I especially admired The Ghosts of Heaven) and from the brilliant  Frances Hardinge (A Skinful of Shadows and Deeplight). Each of these writers combines remarkably strong, fresh imagination, with compulsive storytelling, but also plumbs depths of feeling and meaning. Theirs are works of the highest quality literature for young adults and would be amongst my very top award winners, if the conferring of book prizes was in my gift. 

Burning bright 

Now, here is another in the same category. Anglo-American author Partick Ness has already won a deservedly high reputation through his ‘diverse zig-zag of books’, so his latest novel Burn was impossible to resist, in whatever bookshop section it was shelved. (Metaphorically speaking of course, bookshops currently being closed. Thank goodness for those independents still doing mail order). This latest novel of his did not disappoint. In fact it thrilled. This was my favourite read of the lockdown so far. (And, as I say, I have read a lot.)

The originality of Patrick Ness’s imagining is stunning, and both his evocative writing and his complex storytelling are equally breathtaking. To start, he places dragons into an otherwise historically plausible 1950s America, with the Cold War at its height and the threat of nuclear annihilation on everyone’s minds. Yet this is not ‘magical realism’, at least not as I expect it. His dragons are both accepted realities in this world, and strong metaphors at the same time. It is an incongruity that is at once implausible and challenging to our understanding of our own world. Dragons abound in contentempory fantasy. But not dragons quite like these. 

Pride and prejudice 

Another monster also stalks the rural American landscape of Burn, and that is an abominable, vicious prejudice. Although clearly engrained in its own place and time, it terrifyingly echoes across to our own world. These narrative elements rub shoulders with religion, cults and control, with destiny and prophesy, with devastating loss and grief, both immediate and longstanding. And, yes, here too are the pangs and pains of adolescence.

As his story develops, Patrick Ness draws increasingly on the concept of parallel worlds. This too is a conceit already extensively exploited in fiction, but his is a far more thoughtful and (again) realistic take than you will find in much sci-fi or fantasy. Whilst I would not label this book magical realism, I might just try to describe it as speculative reality. It plays with many of the tropes of fantasy, just as it plays with the real world of its readers, inside and outside their heads.

None of this prevents Burn from being a totally compelling story. Importantly, too, 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, It is a thoughtful book and a viscerally excitingly one. It is both fantasy and not fantasy. It is about worlds with dragons, worlds with no dragons and the reality of both. It is about worlds with magic and the magic of all worlds. It is about being special enough to save whole worlds; about being ordinary enough to save all worlds.  It is about war and devastation, annihilation. It is about prejudice, anger and hatred, hatred that burns with unimaginable ferocity. But it is ultimately about love; love that cannot vanquish . . . but that can, perhaps, thankfully, survive. 

‘All annihilation was mutual in the end.’ (p 379)

but

‘He stepped out of this world and into the next, intent on finding his love.’ (p 383)

Strange bedfellows?

My current lockdown miscellany