Wild Song by Candy Gourlay

 
Cover: Leo Nicholls

A bright star on the horizon 

We are not yet quite out of 2022 and already I have found another novel for young readers destined to be one of the great books of 2023 - and beyond. Wild Song is a devastatingly important successor to Candy Gourlay’s outstanding and deservedly plaudited Bone Talk from 2018.

This one is perhaps aimed principally at YA readers. However, it is so accessible and yet so powerful that I think it will work for a very wide readership.

The history we should know 

The stortelling is superficially straightforward: a linear narration by Luki, a Filipino girl of the Bontok peoples, addressed to the spirit of her dead mother. However it is wonderfully constructed from an authorial perspective, evolving into ever richer and more thought-provoking understanding of hugely important cultural and human issues. Fiction, but based around events in US history of which many readers will have been unaware , it is a compulsively engrossing read, albeit horrifying, and, at times, heartbreaking. It is hugely impressive, not only as education about previously overlooked or distorted history, but also for our own time. It is a passionate and thoroughly justified tirade against colonialism, the subjugation and exploitation of minorities. It exposes the way so many treat with contempt and even demonise people who are different, whether in appearance, way of life or beliefs. More than anything it is about the need, the right, of all people to grow, change and move ahead without sacrificing their own identity, their cultural roots, their very integrity as human beings. It is a book that so very much needs to be read.

Human zoo

Wild Song is a recount of significant events in the life of Luki, along with a group of her people, including other principal characters from Bone Talk, although they are all now somewhat older. Following US ‘conquest’ of the Philippines, they are transported to the States to be exploited as part of a living exhibition of ‘primitive tribes’ from around the world at the  St Louis ‘World Fair’ of 1904. Canday Gourlay succeeds wonderfully in exploring major world events and appalling attitudes through the eyes and experience of this young individual, so that it remains an intensely personal narrative as well as one of global significance, Luki’s voice is beautifully caught and insight into all that happens is given the human perspective it needs to register most poignantly. Her joy, her pain, her aspirations, her learning and her recognition of the truth about the people she visits are all ours. She is a wild girl, but not in the sense of ‘wild’ the 1904 Americans used of her. Her wildness is closer to that we mean when we talk of re-wilding our planet, rediscovering what life was meant to be before some humans dehumanised it. Luki re-learns to sing her own wild song - and so must we.

Caught between worlds 

A strong thread of feminism is woven through the story and, whether in her home Bontok community, or in the America of ‘new opportunities’, Luki kicks against entrenched mores that seek to restrict severely her behaviours as a girl/woman. At the same time as she clings to many of the cultural and spiritual beliefs the are her heritage as a Bontok, she sees potential in her new surroundings, And this epitomises one of the particular strengths of this book. Luki does not represent a single-minded or prejudiced perspective, her thinking is often ambivalent. She may be an exhibit in the eyes of the Americans, but she is also an observer, and not always a hostile one. She is originally a willing participant in the invitation to travel to The States and, although ultimately appalled by the treatment of her people there, especially after she (and the readers’) make a most devastating discovery, she also sees some of the good  in it. 

‘. . . like a door had been wrenched open and a new world revealed to us. I felt like throwing my arms into the air and screaming. This is what I wanted! I wanted a chance to see this!’ (p 156)

Even when she chooses to return to her home, she has been changed by the experience. She has travelled forwards as well as backward on her journey to discover confidence in her own identity; to acknowledge her roots whilst still accepting her place in the world and her need to fight for a better one.

‘ . . .  it wasn’t about money or who deserved what or how to get more money. We were here, in America. We had seen things that we would never have seen in Bontok and none of it had to do with money. After this, how could we go back to our ordinary lives? 

     It was the one thing I knew for sure. My life was definitely never going to be the same again.’ (p 209)

Yes, the change in Luki’s life is most certainly not all for the good. However, Candy Gourlay herself, in creating Luki and  her story, is now an important agent in that vital struggle for better change 

The us in US

Damning indictment as it is, it is important that Wild Song is not seen solely as a condemnation of early 20th Century America and Americans. What is depicted here is a shameful episode in their history and reflects appalling attitudes of racial superiority. But such colonialism and its related treatment of indiginous peoples and their cultures is far from confined to The States. We English are every bit as guilty, if not more so, and the First Nation inhabitants of Africa, Australia and India, suffered equally horrendous expressions of presumed white superiority. Not to mention all the things that happened, and still happen, here. The 1904 World Fair provides a metaphor for so much more.

A voice, a song

Wild Song is a story powerful in its honesty and heartbreaking in its sincerity. At the same time it is unspeakably potent in communication of its devastating messages about the world’s treatment of ‘minority’ peoples, historically, but also, sadly, bleeding into our present. It is a vital voice for those justifiably seeking a way to be themselves, to accept and value their own cultural heritage, to sing their own song. Similarly it is a heartfelt cry for that heritage to be respected and valued in our contemporary societies and for its people to be treated with the equality that is their human right. 

Re-wilding our world is is not just an activity, it is a state of mind. Civilisation will only grow and flourish when it learns to sing a wild song. Candy Gourlay is playing a huge part in helping to lead us all towards this. Thankfully, she is not alone.

  

The Song Walker by Zillah Bethell

Illustration: Saara Söderlund 

‘I think about the pattern dream.’ (p 66)

The Song Walker it is just so good it’s breathtaking. If it doesn’t win major awards in due course, then there is something seriously wrong with the system.

Naming cats

Sandy Brownjohn, an inspirational writer on the teaching of poetry to children, prominent in the later part of the 20th century*, characterised a talent for creative thinking as ‘the ability to name cats’. My heart sings when I read that Zilla Bethell ‘walks in the hills’ and amongst her favourite things are ‘mint tea, swimming in the rain, cheesy fridge magnets, snow globes, Chopin, dancing and diphthongs.’  To me this immediately speaks of someone with what I now always think of as that ‘ability to name cats’. Not just in the lists’s contents but in its expression, this promises to be someone with a flair for idiosyncratic creativity, someone who plays with words and ideas in fresh and exciting ways. Delving into her children’s novels immediately and amply confirms this - and they are deeply affecting too. 

She set off, not too long ago, with a very fine MG debut (A Whisper of Horses) and an even better second book (The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare), but then really hit children’s literature heights when she wrote a novel set in the country in which she was born and spent her early childhood, Papua New Guinea. The Shark Caller was undoubtedly one of the children’s novels of 2021 and I am only sorry that I didn’t read it early enough to include in my ‘Books of the Year’ post for that year.

Now, however, I am able to make amends, for her latest book is the most special of all. 

Outback

This time her setting is the Australian outback. Whilst this may not exactly be Papua New Guinea, it is far closer to there than to here and Zilla Bethel obviously has a strong connection with it. She has deep respect, too, for the First Country Australians, whose home this was long before colonisation. The beliefs and traditions of these peoples play a fundamental part in her new story and that sincere respect is shown by the fact that the she sought the consent of representatives of the Alyawarre community before publishing the book. Integral to those beliefs, and right at the heart of her book, are the ‘songlines’, or ‘dreaming tracks’, musical maps that guide their people through both the physical and spiritual landscape of the outback.

Of course, the place and its indigenous culture will be far removed from the experience of most UK children, but Zillah Bethell’s handling of both is so knowledgably rich, and communicated in such skilfully vivid language, as to make both come fully alive for them.

Fugue state

The basic story is that of a young girl, the book’s narrator, who finds herself walking through the outback, carrying a strange case, and with a peculiar marble in her pocket, but without the least idea of where she is, how she got there, who she is, or even her own name. Very soon she meets a lone First Country girl, also travelling the land on foot, who is very reluctant to explain who she is or where she is going. As the two trudge ever onwards through the arid, yet surprisingly varied landscape of the Northern Territotry, with a good many incidents on the way, funny, awesome and terrifying by turns, they very gradually learn more about themselves and each other. 

There are times when the metaphor of the journey in the outback landscape (externalising, as it does, the inscape of the  girls’ mental one) becomes quite explicit. After watching Tarni make a fire with a steel, flint and dried grass, her lost companion says:

‘I try and ignite the dried grasses of the memories hidden away within me. Try and use the flint and steel of my mind to spark them back to life.’ (p 66) 

However, for much of the book it sits as an underlying but potent presence. 

If this were all there were to the book it would still be a very fine one. But this is not all there is. Not by a long walk.

Song

It is very hard to write about the later stages of this story without spoiling it for other readers - and I would certainly not wish to do that. Suffice to say that the narrative develops in a way that not only shocks and surprises but brings so many things in the preceding story into focus. However, this new focus is a strangely enigmatic one. What have so far seemed merely sights and incidents in the girls’ story suddenly shimmer as images of something much deeper.  A mirage experienced at the very opening, a bird in a cage, a musical instrument locked in a case, a wild horse rescued, a night gazing at the stars, all suddenly begin to take on significance. And then there is the strange way that Chapter One is titled as ‘The End’, which strikes one as strange at the time, but gets put to the back of the mind until later in the book. Yet at the same time as everything becomes clearer, reality becomes illusive, fragile, fugative. Dry earth spawns earth magic. The physical becomes spiritual. Time becomes dreamtime. 

These days the word enchanted has become rather debased, superficial in its use, but at root it means being enthralled by song. This book is enchanted and enchanting in the truest meaning of these words. At its spiritual centre is music, is the song and, towards the end of the book, there is a most beautiful, lyrical passage that honours and celebrates that song. It is deeply affecting. It is the heart of everything.

Dream Time

Just as in his book, Tyger, SF Said draws on the visionary thinking of Willian Blake, so Zillah Bethell reconnects to the earth dreaming of the First Country Australians to reawaken in us a forgotten spirituality. She and her book are helping to reweave the rainbow that two and a half centuries of materialism have unwoven. She has composed a song that guides us all, of whatever peoples,  along a dreaming track; one that leads us both forwards and backwards to a journey completed and begun, under a glaring sun that reveals the beauty of our own outback, under a dark sky where stars can actually be seen.

Very soon this book will join the songline of great children’s literature that meanders its way around the world and deep into human hearts.

*Footnote

Sandy Brownjohn’s best known books are probably Does it Have to Rhyme? (1980) and What Rhymes With Secret (1982). I warmly recommend them to any primary teachers who can manage to track them down. Teaching the writing of poetry does not date. 

My Books of the Year 2022

Best of the best published in ‘22

Each of the children’s and young teen books I have reviewed this year has been outstanding in its own way. If it hadn’t been I wouldn’t have written about it. There may well be other wonderful new novels I have missed, but, of the ones I have read, these are my top twelve.

Images of images

This has been an exceptional year for illustrated fiction, by which I do not mean picture books or graphic novels, or even novels with a few illustrations, but ones where copious illustrations throughout form an integral part of the reading experience.

  

At the very top of the pile comes SF Said’s Tyger (reviewed in October), undoubtedly my favourite book this year. I don’t always like to follow the crowd, but in this case there is no choice. Staggering in its skilfully crafted, gripping narrative, it is a transcendental story, not simply underpinned with iterative reference to the poetry of William Blake but embued with his visionary spirituality, as well as his social conscience. It creates myth for our time and re-enchants our world as vitally as others wish to re-wild it. Dave McKean’s magnificent illustrations show just how much graphic images of real artistry can complement and enhance a text.

Jason Cockcroft’s Running with Horses (reviewed in August) is a study of close friendship as deeply affecting as it is disturbing. Gritty and violent in its almost hyper-realistic exploration of desperate deprivation, it nevertheless has a richly humane core, replete with understanding and compassion. A novel for teens rather than children, the illustrations, this time by the author himself, lift it into being a darkly beautiful and treasurabke book. Although perfectly readable as a stand-alone, it is actually a powerful sequel to the author’s equally stunning We Were Wolves, from last year. 

The Worlds We Leave Behind by A.F. Harrold (also reviewed in August) almost blows your mind with its haunting and haunted mixture of realism and fantasy.  It conjures a series of intensely experienced moments, switching shockingly between altered versions of existence, and yet pulls them together into flowing, viscerally exciting, storytelling. Its issues are very human, its ideas psychedelic. This is a book that will end up with thinking, as well as feeling,  readers, even if it did not start with them. Here illustrations from the amazing Levi Pinfold fully complement the author’s sometimes almost poetic prose to create a breathtakingly brilliant reading experience for children or anyone older too.

Thinking differently 

It is wonderful to see the significant increase in children’s books with neurodivergent characters, as well as those with wider representation of diversity and inclusion. There are still not  enough of them, but some progress is better than none. Jessica Scott-Whyte’s The Asparagus Bunch (reviewed in July) certainly deserves a prominent place amongst these most welcome works, It succeeds brilliantly in making characters with Asperger’s (ASD) highly entertaining and often funny, without ever making fun of them. This bunch of children (Asperger’s Bunch/Asparagus Bunch - get it?) are hugely likeable and the voice of narrator (or supposed author), Leon, is quite beautifully caught. Other  characters, especially his two mates, leap into endearing life too. It is a book that will help develop understanding and empathy, even as it engages and delights, showing joyfully just how much value differently-thinking people can bring, both to our literature and to our world.

The human spirit

  

The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros  (reviewed in January) was my favourite book of the year until Tyger came along - and it still pushes it close. In fact, as this one is more suitable for a slightly older audience, I think I can say it is my favourite teen book of the year. In this post-apocalyptic tale sentence after sentence is highly original and beautifully wrought. The narrative of a boy and his mother, a boy and his life, is as uplifting as it is harrowing. It is at once quintessentially Welsh and completely universal. Its cover illustration by Becka Moor, with the tiny, bright figure looking out over a minimalist blue landscape, seems to capture the book’s spirit wonderfully. It is an exquisite masterpiece of literature, 

For me (and, I think, many others) Katya Balen is already established as a great writer. Her latest book, The Light in Everything (reviewed in April), only serves to compound this. Her beautifully crafted, economical prose has incredible power and effectiveness. Although darkness permeates the book, it is, as its title suggests, ultimately an uplifting testament to the strength and light of the human spirit. It is as beautiful as it is brave and original. 

I hold Wolf Hollow, from outstanding US author Lauren Wolk, in such high esteem that I was worried when she produced this sequel, My Own Lightning (reviewed in May) lest it fell short. Any concerns were soon dispelled. Even though it could be read as a stand-alone, it is dependent on knowing the first book for its full impact - but that impact is profound. A slow, reflective read, rather than a roller-coaster adventure, it is the beautifully-crafted exploration of a young girl’s sensitivity to both nature and to other people; another moving and uplifting celebration of the human spirit. 

Landscape and legend

Three books stood out to me this year as great examples of the fine post-Garner tradition of children’s literature; that is, they draw richly on British landscape together with its legends and folklore.

  

Finbar Hankins made a big impression on me with Witch, his powerful teen historical novel, published in 2020. Although loosely linked in some clever ways, his latest, Stone (reviewed in September), is not a sequel, but an equally strong and engaging work. This time with a contemporary setting, albeit tinged with ancient magic, it is a deeply affecting study of loss and grief, told with simple but penetrating language and rich metaphor. Its combination of earthiness and sensitivity underlies a masterly, compulsive narrative.

Tanya Landman has also made a well-deserved name for herself with strong historical novels for teens. Recently though, she has turned to a slightly younger audience and Midwinter Burning (reviewed in November) is another exciting example. 

Her WWII evacuee story starts off as a peon to the joys of the English countryside. However, after its protagonist somehow conjures up a friend from the landscape’s prehistoric past, it turns into something much stranger and darker. Its narrative draws on the potency of  an ancient megalithic circle, with its present and past associations, to explore willing sacrifice, both patriotic and personal. A  very fine book. 

Berlie Doherty is one of the treasured names in UK children’s literature, and over the years has added many splendid titles to the canon. Now here is another quiet triumph in her recent The Haunted Hills (also reviewed in November). If this novel, set in deepest Derbyshire,  has a slightly old-fashioned feel, then it is old-fashioned in the best of ways. Language and narrative skills, honed to perfection with experience, work to combine remarkable understanding of the young teen psyche with deep human compassion. In a compelling novel of strong friendship and traumatic loss, landscape and inscape enhance each other in illuminating symbiosis. 

Supreme storytelling

My final two unmissable books are not as deeply meaningful as the other choices, but they fully merit their place here through outstanding writing, storytelling and imagination.

 

In The Chestnut Roaster Eve McDonnell uses language to startling effect to conjure up Nineteenth Century Paris. Even more so, to bring to vivid life the voice of her idiosyncratic but endearing protagonist, whose sparrow-like fidgets and flutters, both physical and mental. are quite brilliantly caught. Amidst a cast of vivid characters and atmospheric locations, the reader is immediately plunged into dramatic action, with tension only letting up very occasionally to heighten the authors gripping storytelling. I would have no hesitation in recommending this book strongly to any confident young reader; they would not only be royally entertained, but exposed to a model of  wonderful writing at the same time.

With so much teen fantasy about, originality is hard to come by. So, when startlingly fresh ideas are combined with the quality of writing found in Ann Sei Lin’s Rebel Skies, it makes for a very special book. At heart, her story is built around enough classic tropes to feel familiar as sci-fi/fantasy, albeit with a distinctly orientalist vibe. However, the main premise of this exciting tale is a strange and beautiful magic that can create wondrous creatures, and indeed functioning machines, from paper. It is mystical origami as a superpower. This may sound far-fetched but, in context, it is totally convincing and the narrative is as compelling as they come. It all adds up to my favourite high fantasy of the year. 

Resist by Tom Palmer

Cover illustration: Tom Clohosy Cold

A publishing marvel

Publisher Barrington Stoke does a great job in providing high quality, accessible texts for less confident or experienced readers. It is also much to their credit that so many of our best writers have contributed. As well as meeting the needs of their primary audience wonderfully well, a remarkable number of their titles make outstanding reading for any level or age, despite their simplified language and style.

My gold standard is always Anthony McGowan’s Lark, a truly sensational novel by any reckoning. Up there in quality also come Katya Balen’s Birdsong and Mal Peet’s The Family Tree. I would also most certainly include the titles contributed by Marcus Sedgwick, recently so tragically deceased. It is no recompense, but some slight comfort perhaps, that there is another Barrington Stoke title of his due early in 2023. 

In this esteemed company, too, are a whole series of wartime novels from Tom Palmer. All excellent, these seem to get better and better and his latest, Resist, is a most compelling and important read.

Devastating authenticity

One of the principle strengths of this book is ((as always with this author) its authenticity. Reconstructing, as it does, life in the Netherlands in the later stages of the WWII, as experienced by the teenager who subsequently grew up to be film star Audrey Hepburn, it is fiction not biography. This means, of course, that much has been imagined, but her imagined exploits are vivid and deeply affecting not only because of the writer’s remarkable ability to recreate experience of another person, but because they are firmly and truthfully based on a great deal of thoroughly researched evidence from first-hand accounts as well as secondary sources. All of which means that the novel is not only richly informative but also deeply moving and often very harrowing. Even as someone who thought he knew the history of WWII pretty well, I must admit I had not fully appreciated the horrors experienced by those living in the occupied Netherlands at that time, or the deprivations and cruelties inflicted by the Nazis. It was a revelation, as I think it will be for many, one as as important as it is devastating.

Skilful storytelling

Reader engagement with all of this is this is secured by outstanding narrative construction. Linear it may be, but within this simple framework considerable writing skill is in evidence, The story builds and eases tensions, without ever losing the underlying terror and jeopardy that must have been continually present throughout the occupation. The voice of Edda (Audrey) is cleverly and sensitively caught and the result is a reader experience that vicariously shares every intense moment of her fears, traumas, hopes and disappointments. Real events like the Battle of Arnhem come to horrendous life, seen from her physically close and emotionally involved perspective. There is a stark reminder too of life’s reality, when even the longed for liberation is not as totally idyllic as it was so often envisaged to be.

Simplicity is all

This is a case where I find the straightforward linguistic style, albeit designed for readability, actually enhances the content. Its directness and consequent feeling of simple honesty suit the story well. Although the two books are very different in content, Resist is similar to Lark in that it captures a voice, place, and time to perfection. Here is a story of traumatic experiences which need to be absorbed into our individual and collective consciousness. So too, though, the thread of life-affirming courage and hope that runs through this very special book. Our humanity will be the greater for it. 

Read this and, if you haven’t, the rest too.

Midwinter Burning by Tanya Landman

Cover: Tom Clohosy Cole

Historically great

I am already a huge admirer of Tanya Landman’s historical novels, most of which have been primarily for a teen readership (Buffalo Soldier, Beyond the Wall and others). However she ventured recently into a slightly younger readership with an outstanding adventure set in prehistory, Horse Boy, and now she has stuck with this level of accessibility for her new WWII evacuee story.

It has to be said that there is already a host of novels with this subject matter, including some of children’s literature’s very finest fiction. However, Tanya Landman’s is sufficiently different, and sufficiently special to more than merit its place amongst them. In fact, it is only in its early chapters that it is purely an evacuee story at all . One of the things I find so exceptional in this latest piece of her writing is the gradual way it evolves into something quite other. As it develops the background of war becomes essentially a running metaphor for a fiction about sacrifice; unwilling sacrifice, but also sacrifice that is born of love. 

Pastoral idyl

The first section of the book does read like an evacuee story, although it is already distinguished by the fact that, whereas many fictional evacuees miss home and have some difficulty settling (as must many actual ones too) protagonist, Alfie, comes from a very difficult home in London and immediately loves his new rural surroundings. This means the early chapters rattle along, with the reader revelling in Alfie’s joy at discovering farm animals, the night sounds of the country side, open air freedom, cliffs and shore and, alongside them, a warm and caring new ‘family’.

‘Only a few days ago, his world had consisted of his street, the shop on the corner and his school a hundred yards away. Now it expanded into something magical that teemed with extraordinary possibilities.’  (p 94)

Meeting the past

The narrative subtly changes when Alfie somehow conjures up a boy and his ‘tribe’ from the landscape’s distant past, without really realising what is happening. 

‘Suppose he’d somehow conjured them into being out of his imagination? Was such a thing possible?’  (p 104)

What he does come to realise is the joy of finding the friend he has never  had before. The writing is so strong here that the reader fully shares this joy and the story segues into a sort of Stig of the Dump variant, as Alfie and his new pal (in this instance called Smidge) try to establish communication through shared activity, but without any common language. 

It is all quite delightful.

And then Alfie’s connection with his new landscape and its ancient past becomes something much more real; his tale begins to mine the rootedness and resonance of special places.

‘The old ones were born, died, buried here. It’s bound to leave an impression. We forget the ancient ways but the land doesn’t. They sink into the very earth and the rocks beneath. Sometimes, if you listen, you can catch an echo.’ (p 202)

Whose the sacrifice?

In its devastating, climactic third part, the story turns into something much deeper and more troubling, a tale of ancient standing stones and their once dark, ritual use. 

The clever thing is that you begin to realise that the building blocks of this narrative have been subtly built in all along: the pull on Alfie of  the stone circle on the headland, the background conflict of war; the much more present conflict between the evacuees and the local children,; Alfie’s London heritage of isolation; Smidge’s worrying relationship with the significant adults of his tribe.  When midwinter approaches apace and everything comes devastatingly together, we are plunged into a story that edges towards The Wicker Man rather than Carrie’s War. Without ever overstepping the bounds of suitability for its young audience, this makes for makes for emotionally powerful and deeply involving reading.

The idea of sacrifice for the common good is skilfully reflected at many of the story’s levels: the farm pig being sacrificed for bacon; Jesus (as the local vicar preaches at Alfie) being sacrificed on the cross; the soldiers being sacrificed for the country’s freedom. And it is all all brought into terrible focus in the ‘Midwinter Burning’ of the title.

More than the sum . . .

Here is storytelling at its skilful best, building cleverly through different manifestations, but ultimately revealing itself as a totally compelling whole. It draws richly on our heritage of children’s literature, but adds originality and thoughtfulness, sometimes terrifying in its jeopardy, but ultimately infused with humanity, warmth and compassion. 

The cover illustration by Tom Clohosy Cole catches the looming menace of the piece perfectly, without giving too much away. This is a book that you can judge fairly accurately by its cover. Neither the exciting image, intriguing title or named author will let you down in the least. 

The Haunted Hills by Berlie Doherty

Illustrations: Tasmin Rosewell

One of our finest

Prolific writer Berlie Doherty has twice won the Carnegie Medal. For forty years she has been contributing outstanding novels to the canon of literature for young readers and, whilst she has never had the mega popularity of a J K Rowling or a Suzanne Collins, her many MG and YA books are distinguished by the highest quality of writing and remarkable thoughtfulness of content. Her overall stature as an author is by far the greater for that.

Her books cover both historical and contemporary settings, often highlighting challenging issues with real sensitivity. A good number of them, including some of her very finest, are evocatively set in the Derbyshire Peak District where she has lived for many years. Her latest mesmerising novel, a masterpiece of its genre, is another such.

Life, landscape and legend

Carl, a boy in his early teens, is brought by his parents to a holiday cottage deep in the Derbyshire wilds in order to try to help him deal with the death of his special friend, Jack. In a highly disturbed emotional state, Carl thinks he is being haunted by the ‘ghost’ of a boy from local legend, the ‘Lost Lad’, together with his dog, Bob. The literal and metaphorical linking of vividly evoked, specific landscape and its legends with real life issues places the novel firmly in the wonderful post-Garner tradition.

In a narrative of masterly construction, Berlie Doherty switches between Carl’s highly charged experiences of the present, and his memories of being with Jack in the past, working  gradually towards an ability to face up what happened. Carl’s strained relationship with his highly concerned , but to him intrusive, parents, with a strange girl working at the local farm, with the remote landscape itself and with the supposed ‘ghost’ all contribute significantly to the profound working out of his emotional state. And if the climactic denouement of what happened to Jack is, by the time it arrives, not altogether a surprise to the reader, this does not matter. The intense journey through Carl’s state of mind, his good times with Jack, their petty jealousies as they begin to experiment with girls, and the even more profound concern as Jack is seduced by the perceived charms of a reprobate older boy, is so subjectively shared as to be totally compelling. 

Best friends

Strong friendship between two boys in early adolescence, may or may not be gay, but, either way, is a pivotal part of very many boy’s experience. The intense emotional investment, acknowledged or not, can be a formative part of growth and its development can make or break the ability to form committed emotional relationships in the future. Interestingly, this same theme has also been explored in another of this year’s books, Jason Cockroft’s stunning illustrated novel Running With Horses. However, whereas that is a gritty, sometimes even harsh, traversal of this subject matter,  Berlie Doherty’s book mines depths in a very different way. It is more gently introspective, but no less intense  or one jot less heart-rending for that. Its bleak (but sometimes beautiful) Derbyshire landscape, perfectly reflects the narrative’s troubled inscape. Both Carl and the Derbyshire hills are haunted; haunted in a way that is no less real because it may or may not be imagined. 

Fiction for young readers has moved forward strongly in recent times in terms of diversity and inclusion, covering both its authors and its characters.  Important themes around the representation of women and girls are, quite rightly, also foregrounded regularly. In both cases, this re-balancing has still a way to go.  However it is good here to find an author who understands that boys can have problems with mental health and well-being, in terms of relationships and life’s traumas. The acknowledgement and expression of deep emotion, all too often suppressed and distorted by societal pressures, can be a significant element of this. 

Of then, but for now

Although it continues, brilliantly, a strong tradition of fiction for young readers that has developed out of the twentieth century, any thoughts that this might be an old-fashioned or off-trend book are superficial and misplaced. It is a highly relevant traversal of two important contemporary (indeed timeless) issues, adolescent friendship and bereavement,. Boys at a similar age and stage will gain enormous support and encouragement from the open exploration and therefore the legitimising of their emotional experience and its expression. Other readers will gain the understanding through empathy that is the gift of so much fine fiction. 

The story of the ‘Lost Lad’ himself, offered as a coda to the main narrative, provides a satisfactory rounding off to the book. His voice, with a strong feeling of bygone rural simplicity, is beautifully caught, and his tale ties the main story back into the location and its past most effectively and indeed affectingly. This is magically carried through into the moving image inside the back cover.

It is a fine thing that many young readers now have the chance to experience a book of this exceptional quality. Hopefully, it will lead them on to seek out other earlier novels from this great writer.

Credit is also due to UCLan Publishing, not only for believing in this outstanding novel, but for gracing its physical production with a quality that reflects the content. This latter is in no little part due to Tamsin Rosewell’s enchanting illustrations, with a front cover painting that catches the tone of the story perfectly, but also has about it delightful echoes of William Blake’s artwork.

      

Twiggy Thistle and the Lost Guardians by Chris Riddell

The edge of greatness

There is so much to admire about the hugely prolific Chris Riddell: glorious illustrations to books by such a diverse range of authors, including Lewis Carroll, J.K.Rowling, Michael Rosen, Neil Gaiman, Katherine Rundell and Francesca Gibbons (often turning wonderful novels into glorious treasures); his own brilliantly entertaining children’s books; and (for adults at least) his deliciously barbed political cartoons. That is not to mention his outstanding work as Children’s Laureate from 2015 to 2017

For me, and for many other fantasy fans, high amongst the pinnacles of his glittering career have been the five ‘sagas’ of the Edge Chronicles, produced between 1998 and 2019. He wrote them in collaboration with Paul Stewart and illustrated them all (quite brilliantly) himself. Overall, this is possibly one of the cleverest, most original and most entertaining of long, ‘light’ fantasy sequences to have been produced in our time (rivalled only by Terry Pratchett’s Discworld - although that is, in the main, aimed primarily at a rather older audience).

Cloud horses

Now Chris Riddell has written and illustrated a fantasy for younger children that is pure delight, The Cloud Horse Chronicles. The second, and concluding part, Tiggy Thistle and the Lost Guardians, is just out. Here are many of the tropes of classic fantasy, but saturated with a riot of imaginative invention and wit, alongside oodles of charm. As an author, he has a masterly way with words that somehow gives his story both the ethos of legend and a thoroughly contemporary vibe. His drawn images (here in enchanting ice blue tones throughout) are every bit as exceptional as might be expected and, as in The Edge Chronicles, they work to create the magical land and its characters in complete complement to the text.  Imagine elements of the inventive word play and world-building of Terry Pratchett, or perhaps Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide), but at a children’s level. Yet all built up as a thoroughly engaging narrative with endearing and entertaining characters, human, animal and mechanical - and, of course, a terrifyingly evil adversary, in this case literally chilling. 

Far and away better

This is entry level fantasy of the highest order and provides a kidfest of entertainment. Whereas we who grew up in the 50s, with so much more limited choice, had to feed our nascent imaginations on the likes of The Magic Faraway Tree and The Wishimg Chair, how much richer and more stimulating to grow with bookish joys such as this. Both volumes of The Cloud Horse Chronicles would be excellent for adults to share with children, although they do need to be shared and not simply read, as seeing the picture is such an integral part of the experience. Those eager to read independently will find an absorbing delight that will surely lead on to many other immersive fantasy experiences. Those as yet more reluctant to read could well find these captivatingly illustrated books just the dooorway needed into a lifetime of reading for pleasure. 

  

Tyger by SF Said, Illustrated Dave McKean NOW OUT IN PAPERBACK

 

‘The most ordinary things had become extraordinary.’ (p 66)

And now . . . 

Only very rarely does an author build a high reputation on a very small number of books. However, when they do, they often turn out to be amongst the finest writers; Thankfully, there are many discerning readers prepared to value quality over quantity. This is certainly the case with SF Said’s output; his three children’s novels to date are widely read and enormously loved for very good reason.

However, we haven’t had anything new from him for nine years or so. This means that the recent publication of a fourth book, Tyger, is very exciting indeed. I could not have avoided noticing the enormous number of plaudits and recommendations it has received on social media, but I have deliberately not yet read other people’s reviews, or listened to author interviews and the like. It is not that I am not interested in what others think, quite the contrary, but I like to gather my own impressions of a book before being influenced by others. So if what I have to say below just repeats what many others have already said, I apologise - although I will not be surprised at all if this is the case. How can anyone not recognise this book as the modern masterpiece it is?

Deep London

The whole of this new narrative is deeply rooted in its location, London. True, this is not as completely straightforward as it sounds. Although a contextualising page places this as the London in the 21st Century, it is pointedly an alternative history version, where a number of events that have shaped our own society have simply not taken place. The rule of the British Empire continues and has in fact developed as a highly stratified society under harsh totalitarian regime. Slavery has never been abolished, the encloseure of the countryside is only just happening, and racism is rife, with even those born in England but of immigrant descent, classified as ‘foreign’ and forcibly confined to an impoverished ‘ghetto’. Alongside this creativity and the arts are being suppressed too.

Nevertheless, there are enough references to ‘real’ London history and tradition, for example, the ancient rivers of the capital and key locations like Oxford Street and Tyburn, for it to feel authentically grounded.The story is central to its particular location and vice versa. Growing from this, a riveting narrative emerges about a boy and a girl from the ghetto, who learn about their own ‘magical’ gifts and have to use them to help a numinous ‘tyger’ escape the clutches of a terrifyingly villain. Their ‘quest’ is to open a hidden portal into a new and better world, thus freeing the Tyger from its wounded mortal form. On the one hand, this places SF Said’s new book firmly in the wonderful tradition of children’s fantasy developed by such greats as Alan Garner, Susan Cooper and Philip Pullman. At the same time, it is every bit original and enthralling enough a story to engage compellingly and affect deeply.. 

If it were nothing more that this, I would rate it a very fine addition to the contemporary children’s canon. However, it is more. Far, far more.

Tyger with a ‘y’

I hesitate to compare Tyger too closely to His Dark Materials, as they are very different works However, there is a real sense in which, just as the Philip Pullman’s books are underpinned by Dante Alighieri, so SF Said’s new work draws extensively for some of its key imagery on the writings of William Blake. There is an immediate distinction too, of course; whereas Philip Pullman is concerned to subvert the fundamental, Christian tenets presented in The Divine Comedy, SF Said seems rather to seeks to re-present Blake’s visionary spirituality and his reforming zeal for our own times.

The clearest Blake allusion is obviously the Tyger itself, its eyes unmissably burning brightly. However there are numerous other references threaded through the story, the lamb, the ‘Doors of Perception’, the use of the name Urizen for the personification of all that is corrupt and corrupting in the world, the intense experience where the Tyger helps protagonist Adam to ‘see the world in a grain of sand’. And it is the representation of London itself that is perhaps the other most potent link. For this is very much Blake’s London, with all its ‘dark satanic mills’, not only as physical reality but as a metaphor for the darkness of a vile, soulless society. 

Rich in resonance 

Yet, whilst the  strands of SF Said’s narrative are woven through with multiple resonant images, not all of them are drawn from Blake. In fact this erudite author’s eclectic mind fires off allusions as illuminating sparks through his story. Some are blatant, others far more subtle, yet others the merest shades, yet discovering them is always a profound readerly delight. To name but a few, there are echoes here of Androcles and the Lion, of Prometheus stealing fire from the gods to give to mankind, there is an archetypal apple tree, and even Shakespeare’s Polonius gets a thinly veiled reference. (‘Doubt anything you like . . . But never, ever doubt me.’ p 92) It all contributes to a literary crucible of incredible potency. One particular parallel that struck me very forcibly was the image  of the Tyger, a creature with a wound that does not heal, lying in the ruins of a derelict building, itself surrounded by a rubbish tip. Surely there is an echo here of The Fisher King waiting in the Authurian Waste Land and met again in the writings of T S Eliot?

Spiritual more than moral

There is a very real sense, I feel, in which Tyger is a morality tale  (like Pilgrim’s Progress or Everyman) but with the specifically Christian goal of these much older works replaced by a universal, metaphysical ‘heaven’. This means that both characters and settings, although conjured with most telling sensitivity, are in a sense representational rather than individual. In this way, Adam, the main character, has a name shared by different faiths as the representation of the first, and therefore of all humans, of  ‘Everyman’. Whilst his companion in his ‘quest’ is Zadie, Z to his A, so that the two represent the whole spectrum of people A-Z. They are alpha and omega; the beginning and the end. And yet they are completely human. That is the utter wonder of this book. They are simple, they are deeply human, they are universal, but they are also very particular individual children.  It is a story for us, for our time.

For us, for now

However distanced the images and ills of Blake’s London, and of SF Said’s London, however much evils such as Empire and slavery might seem to already have been conquered, we do not need to do much more than scratch the surface of our own world and our own society to find much the same sores festering. However much we may congratulate ourselves as human beings on what has been achieved and improved, is there not so much more in our world, our ‘London’, still in need of improvement?

More than the images of Blake, Tyger is embued with the spirit of Blake. What the Tyger does is show Adan and Zadie the power they hold inside themselves; the power to see things as they truly are, as they could be 

‘    At once, the power rose up inside him. And the world looked very different. 

     He saw shards of broken glass gleaming on the ground like diamonds. He saw crushed tin cans glowing silver in the light. He could feel the wind on his skin; the whole world moving and turning and spinning around him.

     All of it was beautiful, and all of it alive.’  (p 64)

She shows the children that 

‘“Nothing is ordinary . . . Everything is extraordinary. . . And the same is true of you. Nothing special? You are miraculous beyond measure.”’ (p 60)

She opens to them the potential  of books, of libraries and school, the power of imagination and creativity, and ultimately that:

‘“It is not the doors of imagination you must open,” said the tyger. “It is yourself.”’  (p 96)

All seas, all ships

However, there is also great significance that Adam, the main character, is a British Muslim boy whose family has its origin in the Middle East. The strong representation of this ethnicity gives others children of similar background a still all too rare opportunity to see themselves represented in books. At the same time it gives others a much needed chance to see the character in positive light and, dare I say, imagine his life and that of his family. Similarly the equally sympathetic/empathetic  character of the darker-skinned Zadie. In fact there is wide representation here of the major faiths, with for example, the librarian of the underground library, Lady Judith, providing  strong reflection of Jewish heritage and culture. Yet Tyger, like indeed much of Blake’s work, represents a universal spirituality rather than promoting any particular religious doctrine, even where particular doctrinal heritage provides the images to conjure this. 

The advantage and importance of a story with so many resonant images, so many references, firing off in so many directions, like a whole box of fireworks ignited at once, is that individuals can read their own messages, find their own truths in it. This is the mark of a very great book. And, although I said I would not draw too many parallels with His Dark Materials, here is another.

Growing towards infinity

Does it matter then if young readers, or indeed others, do not pick up all the book’s many Blake references and allusions? No. Not at all. For the story and its telling are infused with the spirit of Blake and his thinking, Something of the essence of Blake  is made explicit through the story. For many, Tyger, will help readers to understand the world of Blake, rather than the reverse. But even that is not necessary. Tyger brings Blake’s commitment to the power and importance of imagination directly to its readers. 

John Higgs, in William Blake Now: Why He Matters More Than Ever, says of that artist/poet ‘He has found his way to a numinous place and wants us to accompany him. His work is a trail he has left and, if we follow it, it will lead us there.’ (p 7)

Much the same can now be said of SF Said in his transcendent book Tyger. And the place his trail leads is richly life enhancing and world-building. World-building not in a fantasy sense, but in the sense of imagining how our world can be built better. We oldies have not always done too well at building that better world, but the post-millennials must, and many are. But only, as Blake and S F Said understand, by being able to imagine it better. As Blake himself said, ‘What is now proved, was once only imagin’d.’  (The Marriage of Heaven and Hell). So what is now imagined will one day be proved. What is seen by those who have passed through the doors of perception is the reality of things. And those who perceive can imagine and ultimately create.

Images of images

Tyger glories in being an illustrated novel, which is to say far more than a novel with some Illustrations, David McKean’s powerful images, some illuminating, some deeply moving, some almost terrifying, are not merely a complement to the text, but an integral element of the narration. Totally compelling, they yet have something of the same quality of the text, representational, almost archetypal rather than uber-realistic. With many wonders en route, for me they reach a peak in the brilliantly simple facing profiles on pages 240-241, culminating in the upward reaching image across pages 244-245, which captures so perfectly the essence of the book as a whole. However, the sequence  of sparse text and ‘vanishing’ visual images that closes the book is also something close to sublime.

Opening doors

Adding his own inspiration to that of William Blake and the greats of children’s literature , SFSaid takes the portals between worlds and opens them onto a new spirituality of hope.What Tyger offers to its young readers is the perception to see things as they are, the imagination to see how they could be different, and the creativity to build a new and better world. 

And ‘when the stars throw  down their spears.’  the Tyger  confronts Urizen, the embodiment of all that is evil in the world, and attests:

‘You were wrong about the mortals, Urizen . . . Every one of them can do what these two have done tonight. The power belongs to them now.’ (p254)

More than anything, this is a book that believes in children. Long may it burn bright in the forest of the night.

Tyger not only reserves itself a place on my list for Books of the Year 2022, but takes the very top slot. It is theoretically possible that it may be knocked off by something else I read between now and early December. But I think it very unlikely. 

The Chestnut Roaster by Eve McDonnell

Cover: Holly Ovenden

I much admired and enjoyed Eve McDonnell’s debut MG novel, Elsetime and have been waiting to see if she would come up with a worthy successor. In the event, she has certainly done so - and more. The Chestnut Roaster is a triumph. Only very rarely do I find myself as excited by a piece of new children’s writing as I was with this. It is not an old chestnut, but a glorious shiny new one.

The girl who remembers

The book is set in late Nineteenth Century Paris and it main character is a twelve year-old chestnut seller, working on a street corner of the city. She is remarkable in many ways, but perhaps the most remarkable of all is that she remembers in detail every single day of her life. However, she does not always find this huge store of memory as an asset, sometimes it feels more of a burden.

‘ . . . since the day we were born, I can remember everything that’s happened. It’s all in here. (She pointed to her head) . . . Like a list of facts . . . but with wooden boxes, millions of them . . They rattle when a memory wants to be heard . . . There are tunnels and shortcuts and alleyways everywhere, and the boxes are linked in so many ways, I get lost sometimes.’ (p 55)

Physically small, she continually fidgets and flutters, sparrow-like, and her name is, appropriately Piaf (the French for sparrow, a name that will probably resonate with many older readers, if not the younger ones).

The first thing that struck me as so very special in this novel is the quite wonderful way in which Eve McDonnell uses language to create a vivid impression of the idiosyncratic Piaf. Novel and striking figurative images and frequent jumps in focus conjure beautifully the essence of her personality and the quirky way she thinks, immediately establishing her as a fascinating and endearing protagonist.

‘One danger-filled memory morphed into another: the doctor’s hand was yanking her hair like he was pulling her memory through her roots, and the scent of one hundred cherry berlingots suddenly swirled, both in the cramped space of her mind, and, right here, in her narrow window ledge.’ (p 79)

As another example of this writers magical way with language there is an extended passage where Piaf and her twin have to hide in an ecclesiastical treasure coffer, which turns out to be airtight. So evocative is the writing that I found myself figuratively breathless just as the characters were literally so.

Time and again this author’s imaginative skill with words sent shivers of pure delight up my spine.

‘Piaf lit the candle and waited until the flame yawned itself tall.’ (p 106)

One inspirationally well chosen word is all it takes to bring a simple sentence into an alluringly evocative image. What a writer she is!

 À Paris

Another strong feature is the way the author clearly establishes her atmospheric setting of historic Paris without ever needing to resort to lengthy description. The authentic names used for streets, for characters and for specifics such as food items soon establish a distinctly French ambience, reinforced by echoing each chapter number in French. In fact the characters, in their dress, speech and behaviour, all have a distinctly French feel. Eve McDonnell adds to this by referring to well known Parisienne locations and landmarks: the newly built Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and, very  significantly, the catacombs under the city. For her Irish and British audience, it all gives the story an enchanting feel of ‘otherness’, conjuring the romance and magic of Paris, even for readers who have never been there. The sound of the names used is enough to transport the enchanted reader ‘Elsetime’.

Originality

Yet another joy lies in the way the reader is, from the outset, toppled into exciting story without screeds of clunky exposition. Right at the outset, Piaf is almost abducted by a sinister stranger, and then literally dropped into further danger in one of the city’s unpredictable, sudden sink holes. We are immediately gripped and swept forward on the tide of powerful story. Shortly after, other key characters are introduced: Piaf’s mother; the enigmatic Madame Lebrande; the ‘witch-girl’; Piaf’s own twin, who, in contrast to his sister’s prolific memory, seems to have been robbed of all of his; and of course the malevolent, child-snatching doctor. However, just as with the setting, these people are introduced, as it were, without introduction. We see characters emerge, through dialogue, action and interaction, as the narrative itself unfolds. Intrigue is ramped up further as it emerges that whilst Piaf is convinced that it is 1888, most others around her seem to think it is still 1887. Has Piaf somehow jumped forward a year, or has everyone else forgotten one? How and why? It is clear that memory and its loss is a strong theme here. Eve McDonnell’s cleverly structured storytelling pulls the reader further and further into Piaf’s world, at the same time identifying more and more strongly with her. 

Providing it is supported with quality writing (as it certainly is here) I am a huge admirer of originality in children’s stories. This is especially so at a time when it seems to me that so many published MG and YA novels (and for that matter their titles) are all too often variations on the same, over-familiar  characters and scenarios. However, original this book certainly is. True, the basic premise of a couple of kids working to thwart a dastardly villain is a classic trope, but around this the author build her richly imaginative story of the memory-full and the memory-less, of twin protagonists in a twin city, overground and underground, the brightness and light paired with darkness and the macabre. It is a true triumph of engaging imaginative invention,

With such idiosyncratic, clever language use, evocative location and character building, and stirringly imaginative storytelling, how could the book as a whole not emerge as highly distinguished.

Picture it too

Illustration also adds considerably to this outstanding text. Holly Overden’s cover is strikingly attractive. I particularly admire the gold sweet chestnut leaf, with its pattern of filigree veins reflecting both a key object in the story, and, to me, the myriad interlinked boxes of Piaf’s memory. Even more remarkable, however, are Ewa Beniak-Haremska’s double-page internal illustrations. These complex drawings are not only stunning in themselves but also reflect beautifully the multifaceted content of the story. They merit  a great deal of careful looking - and will reward this with thrilled recognition of so many images from the story.

After THE END

Whilst they are themselves finely written, I did not feel that the explanations of the illustrations, that come after the end of the book, were  really necessary; the images speak perfectly well for themselves when seen in the context of the narrative. However, if they help some young readers appreciate the pictures more fully it will be a very good thing.

The author’s own afterword, entitled ‘In Actual Fact’, does provide a most valuable insight into her approach to writing the piece. Were I still teaching, I could see these few pages being very helpful, perhaps even inspirational for young writers.

‘Tantalising paintings and photographs helped me imagine long-lost worlds . . . as a writer of stories of the made-up kind, I had a power - an almost magical power. I could hold my pen like a paintbrush and add sparkle to those old paintings. I could take real historical facts and add a splash of wonder or mix a special tint for magic.’ (P 337)

Eve McDonnell certainly has that power, and it is truly magical. 

You may have gathered, I loved this book. I heartily recommend it, both to young readers and to those adults responsible for engendering in them the lifelong habit of reading for pleasure. The Chestnut Roaster feels destined to become one of my Children’s Books of the Year.

Which Way to Anywhere by Cressida Cowell

Refreshingly familiar 

Cressida Cowell is one of our most popular children’s authors, with a huge international reputation, yet her books  stand head and shoulders above many other mega bestsellers. In fact, never mind head and shoulders,  I would say she tops them by everything from the knees upwards. That is because she has a very special and particular genius. She provides wonderfully high quality literature almost by stealth. She is a giver of some of the finest and most important gifts a writer can impart to young readers, yet she does not thrust them down reluctant throats, rather she coats them in the most delicious, fizzing confection.

From the outset of her writing career (How to Train Your Dragon in 2003) she has produced hugely kid-pleasing books, a mixture of zany comedy and wild adventure, threaded through with (her own) delightfully anarchic drawings. She has successfully repeated this winning approach through numerous sequels and a magnificent new series (The Wizards of Once) without it ever becoming formulaic. And now she has done it again with Which Way To Anywhere, which is simultaneously as familiarly delicious as fish and chips and as freshly crisp as a summer salad. 

Clandestine quality

It is, in itself, a remarkable achievement, yet it is not in this that her greatest genius lies. Rather it is in sneaking under the radar of this uber-kidilicious frenzy, real quality literature; presenting features of which many young readers may scarcely even be aware, but which will nevertheless have a profound and lasting effect in their development as readers (and perhaps writers too). What she adds to glorious entertainment  is true quality in terms of evocative language, sophisticated story structure and richly meaningful content. 

 The way she tells it

Cressida Cowell is not afraid  to slip into her highly readable prose, challenging vocabulary and insightful idioms. The result is a hugely enriched reading experience. Young readers absorb the communicative potential,of written English whilst rollicking along with her hugely diverting narrative.

‘ . . . one long curling python of a vine whipped out languorously and tripped K2 up.’ (p 13)’

The narrative itself could, I suppose, (if you were possessed of a certain pretentiousness) be called a post-modern metatext, in mixed media. It has a framing narration provided by ‘the storymaker’, who is not simply a character in the embedded tale (it would be a terrible spoiler to say who), nor even just the masked presence of the author, but also the voice  of story itself, heightening children’s awareness of the potency of storytelling at the same time as introducing them to something of the rich diversity of fictional form. 

Her delightfully drawn characters (drawn in both the verbal and the graphic sense) are rather more contemporary and ‘real’ than in her previous books. That is, they come from Planet Earth, or at least start off there.Whilst in no way lacking in magic or, indeed, in outlandishly speculative adventure, they share with her earlier creations  a deep grounding in genuine human feelings and relationships. This tale in particular not only poses the question of who might (or might not) be a hero,  but also explores meaningfully sibling and other family relationships (be they created by blood or by circumstance). And it does so with ultimate positivity, without offering unrealistically perfect resolutions.

In the end, ‘The friendly old house in the middle of that boggy little part of Planet Earth was only just a little bit less messy and falling-down and unsatisfactory than it ever was or had been, . . . And everyone had made promises that they would find hard to keep.’ (p 438)

Cressida Cowell’s writing and drawing are just as full of humanity as they are zanily imaginative and wildly entertaining, whilst her very considerable skill as a novelist underpins everything. Were I still a teacher, I would be delighted to find any child in my care reading this, or any of her other books, knowing that they will be gently absorbing much of true quality at the same time as they are being royally entertained. Thankfully there is more of this new series yet to come.

Stone by Finbar Hawkins

Cover: Edward Bettison 

‘The stone has carved you a door between myth and memory. . .

And Samhain is when it opens. . . ‘ (p 222)

Differently the same

I was greatly taken with Finbar Hawkins’ first YA novel Witch, one of my Books of the Year in 2020. Now, here is an equally outstanding second book, although in many ways quite different from the first. This new, essentially stand-alone story is grounded in contemporary realism as opposed to the historical witchery of the first. It is a very troubled realism at that. Yet, on greater acquaintance, there is a little more synergy between the two books than first appears.There is a sheen of ancient magic over the new narrative, a shimmering at the edge of its disturbing vision, that echos some of the themes and, indeed characters, of the first.

Loss and grief

Essentially Stone is a story of bereavement and grief. There have been any number of novels on this theme, for children, for teens and for adults, but this one is distinguished by an exceptionally deep understanding and a fine sensitivity. It is grounded in the author’s own emotional experience - and, my goodness, it shows. Older teen Sam has just lost his soldier father with whom he was very close, in a violent and tragic incident that happened whilst his father was on a tour in Afghanistan. It is an understatement to say that Sam is not coping well, in fact the trauma is driving him hard towards a breakdown in mental health.

The language which Finbar Hawkins uses to convey all this is quite remarkable. On one level it is powerfully simple, yet it captures an effecting lyricism, especially in emotionally heightened moments when it fractures into short lines that almost constitute a sort of brutalist poetry. In both its linguistic and its narrative ethos the book strongly echos distinguished predecessors like Anthony McGowan’s quartet The Truth of Things and some of the grittier novels of David Almond. 

Sam’s journey through mental darkness with its accompanying negative, and sometimes violent, episodes is effectively caught, building to a climax at Hallowe’en (Samhain). His gradual struggle towards acceptance is supported by a number of other characters, his mother, his would-be girlfriend, Oona, his sister, Beth, his best friend, Chad and an old man who also befriends him. However, Sam’s nightmare is, at the same time, exacerbated by a horrendous bully, Dan McGuire, who eventually becomes associated with the figure of Death himself. All of these relationships are vividly drawn and convincingly developed through both dialogue and action.

Witchy ways

Yet, impressive though all this is, it is not the complete picture of Stone. In the wonderful post-Garner tradition, it is richly grounded in both particular location and the folklore of that place. The White Horse of Uffington and the nearby ancient hill fort are places that featured  strongly in Sam’s life with his father and prompted many of the stories he heard from him. They continue to act as places of deep connection through his period of traumatic loss. There he find the stone of the title, an object that acts as a conduit to the mystical past of the place. It serves to conjure, amongst others, the shade of  Odin, gatherer in of the dead,  with his ravens and wolves. Whether these experiences are magical, merely imaginings or the figures of dreams is deliberately never clear. But they hover on the edge of Sam’s  reality as an expression of his struggles to deal with the reality of his loss. The same stone can also be used as a weapon in Sam’s tormented hands. 

It is on this level of the narrative that the subtle links with the earlier book are to be found: the stone itself is identified as a witch’s ‘scrying stone’; Oona, with her apparent talent for reading tarot and other divinations, believes herself to have inherited ‘witchy ways’; and then, providing the clearest link of all to Witch, Dill and Evey, the ‘real witches’ from the earlier book,  and the first owners of the stone, make several ‘ghostly’  appearances, before merging  gently with the halloween-costumed ‘white witches’ who are, in reality, Beth and Oona.

I find it an absolute delight when an author’s stand-alone fictions link in such ways. It is a great readerly joy to spot the references, somehow particularly satisfying.

This is a very fine book on many levels. It explores traumatic loss and its gradual semi-healing with profound understanding, but it also celebrates potent connection with place and past, and, indeed, it melds these two themes with richly resonant effect. If Finbar Hawkins can keep up this level of quality writing over an extensive canon (although this is a very big ask for any author) then he seems destined to join the  great names in writing for young readers.

‘Whatever happens we’re part of this place for ever . . . Us and the horse, the land and the sky.’ (p 250)

Images that connect

The cover by Edward Bettison is very strong. It also pairs beautifully with Witch and further emphasises the underpinning  links between these two remarkable stand-alone books. The interior design is very pleasing too and much enhanced by the author’s own illustrations. The wolves and ravens are particularly impressive.

   

The Little Match Girl Strikes Back by Emma Carroll Illustrated by Lauren Child

The truth of the tale

Here is a book for younger readers (7-9 ish?) from a remarkable author of children’s historical fiction.

As it happens, it is an appropriate follow up to my previous post; in its own way, it is about telling the truth to children.

What Emma Carroll very cleverly does is take Hans Andersen’s cringingly maudlin ‘fairy tale’, The Little Match Girl and recast it as a far more realistic picture of the people and conditions it purports to portray. 

She transforms the match girl herself into a much more credible character, attracting real empathy rather that the distanced and sentimental pity of the original. She also gives her a name, Bridie, and builds  a life for her which, although imagined, is sufficiently based on actual history to paint a convincing portrait of a desperately impoverished child in Victorian London; a child’s life unfortunately representative of so many at that time.

Match strikes

Emma Carroll further extends this shocking picture by including Bridie’s  mother. Working in the factory that produces the Match Girl’s actual wares, she has to endure appalling working conditions, including what we would now consider inhuman hours, subjecting herself to serious illness through constant proximity to the highly noxious phosphorus then used for the match heads. 

Although embracing a little of the magic from the original story, even this Emma Carroll handles far more purposefully. Bridie’s  visions in the flames of her ‘magic matches’ only serve to highlight the injustices of the social order and the unfeeling selfishness of the industrialist owners.

Without over-complicating matters for her young audience, Emma Carroll , skilfully builds her story to demonstrate the power that strikes and workers’ solidarity (especially here that of women) played in gradually bringing about much needed reforms. improvements in working and, ultimately, in living conditions. This is a rather different, and far more truthful, picture of ‘The Victorians’ that I suspect many children end up gleaning from their National Curticulum teaching - and huge thanks and admiration are due to Emma Carroll for making this available to young readers. Even more credit to her for doing it in a way that is always engaging and never comes across as heavily didactic. 

Seeing red 

Another very significant plus indeed for this little volume is provided by  Lauren Child, whose illustrations turn an important and well told story into an absolutely stunning book. Her copious images carry a remarkable power and potency despite (or perhaps because of ) their relative simplicity of style. They reflect the content of the narrative splendidly, adding considerably to its atmosphere and excitement. It is impossible to describe as anything but striking the way the dominant greyscale tones are dramatically highlighted by occasional splashes, swirls and flares of red

The author’s and artist’s commentaries at the end of the book, and especially the authentic period photographs that accompany them, further bring home the reality of the living and working conditions portrayed in the story.

It is a small book which packs a big punch; in truth, a little treasure. It is more than a match for the original story, in fact it is a very considerable improvement,