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.