No.226the children’s book magazine online September 2017

Authorgraph interview: Sally Nicholls How to write poetry with Joseph Coelho Learning through picture books Interview with Philip Reeve

www.booksforkeeps.co.uk CONTENTS guest editorial

2 Guest editorial: Well-known children’s Fiona says ‘The Striker Boy campaign gives me Remembering Jonny Zucker author Jonny Zucker, hope and comfort that his death wasn’t in vain, that ______with Strikerboy took his own life last even in death Jonny can still inspire thousands of 3 Mary Roche on the ways year after struggling with children all over the world through his words.’ picture books open up the depression for twenty One in four people live with a mental health problem world for children ______years. 2Simple are and every year it is the biggest killer of men under 50. 6 Two Children Tell: republishing a special The Striker Boy campaign is raising awareness of a tribute to Peter Spier and edition of his most mental health issues in adults and children. 2Simple relational reasoning ______popular novel, Striker have designed a range of free teacher resources 8 How to write poetry: in Boy ZKLFK ZDV ÀUVW packs for schools, including an ‘emotional resilience advance of National Poetry Day, published 2010. All of resource’ to help primary school teachers promote inspiration from Joseph Coelho the proceeds of this book ______positive mental health. 10 Windows into Illustration: will go directly to Jonny’s The republished Striker Boy will be available from Francesca Sanna winner of the family and the mental amazon.co.uk for £6.99 and £1.40 from every copy 2017 Klaus Flugge Prize health charity, Mind. ______sold will be donated to Mind, a registered charity Jonny was a primary school teacher before he 12 Authorgraph: Sally Nicholls in England and Wales (no. 219830). Jonny was interviewed by Michelle Pauli became a children’s book author. He committed his supported by the charity in his life and therefore the ______life to getting kids reading. He and his wife, Fiona family decided to work with them. 14 Ten of the Best historical Starr, had three young sons. novels chosen by Tony Bradman Mind’s Chief Executive, Paul Farmer, said: “We’re ______delighted to have been chosen as the charity partner 16 Pam Dix, chair of Ibby UK for Striker Boy by the Zucker family. Their support reports on BIB, the Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava 2017 will mean that Mind can continue providing vital ______services, like our Infoline, so people can make their 18 Philip Reeve interviewed own choices and access the treatment and support by Philip Womack ______that is right for them. This partnership will help us 21 I Wish I’d Written… to make sure no one has to face a mental health A.F. Harrold chooses ______problem alone.” 21 Reviewers and reviews In the lead up to publication, Fiona says: “the buzz Under 5s (Pre-School/ is contagious. People are offering football contacts, Nursery/Infant) + New Talent school and library events, promotions through the 5-8 (Infant/Junior) media – we have even had the offer of a musical! If 8-10 (Junior/Middle) 10-14 (Middle/Secondary) anyone has any ideas of how to make Striker Boy happen on a grand scale to continue the joy of Jonny + Editor’s Choice Fiona says: “My best friend and my husband, 14+ (Secondary/Adult) and raise awareness of mental health and suicide, ______amazing dad, son, brother, uncle, witty, intelligent then do get in touch.” 32 Classics in Short No. 125 and generally inspirational human being, took his You can buy the Children of the New Forest own life at the end of November 2016. If you didn’t ______special edition of know Jonny you may be thinking, ‘well she would say COVER STORY Striker Boy through that wouldn’t she? She is his wife’, but you don’t This issue’s cover illustration is from the strikerboy. Things A Bright Girl Can Do KDYHWRORRNIDUWRÀQGRXWWKDWWKLVLVWKHWUXWKIRUDOO com website, by Sally Nicholls. who came across him… He had the capacity to make Amazon and some Thanks to Andersen Press for their everyone feel as if they were special. If only he knew bookshops. help with this September cover. how special he was.” During his life Jonny wrote hundreds of books including the Striker Boy series, the Max Flash series, the Monster Swap series, Venus Spring Stunt Girl, Dan and the Mudman, One Girl Two Decks, Mystical Magic and many more titles for both children and adults.

Books for Keeps Books for Keeps is available online at September 2017 No.226 www.booksforkeeps.co.uk A regular BfK Newsletter can also be sent by email. ISSN 0143-909X To sign up for the Newsletter, go to www.booksforkeeps.co.uk © Books for Keeps CIC 2016 DQGIROORZWKH1HZVOHWWHUOLQN,IDQ\GLIÀFXOW\LVH[SHULHQFHG Editor: Ferelith Hordon email addresses can also be sent to Assistant Editor: Ruth Williams [email protected]* Editorial assistant Grace Hebditch Managing Editor: Andrea Reece Email: [email protected] Design: Louise Millar Editorial correspondence should be sent Website: www.booksforkeeps.co.uk to Books for Keeps, *Email addresses will be used by Books for Keeps only for c/o The Big Green Bookshop, the purpose of emailing the Newsletter and will not be Unit 1, Brampton Park Road, disclosed to third parties. Wood Green, London N22 6BG

2 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 Using Picturebooks in the Classroom

In an article primarily for teachers but full of are lucky, but many do not, so schools can play a huge role in mitigating this deficit. It follows then that classrooms need to be useful suggestions for librarians and parents resourced with good reading material to cater for diverse readers. too, Mary Roche explores the unique ability of For several decades of my teaching career I engaged children in discussion around picturebooks, using an approach I called ‘Critical picturebooks to open up the world to children. Thinking and Book Talk’ (Roche 2010). Much of my research is described and explained in Developing Children’s Critical Irrespective of our age or experience, books can provide us with Thinking through Picturebooks (Roche 2015). Throughout solace, escapism, information and inspiration. Michael Rosen asserts that book I argue that picturebooks can be useful at all levels of that they form our earliest experiences and can influence our future education: they should not be relegated to the junior classes. success as learners: Sophisticated picturebooks are far more than mere illustrated texts. ‘A book-oriented home environment, we argue, endows Good picturebooks are a marriage of image and text and there is children with tools that are directly useful in learning at no redundant line or word as author and illustrator narrate together. school: vocabulary, information, comprehension skills, Good picturebooks provide gaps for the reader to fill, in text and imagination, broad horizons of history and geography, images alike. They never reveal all. They call on high levels of familiarity with good writing, understanding of the comprehension and meaning making via the images and pictures importance of evidence in argument and many others.’ and they are sufficiently open-ended so that each of us can bring our (michaelrosenblog.blogspot.ie/2012). own prior knowledge to the process of making sense. Shared, they Along with such cognitive benefits, books can also be sources of can provide food for thought long after the reading event itself has empathy, healing and support. finished. I argue throughout my book that picturebooks can provide much needed opportunities for thinking, talking and criticality to …reading books can be good for your mental health and pre-literate and literate children. They are of immense value in the your relationships with others… A 2011 study …showed home, but arguably even more valuable in school where they can that, when people read about an experience, they display help teachers address that deficit in being read to and talked with, stimulation within the same neurological regions as when that is experienced by many children. they go through that experience themselves. We draw on the same brain networks when we’re reading stories and when In classrooms, picturebooks lend themselves easily to cross- we’re trying to guess at another person’s feelings. http://www. curricular topics. For example, the following books all relate to the newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/can-reading- topic of relationships: Watt’s Scaredy Squirrel Makes a Friend; make-you-happier Yates’ Frank and Teddy Make Friends; Hills’ Duck, Duck Goose; Jeffers’ The Way Back Home; Gravett’s Wolf Won’t Bite; Willis’ We all need to be made to think and feel as we read. We need to have Mole’s Sunrise; Cave and Riddell’s Something Else; Fox and Vivas’ our knowledge extended, our horizons broadened, our experiences Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge; On Sudden Hill by Sarah expanded, our empathy built and our vocabulary developed. We can and Davies: textless books like Lehman’s The Red Book, Becker’s do all of that alone, certainly, but discussing books together engages The Journey, Tan’s The Arrival, and The Rules of Summer. us at a much higher-level and exposes us to ways of thinking that solo reading might not. Children who live in book-rich environments

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 3 Maths the meaning of words such as staple crop, tuber, morale, scornful, civilisation; all the facets of culture can be explored – language, Likewise, there are lots of picturebooks that encourage dialogue clothing, food, music, art, writing system, counting system, currency about Maths: Burningham’s The Shopping Basket; Scieszka and so on; the botany of plants and the science of seed dispersal is and Smith’s Math Curse; Allen’s Who Sank the Boat?; Pappas’ there for exploration, as are binary and deanery maths and Wesley’s The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat; Gravett’s new mathematical system. Music and musical instruments can be The Rabbit Problem; Hutchins’ Clocks, Clocks and More examined, as can studying the constellations, and then there is the Clocks; Fox and Denton’s Night Noises and so on. There is a philosophical area of how people in early civilizations began to huge selection of books for examining the concepts of number, make sense of their existence and purpose on the earth. counting, addition, subtraction, shape, space, money/shopping, time, seasons, months etc. Fleischman has also written the text for a wonderful book called The Matchbox Diary. Illustrated by Ibatoulline, this book would Science and nature provide a rich stepping stone for beginning to understand what history is really about. It could provide a springboard to discussion Books like Wallace and Bostok’s Think of an Eel teach concepts on immigration and provide a way to develop empathy and tolerance like lifecycles; expand vocabulary and present a complete aesthetic of immigrants. Tan’s The Arrival would make a good partner for experience. Marc Martin’s The River, and books by authors such as this book as would Sanna’s The Journey; Milner’s My Name is Jeannie Baker help children explore their world. Pringle and Lamme Not Refugee, and Hest and Lynch’s When Jessie Came Across (2005) say that children must be given a multitude of opportunities the Sea. William’s Archie’s War uses the hand-drawn pictures of a to probe, poke, and peek into their own backyards or galaxies far fictionalised ten year old Archie Albright to tell the story of living in away. These opportunities, they add, can be supported by the wealth England during the period of the First World War. of information available in science picture books. History is often about how one small event triggers a tsunami of Picture books about animals, when scientifically accurate, other events. Flora’s The Day the Cow Sneezed is a great way have the advantage of presenting children with close to introduce this idea, as are: Aardema, Leo and Dillon’s Why up pictures. A picture book can do a lot that cannot be Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears, Chaconas and Hellenbrand’s accomplished in a classroom. The pictures freeze time, so a Don’t Slam the Door and Crummel and Donohoe’s All in One reader can pore over the details in a way that would never Hour. Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep by Farjeon and Voake happen if the animal were moving... (Pringle and Lamme is a recent addition to my picturebooks collection. The story was 2005 p 2). first published in 1937 and provides us with a wonderful vignette of Young’s Seven Blind Mice can lead to huge discussion about the village life in Sussex at the turn of the 20th century. importance of diligent investigation and accurate research – a must for all scientific endeavours. Banyai’s Zoom shows the importance of close looking. Nothing is what it seems to be and this book is fantastic for prediction. Frazee’s Roller Coaster examines motion and forces in a delightful way. Barrett’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs offers a zany introduction to a discussion on the study of weather; likewise Wiesner’s Sector 7 kept a group of my 9 year olds engaged in discussion for over an hour and led to a project on clouds. Wenzel’s They all Saw a Cat shows children how different our perspectives on the world can be. History and Social Studies There are countless picturebooks available that provide rich opportunities to discuss aspects of history and social studies syllabi at all levels of school. Prior to introducing my pupils to the their first study of ancient civilisations, we examined and explored what ‘a civilization’ or ‘culture’ meant by reading and discussing Fleischman and Hawkes’ Weslandia. This book lends itself hugely to further cross-curricular work. Vocabulary can be expanded by learning

4 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 stories that can allow children an insight into how dreadful events like war impact on helpless individuals and helpless creatures alike. Another ‘Holocaust’ book, but one with a more joyful message, is Wild and Vivas’ Let the Celebrations Begin. Poole and Barrett’s Anne Frank provides an excellent introduction to discussions about intolerance and racial hatred as does The Harmonica by Johnston and Mazellan. Radunsky’s What Does Peace Feel Like could help children examine and explore all the different possibilities of meaning of the word ‘peace’, by inviting them to imagine what experiencing peace through the five senses would be like. The book begins and ends with translations of ‘peace’ into nearly 200 different languages. The central message is that all people have the creative power to

Carol Hurst, on her Children’s Literature website (www.carolhurst. com) recommends several books for getting children to realise the importance of perspective (Banyai’s Zoom), of how history is contextualised (Bunting’s Fly Away Home) and of how events do not happen in a vacuum (Macaulay’s Black and White; Graham’s Silver Buttons, for example). There are myriads of books dealing with the topic of colonisation, and I would begin with McKee’s The Conquerors, which is perfect for beginning to understand the complexity of issues such as cultural influence, coercion, and the colonisation of minds. Yolen and Shannon’s Encounter is an excellent resource for beginning to understand how cultures collide when Christopher Columbus arrives in The New World. Another imagine and create a more peaceful world by working together. book with this theme, and told in a partly allegorical way from the Cowhey’s black ants and buddhists: Thinking Critically and perspective of the colonised, is The Rabbits by Marsden and Tan. Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades is a good teacher Books that deal with the causes of conflict are also plentiful: think of resource for encouraging thinking about peace. McKee’s Tusk Tusk and Six Men, and Popov’s Why? Citizenship Older children can examine books such as Sadako and the Citizenship and communal responsibility can be discussed through Thousand Paper Cranes by Coerr and Himler; My Hiroshima by reading several Dr Seuss’ books such as Yertle the Turtle, The Morimoto; and Faithful Elephants: A True Story of People, Animals Sneetches, The Lorax, The Butter Battle Book and Horton and War by Tsuchiya and Lewin. Each of these books examines true

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 5 Hears a Who. These books can lead to discussions arising from Drama questions such as: What is a citizen? What is a community? What is With very little expertise a teacher could use virtually all picturebooks a citizen’s responsibility to their community? (See Libresco, Balantic as opportunities for drama. The elements of drama such as hot-seating, and Kipling 2011). Look at Last Stop on Market Street by de la conscience alley, freeze-framing and thought-tracking, narration and Pena also. so on, can all be employed to enhance comprehension but again, Visual art just as in music above, a caveat prevails: I would encourage teachers to discuss why certain books or scenes or characters or events are Picturebooks that deal with the subject of art include: Althés’ I am an suited to dramatic interpretation. Artist; Yates’ Dog Loves Drawing; Ish and The Dot by Reynolds. I particularly like A is for Art: an abstract alphabet by Stephen Finally – a caveat T Johnson; The First Drawing by Gerstein; Henri’s Scissors by The primary purpose of my CT&BT approach (Roche 2010) is to encourage Winter, and The Day the Crayons Quit by Jeffers. Little Blue and classroom talk and critical thinking. I would caution about finishing Little Yellow by Leo Leoni, and Mayhew’s Katie series are very useful a classroom discussion and immediately asking the class to do a task for discussing colour as is My Many Coloured Days by Dr Seuss. based on the book. This turns an authentic dialogic experience into what Art and Max by Wiesner presents a quirky and philosophical look at children perceive as teacher-focused ‘work’ and they may eventually stop art that could lead to some illuminating insights. The Ink Garden of engaging wholeheartedly in the discussion if they know that, following it, Brother Theophane could provide children with a link between RE, there will be some kind of ‘regular school task’. Art and History Picturebooks are also a rich and valuable resources for ‘looking and responding to art’. Children quickly recognise the style of [Note: some of the material here is adapted from Chapter 7 of Mary artists such as Anthony Browne, Mo Willems, Eric Carle, David McKee, Roche’s book Developing Children’s Critical Thinking through Satoshi Kitamura or PJ Lynch. They could discuss how they think the Picturebooks (Roche 2015) and is used with publisher’s permission] artist created the pictures and what medium/colours were used. References Music Evans, M., Kelley, J., Sikora, J. and Treiman, D (2010) ‘Family scholarly culture and educational success: books and schooling in 27 nations’. Begin with Stinson and Petricic’s The Man with the Violin. Based Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 28 (2010) 171-197. on a true incident, it has the added advantage of having lots of Hurst, C. (nd) Children’s Literature. Online, available http:// internet links both to the incident itself and to Joshua Bell. This book carolhurst.com/ Accessed 6 June 2017 allows us to engage in very philosophical thinking and discussion Libresco, A.S., Balantic, J. and Kipling, J.C. (2011) Every Book is a about the transformative power of music and the perception we Social Studies Book. Libraries Unlimited: Santa Barbara, CA. have of what counts as ‘good’ music and ‘good’ musicians. For young New Yorker (2015) Can Reading Make You Happier? Article by children, picturebooks that link with the music curriculum could Ceridwen Dovey available online: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/ include: Moss and Priceman’s Zin, Zin Zin a Violin; Lach’s Can You cultural-comment/can-reading-make-you-happier accessed June 15th 2017 Hear it? (which links art and music); Flannery and Stamper’s In the Pringle, R. and Lamme, L. (2005) Picture storybooks and science Hall of the Mountain King; Raschka’s Charlie Parker Played Be learning, Reading Horizons, (46)1 Bop, and Quentin Blake’s classic Mister Magnolia. Other books Roche, M. (2010) Critical Thinking and Book Talk: using deal with music more covertly: Posy Simmonds’ Fred is a story picturebooks to promote discussion and critical thinking about a lazy cat (now deceased) who had been leading a double life in the classroom. Reading News (Conference Ed). Literacy as Famous Fred - the Elvis of the Cat-World. Association of Ireland: Dublin As well as reading books about music you can try turning books Roche, M. (2015) Developing Children Critical Thinking into musical performances. My pupils and I turned several of Julia through Picturebooks. Oxon: Routledge Donaldson’s books into ‘songs’ particularly the chorus parts of stories Rosen, M. (2012) Blogspot Wed 4 Jan 2012. Online, available: like George The Smartest Giant in Town and The Gruffalo. http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.ie/2012/01/books-books-books. Rosen and Oxenbury’s We’re all Going on a Bear Hunt just begs html accessed 6 June 2017 for an accompanying ‘soundtrack’ as does Rosen and Reynold’s (If you want to learn more about picturebooks my Padlet might be There’s a Bear in a Cave. Books such as Smallman and Pedlar’s useful: https://padlet.com/marygtroche/usefulresources) Don’t Wake the Bear! and Mo Willems’ That is Not a Good Idea, Contact Mary via Twitter @marygtroche and Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus lend themselves to or via email [email protected] choral work. We might encourage discussion on why some books lend themselves to a musical interpretation more than others. This might highlight the idea of rhythm, rhyme, repetitive choruses, the Following a career in primary education, Mary Roche lectured on onomatopoeic elements etc. primary English in MIC (B Ed) and on Action Research (M Ed) in UCC and is currently a lecturer at St Patrick’s Campus MIC, Thurles, Eire.

6 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 Two Children Tell Fast, Slow, High, Low – vale Peter Spier

Virginia Lowe pays tribute to Peter Spier and examines the impact his books had on her own children. Which one is different? Show me the biggest. Who is the strongest? This sort of thinking is termed relational reasoning, and many clinical psychologists now see it as the basis of infants’ learning language. It has superseded the theories of both Skinner (copying) and Chomsky (genetic). It is beyond the ability of chimps, pigeons, or artificial intelligence. None of these can generalise ‘big’ when applied to something new, which babies can at about 15 months. Humans can generalise the relational adjectives or situations. The theory is called RFT – Relational Frame Theory. New Scientist* has an article on a baby’s first words, spelling it out.

Peter Spier’s Fast Slow High Low: a book of opposites fits exactly – and surely should be back in print to celebrate this new theory. It has pages or openings with pictures demonstrating a relational comparison. ‘Big/Small’, ‘Old/New’, ‘Wet/Dry’. The heaters are hot and cold, but what is the actual weather like? Nicholas was 1y1m (13 months) when I first offered it to him, and The lights in the house are on when it’s dark and off in the daytime Rebecca was 4y4m. I had to think about a few of the pictures – some (‘Light/Dark’) are quite challenging, even for an adult. For instance, one of the At 4y10m, Rebecca invented a new way of playing with it. She pictures for ‘Fast/Slow’ is a pea with the pea-plant behind, and an would announce that the opposition was something quite different acorn with an oak tree behind. Several times Rebecca said frankly to Spier’s, then work to explain how all the pictures fitted her and uncharacteristically ‘that’s a hard one for me’. I didn’t ask her to definition. She called ‘Hot/Cold’ ‘Fast, Slow’ and announced that the work them out herself very often, mainly we just talked about them. ice-cream was ‘fast’ (eaten or melted, I didn’t ask.) I don’t like quizzing a child, so I confined myself to asking her a At 2y7m Nick remarked of the ‘Long/Short’ spades couple of the obvious ones, and just one of the puzzle ones. On the ‘full/empty’ opening, she remarked on the train’s first carriage, N: A man can’t dig it. V: Why not? clearly meant to be empty, and a propos of no comment of mine N: Cos a boy can dig it. A man can dig that one (like him and John ‘But the train couldn’t go if it didn’t have a driver!’ (Implying that in our veggie garden). the carriage can’t be completely empty). Then she ran her finger When Nicholas was 3y6m it became one of his favourite books – along the train’s carriages, as it is obviously drawn for the child to often pored over alone in bed. He remarked once of ‘Over/Under’ do, saying ‘empty, full, empty, full, full’. John read it a week later and N: That’s what I’m going to have when I’m a gold miner.’ spotted the slipstream behind the carriage on the left, so Rebecca was satisfied that the one that held the driver was not an empty one V: You’ll have a pick and a spade? after all. I thought the full bucket, on the same page was not very N: Yes. I’ll use the spade if it’s soft dirt and the pick if it’s hard dirt. clearly drawn, but said nothing. (This is not a distinction the book makes). R: That’s full all right! Look it’s even run over onto the floor! One of the pictures on the ‘Same/Different’ opening is AAAaA. At 3y11m, N picked this correctly and added ‘That’s a little one of those!’ On the ‘Big/Little’ opening she pointed to the closer toy boat and Both over the years had the most fun from the endpapers, often said it was bigger than the tanker, but corrected herself at once and laughing together. The front endpaper has thirteen pairs of opposites, allowed for the perspective. She realised that the stationary digger and the back one has the same pairs but reversed: the fish are in the was ‘the quiet’ of ‘Loud/Quiet’. She was very amused at the ‘Same/ nest, the birds under the water; the baby holds the barbells up, while Different’ picture of the ducks. The ‘different’ one is a toy, the same the strong man holds up the teddy. size and shape as the real poultry. R: Look Mummy! That duck is pulling the one on wheels! (It has the Vale Peter Spier – one of the children’s favourite illustrators. pulling string round its neck). At first Nicholas used it mainly to make animal noises (not yet discriminating between ‘Moo’, ‘Baa’ and ‘pup-pup’). It’s excellent for this age for playing the labelling game. He also picked out ‘bubee’ and said ‘buh’ (bus) to all wheeled vehicles. Dr Virginia Lowe lives in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is the proprietor of Create a Kids’ Rebecca enjoyed pointing out the opposites to him and explaining Book, a manuscript assessment agency, which ‘quiet’ ‘big’ ‘old’ etc. and she accompanied the ‘Open/Shut’ hands also runs regular workshops, interactive writing with the ‘Open shut them…’ song. Nick was amused by the babies e-courses, mentorships and produces a regular free e-bulletin on writing for children and children’s with their dummies ‘In/Out’ – he still used one at sleep time. literature generally. See www.createakidsbook.com. Rebecca enjoyed the ones that had a second element to them. au for further details. Her book, Stories, Pictures and Reality: Two Children Tell (2007) is published *New Scientist 3 June 2017, p.38 by Routledge (978-0-4153-9724-7, £29.99 pbk).

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 7 How to write poems by Joseph Coelho

National Poetry Day ran a week-long mini poetry festival in four Hull primary schools this year in association with Hull UK City of Culture 2017. All the participating children had the chance to write and perform their own poems and this is the exercise that Joseph Coelho devised to start them off.

Using the M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. to explore Freedom, this year’s National Poetry Day theme Focus - poetic devices, game play, competition, freeing up the idea of what poetry is. Stimulus Read aloud to your class or display the video of M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. page 56 in Werewolf Club Rules by Joseph Coelho. Video link via Youtube http://youtu.be/S_txb_C2PlU Composition activity / Transcription Write M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. vertically down a board. Tell children that each letter stands for a tool that we can use to make writing more exciting, and these are called poetic devices. Challenge them to listen out to what the different poetic devices are. Can anyone in the class remember all of them from the poem? If necessary read/watch M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. a second time. Ask the children what each letter stands for asking for examples from the class as you go along. Challenge them to make each example about freedom. There are examples given below but challenge the class to come up with their own, prompting where necessary. The aim is to create a class poem that the class has ownership over. Metaphor Saying one thing is another thing to show what it is like. Personification Freedom is an open window. Making an inanimate object seem like a person. Onomatopoeia Freedom shimmies and flows across the dancefloor of the world. A word that sounds like what it means. Simile Freedom tweets. Comparison of one thing with another using like or as. Rhyme Freedom is like a deep breath. A word that has the same sound as another. Once all the examples are created and written on the board read Freedom is a light out just the examples as a poem. For instance… Shining ever so bright Freedom Emotion Freedom is an open window. Giving the poem a mood or feeling. Freedom tweets. Freedom fills the world with joy. Freedom is a light, shining ever so bright. Repetition Freedom fills the world with joy. Repeating a line or a word to show that it is important. Free, free I feel free. Free, free I feel free. The weight of the world wafted away as freedom waded in. Freedom shimmies and flows across the dancefloor of the world. Alliteration Freedom is like a deep breath. Using several words in a row beginning with the same letter. Don’t worry if the poem feels a little random – it should be easy to The weight of the world wafted away as freedom waded in. create, organic and fun, and remember this is just a first draft.

8 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 Joe’s Tip “If you don’t want to create a competitive environment, tables can compete against themselves, e.g. see how many points they get in one 15 minute stint then see if they can beat their own record.” Product/Performance Once points have been worked out, students can be challenged to use the large sheets as poetry banks. Challenge them to create a poem using only the sentences available on their table’s sheet. Depending on their points groups can be given first, second, third and so on, and a choice of different exciting types of paper to write on and different implements to write with, for example, different coloured card, nice felt tips, giant pencils, specially designed paper such as the cheap pads you can buy in stationery shops that have illustrated edges, cool postcards, charcoal, disposable lab coats! Differentiation Because this is a group activity, it is key that abilities are mixed. Some groups may decide that there should be one scribe with everyone else feeding in ideas, other groups may want to pair up and write on the big sheet in pairs, one writing one making suggestions, other groups may want to all write independently at the same time. With mixed groups no one should feel left out. Once first drafts are written poems can be shared with the class and constructive suggestions given to make the poems even stronger. Students can now be encouraged to redraft their work and to feel free to not make every sentence one of the M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. but to rather get used to regularly thinking about how they can push their writing. Thanks to Joseph Coelho, National Poetry Day, Hull UK City of Culture and the staff and pupils at Collingwood Primary School, Hull.

The M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. competition Tell the students that they are going to have a competition between their table groups (mixed table groups) to see who can get the most points by writing examples of each of the M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. all on the theme of freedom. With the classes help assign a point value between 1-10 to each of the M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. for example, Metaphor = 8 points Onomatopoeia = 4 points Rhyme = 2 points and so on – it is important that points are decided by the class reflecting how hard or difficult a particular device is to do (this will be different for each class.) Give each table group a huge piece of sugar paper and lots of pens/pencils to ensure everyone can write at the same time. The writing does not have to be in straight lines – the aim is to cover the paper in poetic lines. Some words will be big, some small, some upside down. Tell students that each time they write a metaphor they will get 8 points and each time they write a sentence that uses onomatopoeia they will get 4 points and so on. The sentences can be serious, fun, silly or nonsensical. Just as long as they keep the theme of freedom in mind. Tell the class that if they manage to use more than one device in a single sentence the points will be multiplied for instance... The sun is an orange zooming across the sky, it flies so high. This sentence uses metaphor, onomatopoeia and rhyme and so its points equal 8 x 4 x 2 = 64 Depending on the combination of devices and the points assigned it is very possible to get sentences worth tens of thousands of points (these sentences might be quite long). Bonus points can be given for groups that manage to write examples Joseph’s new book How to Write Poems is full of more useful of all of the M.O.R.E.R.A.P.S. or that write particularly strong tips and poetry starting points. It is published by Bloomsbury sentences. Minus points can be assigned to a device (i.e. rhyme) if 978-1408889497, £9.99 pbk, take a look inside (link to PDF). you have a class that is perhaps over using a certain device.

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 9 Windows into illustration: Francesca Sanna

Francesca Sanna has been named as the winner of the second Klaus Flugge Prize, awarded to the most promising and exciting newcomer to children’s picture book illustration, for her book The Journey. Describing the book as ‘the most inventive and original of all the entries to the prize’, judge $[HO6FKHIÁHU said: ‘The fear the family experiences is strongly expressed in the graphic language of the book which is beautifully designed. The stylish drawings are varied and yet consistent.’

he Journey tells the story of a mother and her two children fleeing war at home to find a new life in another country and Sanna was Tinspired to create the book after meeting two young girls in a refugee centre in Italy. Here she describes her approach to creating the book. The Journey, my first picture book, is the story of a family and of the journey they undertake when they realise their home is not a safe place anymore. As I briefly tried to explain in a note at the end of the book, it was inspired by many stories of many people I spoke with, from many different countries and backgrounds. A part of the research was even focused on historical documents about immigration in the early 1900. I didn’t want The Journey to be a specific story, I wanted it to My process is very unstructured and it changes for every project, but convey the idea that everyone has the right to have a safe place to there are some steps I always try to follow. I start with very small and live. For this reason, in the book I try to give as little information as roughly made thumbnail sketches and I play with them and their possible about where, or when, the story is set. sequence until I find a story structure that works. At the same time I wanted the main characters of the story to be I also usually plan my colour palette from the beginning, and try strong, to have an active role in their journey. In this sense there is to assign to the main characters a specific colour or feature. In one character in particular that I thought of as ‘superhero’ of this The Journey the character of the mother for example has very story, and it is the character of the mother. With her children she thick black hair that protects and embraces her children and this overcomes the obstacles of the journey and she always protects represents her ‘super power’. them: she is very brave, even when she is scared. I usually make rough hand-drawn sketches for every illustration, then I work on them digitally. There are here in the final illustrations some traces of the texture of the paper or of other tools I use to draw but what ends up in the pages of the book is mostly digitally painted. My favourite part of the process is to plan the layout of every page. I love to use the space of the book and its limits, and move the characters and the elements of the pictures around the page. I think that the layout of a book can tell a lot about its story too. In The Journey I used a horizontal format because it gave more space to the characters to travel through the spreads. The idea behind my choices for the colours, the layout, the elements of the story, and its structure in The Journey was to think about the topic of ‘immigration’ in a more empathetic way, with a focus on the personal story and the human dimension rather than on numbers and statistics. With the last page of this book, where the end is quite open and there isn’t the ‘arrival’ to a new home, I wanted to leave the readers with an implicit question: how would you end this story? The Journey is published by Flying Eye Books, 978-1-9092-6399-4, £12.99 hbk

10 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 Congratulations to Francesca Sanna, winner of the 2017 Klaus Flugge Prize for most exciting and promising newcomer to picture book illustration, and to all the shortlisted illustrators www.andersenpress.co.uk/KlausFluggePrize/

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 11 Authorgraph Sally Nicholls Interviewed by No.226 Michelle Pauli

hen we meet at the Ashmolean Museum’s Unusually, Things a Bright Girl Can Do was conceived over a restaurant in Sally Nicholls’s home town of Oxford, lunch with Charlie Sheppard, Nicholls’s editor at Andersen Press. the author begins by quoting George Bernard Sheppard had decided that she wanted a ‘book about suffragettes’ Shaw: ‘The reasonable man adapts himself to the and that Nicholls was the person to write it, given that she’d written world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to a short story, Going Spare, for the anthology War Girls about the Wadapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the two million ‘spare women’ of the 1920s and 30s who were left unreasonable man.’ single after millions of young men died during the first world war. It’s an apposite summing up of not just the suffragette movement Nicholls and Sheppard discussed suffragettes and suffragists (the less in general, which is the backdrop to Nicholls’s latest book, Things radical campaigners) and decided that suffragettes were the more a Bright Girl Can Do, but also the novel’s three main characters. interesting – ‘you really do want to be writing about the people Evelyn, Nell and May are captivating and infuriating in equal parts – throwing the petrol bombs if you’re writing a novel’. Then, ‘she just and certainly ‘unreasonable’ enough to want to shape an unfair world kind of waved at me and said ‘go off and write it’!’. Which, Nicholls to their view of justice. The three are teenage suffragettes from wildly adds, was ‘quite daunting’. Not least because ‘being a suffragette isn’t different backgrounds and Nicholls’s epic book covers their lives and a plot. It’s a background, a setting. You need characters who change loves against the backdrop of the course of the First World War. and develop. You need things that happen. You need an emotional journey.’ It’s a fast-paced read that shifts between the characters every couple of pages or so, keeping the action moving yet still packing in a ‘And then I’m afraid I just quite lazily thought, a love story’s got its wealth of historic detail. Nicholls deftly weaves in real historical own sort of plot. It’s a bit like Titanic. You don’t say, well, I’m going to events and people and there is a fascinating depth of social history, write a film about the Titanic sinking. Because that’s not a plot. That’s telling the story of those who are usually invisible in writing of a documentary. You say I’m going to write a story about two people and about the time, from the East End poor to the female pacifists who fall in love and who happen to be on the Titanic and that gives arguing against the folly of the ‘Great War’. She’s brilliant on such details as the sheer weight of clothing that Edwardian women struggled under – and not a minor detail if you consider, for example, how constraining full skirts, stays and petticoats might be when trying to break through a police barricade. She is also revealing on the grinding poverty the war left women and children in when the main breadwinner was away fighting, and the daily, soul- destroying trek around Poor Law Guardians, Relieving Officers, Labour Exchange and pawn shop in an effort to get work and money for food. Nicholls admits that, unusually for an historical novelist, she frequently found the research process for the book ‘boring’, although she enthuses about some of the original sources she uncovered. ‘One of the things that the research really does teach you is quite how biased a view of history you get,’ she remarks. It wasn’t research that Nicholls necessarily expected to be doing in her next book after the acclaimed middle grade adventure An Island of Our Own, which was shortlisted for the Costa award and the Guardian children’s fiction prize, among others.

12 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 Nicholls moved on from the small Quaker school to a large comprehensive, which suited her better. A degree in philosophy and literature at Warwick University followed, then the Bath Spa MA in writing for young people. There she won the Peters Fraser Dunlop prize for the most promising writer on the course and a deal for Ways to Live Forever, her hugely successful debut novel about a boy with leukemia, which went on to win the 2008 Waterstones children’s prize. She seems almost embarrassed how straightforward it was. ‘I always feel a bit of a fraud,’ she says, laughing. ‘You do school visits and stuff and you feel like you want to say, oh I have 97 rejections in a big pile and I’m like well, actually, it was… unusually smooth.’ However, Things a Bright Girl Can Do represents something of a departure for Nicholls, and not only in the way it was commissioned. ‘I’ve not written a book like this before,’ she says. ‘This is the first full novel I’ve written that’s been third person and it’s the first novel I’ve written that’s had more than one principle character.’ It also covers an arc of time and cast of characters that range far wider than her previous work, along with a subject matter that is close to her heart. Asked how she wants teenage girls to feel after reading and she immediately responds, ‘I want them to be inspired. These are women who transformed the life that we live. It didn’t just happen. It was fought for – physically fought for. And that’s part of our history, that’s our social history.’

Things a Bright Girl Can Do, Andersen Press, 978-1-7834-4525-7, £12.99 hbk Ways to Live Forever, Marion Lloyd Books, 978-1-4071-5933-1, £6.99 pbk An Island of Our Own, Scholastic, 978-1-4071-2433-9, £6.99 pbk War Girls, various authors, Andersen Press, 978-1-7834-4060-3, £6.99 pbk you a plot to hang your scenes of drowning men and screaming…’ Evelyn’s love story is a socially sanctioned romance with a suitable young man, yet it still faces challenges, firstly as a result of her activism, which sees her imprisoned and on a vividly and harrowingly described hunger strike, and then later when her fiancé is fighting at the front and returns home traumatised. In contrast, the second love story, between Nell and May, crosses a class divide that proves more of a hurdle than the necessarily hidden nature of their love. That was a deliberate decision by Nicholls, who says, ‘I read The Well of Loneliness and the standard narrative is ‘oh it was all dreadful and I was excommunicated by my family and I had to go and throw myself off a bridge’ type story. I very deliberately didn’t want to write that story. Because it’s just been so overdone. I read quite a lot of people on Twitter saying, “can we have a story about lesbians where people don’t die or come out and get disowned. Can we not just have love stories?”’ Whereas alongside the suffrage campaign, Evelyn’s personal fight is to go to university and Nell is battling poverty and her sexuality, May on the face of it has the easiest home life with a mother who not only accepts but supports her daughter’s Sapphism, as May describes it. Yet May’s mother’s principles are uncompromising, to the extent that she is prepared to see her daughter’s treasured possessions removed by a bailiff (who lives with them for six weeks in an historically accurate and horrifyingly amusing scene) due to her refusal to pay her taxes – no vote, no tax. May herself is heartbroken at home and ostracised at school as a result of her unyielding pacifist views, based on her Quaker faith. Nicholls also had a Quaker upbringing, attending a Quaker school for three years before it closed down, and remarks that, ‘it’s only when I’ve grown up I’ve realised quite how unusual a background Michelle Pauli is a freelance writer it is. There’s a bit in the book where May says, ‘well of course I’m and editor specialising in books and antiwar, I’m also pacifist and anti-famine, isn’t everybody?’ That was education. She created and edited the what my childhood was like. The Quakers were, obviously we don’t Guardian children’s books site want to die in a bloody battle, why would you?’

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 13 Ten of the Best Historical10 Novels for Children Tony Bradman chooses. I don’t think I would ever have become a writer problems. My favourite historical novels told LI,KDGQ·WGLVFRYHUHGKLVWRULFDOÀFWLRQZKHQ big stories too, tales packed with journeys I was a boy. There was something powerful and quests and peril and adventure. and liberating about being pitched into a -XVWOLNHDOOJHQUHVKLVWRULFDOÀFWLRQKDVJRQH properly realised past world. Good historical in and out of fashion, but it seems to be ÀFWLRQ²DQGWKLVLVVRPHWKLQJLWVKDUHVZLWK popular with both writers and readers at the fantasy as a genre – can really stimulate a moment, and I’ve certainly been writing a lot young imagination. It certainly helps you to RIKLVWRULFDOÀFWLRQP\VHOI6RP\OLVWRIWKH understand that things haven’t always been ten best includes the classics that I grew up the way they are now, but also that people with, as well as some more recent books that have always had to face and overcome might well last as long. The Viking Saga Treasure Island Henry Treece, Puffin, Robert Louis Stevenson, 978-0-1413-6865-8, £6.99pbk multiple editions I’m cheating by including this Stevenson’s classic is often because it’s actually a trilogy of overlooked in surveys of historical three novels that were published fiction for children, but that’s separately then bound into exactly what it is – RLS wrote it in one volume. But the Vikings in the late-19th century, but it was these tales of voyages, battles set in the 18th. It’s the greatest and survival would admire my pirate story ever of all time, boldness in starting that way. and features the best-ever pirate The stories follow young Harald in the character of Long John Sigurdson from his beginnings Silver, and a terrific young hero as the son of a Viking chieftain in the brave and resourceful Jim. to his last journey in search of Don’t be put off by its age – it’s vengeance against an enemy. a straightforward, accessible read I loved Henry Treece’s books with a plot that rattles along, and when I was a boy, and this one is full of action and adventure. distils the essence of the Viking Not to be missed at any age. . Age into great fiction.

The Wheel of Surya Carrie’s War Jamila Gavin, Egmont, Nina Bawden, Puffin, 978-0-7497-4744-2, £7.99pbk 978-0-4351-2202-7, £6.99 pbk This wonderful novel is worth The evacuation of children from reading at any time, but has British cities at the beginning particular relevance this year, of the Second World War has the 50th anniversary of the long become a familiar subject, Partition of India. Marvinder and especially in schools, but this is Jaspal are two Punjabi children one of the earliest novels about plunged into the maelstrom of it and still one of the best. Carrie India in 1947. They flee their and her younger brother Nick village and become separated are evacuated from London to a from their mother, so have to small town in rural Wales. They’re make an epic journey across taken in by grumpy Mr Evans the sub-continent and then to and his down-trodden sister, and England to be re-united with Carrie is soon drawn into a long- their father. It’s a poignant and running dispute. Ultimately it’s gripping story. about a central theme of historical fiction – how the past affects all our lives.

14 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 The Silver Sword Sawbones Ian Serraillier, Red Fox, Catherine Johnson, Walker Books, 978-0099439493, £6.99 pbk 978-1406340570, £6.99 pbk Another classic story of the Second There’s nothing like a bit of grave- World War, The Silver Sword robbing and body-snatching focuses on the experiences of ‘Resurrection Men’ to give a story three Polish children in the horror some oomph, and this tale of and chaos of Europe under the London in the late-18th century Nazis. Siblings Ruth, Edek and has plenty. Ezra, a 16-year-old Bronia are separated from their mulatto boy, is apprenticed to a parents after the German invasion top London surgeon, the kind and have to fend for themselves who amputates limbs without in the ruins of Warsaw. Then they anaesthetic. But there are strange discover that their father might goings-on, and Ezra is drawn into a still be alive, and they set off on dangerous intrigue. London itself is an epic journey to find him. It’s a character in this dark, suspenseful a great story that covers a vast story, the kind of tale that lingers in sweep of the war, and all from the the mind and makes you feel very viewpoint of children. grateful for modern medicine. Hell or High Water My Name’s Not Friday Tanya Landman, Walker Books, Jon Walter, David Fickling Books, 978-1-4063-6691-4, £7.99 pbk 978-1-9109-8918-0, £7.99 pbk This is the story of Caleb, a Samuel is an orphaned black mixed-race boy in 18th-century boy who is tricked into slavery England. His father is a puppeteer in Civil War America, and finds who is falsely accused of a crime that everything is taken from him, and transported to the colonies. even his name. What follows is an Caleb has to survive alone in an enormously gripping story about unfriendly, casually racist world, Samuel’s struggle to survive the and sets off to find an aunt, hoping horrors of a plantation and escape that she will take him in. She as the war comes ever closer. It’s does, but soon Caleb finds himself an extraordinary and moving book enmeshed in an intrigue which that tackles a difficult subject and leads to murder, and fighting does it very well indeed. for his own life. This has great characters, loads of suspense, a cracking plot, and a real feel for the texture of life at the time.

Bracelet of Bones The Eagle of the Ninth Kevin Crossley-Holland, Quercus, Rosemary Sutcliff, 978-1-6236-5112-1, £12.99 hbk Oxford University Press, In my experience not many novels 978-0-1927-5392-2, £8.99 pbk set in the Viking Age have girls as This is a case of last but central characters, but that’s only definitely not least. I’m a real one of the things that make this fanboy when it comes to story so distinctive. It’s the tale of Rosemary Sutcliff’s books, and Solveig, a Viking girl whose father her tale of one young Roman’s goes off to be a mercenary of the quest to find out the truth Emperor in Constantinople. Brave about his centurion father’s Solveig follows him on a journey lost legion is my favourite. It’s down the great rivers of Russia, about family and growing up encountering all sorts of people and about coming to terms with and dangers. The writing is clear a disability. It also happens to and lyrical in equal measure, the be a marvellous evocation of plot gripping, and you’re left with Roman Britain, bringing the a wonderful insight into the world landscape and people of the of the Vikings. past vividly to life.

Tony Bradman has published four historical stories this year: Revolt Against the Romans (Bloomsbury Education), a story about a Roman boy who is taken hostage by Celtic tribesman in Britain. Anglo-Saxon Boy (Walker Books), a story about Magnus, son of the King Harold who fought the Normans at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Attack of the Vikings (Bloomsbury Education), a story about a boy who has to lead the defence of his village against savage Viking raiders. Secret of the Stones (Barrington Stoke), a story of Stonehenge, set at the time when the Stone Age was giving way to the Bronze Age.

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 15 Attending BIB in Bratislava

Pam Dix, Chair of IBBY UK, reports on BIB, In the Museum, the BIB exhibition is organised over two floors, and to see 2700 illustrations takes a lot of looking. In addition there Biennale for Illustration Bratislava. are accompanying exhibitions: Laura Carlin, the BIB Grand Prix winner 2015; Rotraut Susanne Berner and Cao Wenxuan, the current iet Grobler’s article in BfK 225 outlined the background Hans Christian Andersen Award laureates for illustration and to BIB, Biennale for Illustration Bratislava, (http://www. literature respectively; the Slovakian illustrator, Svetozár Mydlo; and Pbibiana.sk/en/biennial-illustrations-bratislava), the process of an exhibition from Nami Island in South Korea. submitting illustrations and the UK entries for the 2017 competition. The UK submission was collaboration between the two nominating bodies – IBBY UK and ICPBS (International Centre for the Picture Book in Society) So it was with some excitement and curiosity that I went to Bratislava earlier this month to see what it’s all about. I was joined by the team from ICPBS and a few of our UK entrants. Bratislava is a beautiful city of less than half a million inhabitants in Slovakia, itself a small country. It is quite a feat to pull off such a high status international competition, and to have done so for more than 50 years. The organisers are immensely proud of this, especially as they have held on to the Award during all the political changes the country has undergone. In alternate years they hold an equivalent animation award (http://www.bibiana.sk/en/archive/ biennial-animation-bratislava) in which the UK does not currently participate. They have sent us back on a mission to rectify this. At the start in the 1960s, the illustration award was both a celebration of the enthusiasm there was for illustrated children’s books in the region and a way of bringing the world to a country whose people could not travel easily. The BIB Director, Zuzana Jarasova, told us at the award ceremony, ‘When a group of people passionate about beautiful picture books for children in Slovakia led by Dušan Roll were starting BIB over half a century ago, they had a motto: “Since we are not able to travel into the world, let the world come to us!”’ In 2017, the 26th award, the world is still coming with 49 countries, 373 illustrators, 488 books and almost 2700 illustrations. These all have to be considered by the international panel of 10 judges and all submitted illustrations are displayed. This year the BIB exhibition was held in a new venue, the Slovak National Museum. The winners were announced at a glamorous award ceremony in the Slovak National Theatre. Introducing the awards, the BIB Director said ‘As long as there are people on this planet who believe that beauty and art can make our world a better plac, and especially that it is children who deserve the best, picture books still remain for children the first step into the world of art. After all, in spite of so often proclaimed end or death of classical books in the time of digitalisation, we are witnessing just the opposite - a new renaissance of the picture book’. BIB Grand Prix winner 2017 Ludwig Volbeda, Netherlands: The Birds (author: Ted van Lieshout)

16 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 BIB Golden Apple Awards on the theme of Art v Commerce. We were able to dip in and out of Narges Mohamadi, Iran: I was a Deer (author: Ahmad Akbarpour) sessions between visiting exhibitions. I went to hear Chinese Vice Maki Arai, Japan: Dandelion President of IBBY, Mingzhou Zhang, talk about the growing interest Ji-Min Kim, South Korea: Hide & Seek in picture books in China and the new market that is opening up Ana Desnitskaya, Russia: The Old Russian Home (author: because of this. He told us the mind-boggling fact that there are 386 Alexandra Litvina) million young people under 18, quite a market. Daniela Olejníková, Slovakia: Verminarium (author: Jin Dvorak)/ Also in Bratislava and the home to all this work and activity is The Escape (author: Marek Vadas) Bibiana, the International House of Art for Children. It was founded in 1987 to promote illustration for children and has a wonderful programme of workshops for school and other groups as well as for individual visitors. Their current exhibitions include one on ‘Isms’ in art, one on emotions and one study of a book about life under the sea. All are fully immersive, interactive and exciting.

Bibiana also hosted the opening of the exhibition of the ICPBS BIB Plaque Awards Migration Project, which has now attracted more than 300 entries Hanne Bartholin, Denmark: A Story about You/A Story about from all over the world. Illustrators have been asked to contribute Everything (author: Seren Lind) a postcard with an Ofra Amit, israel: So-So, Go-Go, and Sunny (author: Dafni Ben-Zvi) image of a bird and a Mirocomachiko, Japan: Beasts Smelling message for refugees on Israel Barrón, Mexico: Bestiary of Mexican Fantastic Beings the back. The catalogue (author: Norma Muñoz Ledo) includes an introduction Romana Romanyshin & Andryi Lesiv, Ukraine: Loudly, Softly, in a from Shaun Tan. This Whisper/Ivan Franko From A to Z (Natalia & Bohdan Tykholozy) attracted a good deal of attention and talk in Bratislava and it is indeed a simple but brilliant concept which fires the imagination. Various exhibitions, events and publications are planned for this work and we hope to find a venue for a London exhibition. The Worcester team led a number of workshops for art students and children during our visit and this exhibition will be open for 2 months. Bibiana is home to a specialist library of children’s illustrated books. The collection includes copies of all the books entered over the 50 plus years of BIB, together with works of all Hans Christian Andersen winners and all IBBY Honour Books. This is a very useful resource and the librarians are keen to collaborate on ideas to exploit it. They have recently done an exhibition for the European Each winning illustration is shown at http://www.bibiana.sk/en/ Union on illustrated fairy tales from the 28 EU countries. media/images under the BIB 2017 section If you are ever in Bratislava, make time to visit Bibiana and if you We were disappointed not to have any winners amongst our can go in September to BIB it is a very rewarding experience, 2019 wonderful UK entries but nevertheless were proud of our stand. will be the next opportunity. I was surprised by the number of events that accompany the BIB programme. There is a two-day international symposium, this year

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 17 Culture, class and JG Ballard

Philip Reeve discusses his new series How about what’s happening now, in our world? ‘It’s a great shame that J G Ballard didn’t live another ten years because we kind of Railhead with Philip Womack. need him to explain what’s happening.’ Ballard was ‘one of the people who started me writing, back in my Philip Reeve strides through the foyer of the National Theatre, his teens when I was borrowing sci-fi anthologies from Brighton library, tall, spindly form unmistakeable among the afternoon playgoers. I’m I spotted his short stories and thought they were way better than meeting him to talk about his new book, Black Light Express, anything else in them, and so throughout my life I’ve read him.’ which follows on from his superlative sci-fi, Railhead. The world What are the ones that resonate most? ‘Well I think his short stories he builds, in which sentient trains connect planets, is a rich and are brilliant, I think he has the sort of mind that maybe is better in a rewarding one, beautifully rendered; the plot full of classic, thrilling short story than a novel. Some of them feel a little bit overstretched adventure. The protagonists of the first one, ex-thief Zen, and his when turned into novels, although always worth reading for the android girlfriend Nova, have broken through into a new network writing, I love that sort of metallic prose style he has. And I love of trains, and must face up to more threatening challenges. The how he’s not interested in characters and all that stuff. That thing universe is run by various aristocratic clans, and we are introduced readers say about “I couldn’t identify with the character” – it doesn’t to the Prells, whose power hunger is a threat to the imperial Noon matter! Not all books have to be like that, and I like the fact that family. There are two main plot arcs, both featuring teenage girls his aren’t. So I would say his short stories, and Empire of the Sun breaking out of their circumstances; it’s every bit as absorbing as I think is great.’ the first. We discuss Ballard’s continuing influence: ‘I still think he’s one of the Reeve’s currently at work on the third, which will be out next year. great British writers of the 20th century, way more significant than His body of work so far comprises the superlative Mortal Engines a lot of better known names. Life is becoming more Ballardian. It’s sequence, in which cities cross the plains of a future earth; the very hard not to [write like that] because it’s all around us, he very Carnegie-winning Here Lies Arthur, and many other books for accurately predicted the 21st century, or the way that psychology younger children. interacts with technology in our particular society.’ Wearing a colourful stripy shirt, and walking boots, Reeve sits down He even predicted our obsession with broadcasting our lives: ‘There’s at my table. There is a calm, quiet air of charm around him. We have a fabulous one and I can’t quote it verbatim, and this is back in the our coffees in the foyer, surrounded by people tapping at laptops, or 70s, and the interviewer is asking about the future, and asks if he’s waiting for their shows to start. frightened of the prospect of nuclear war, and he says, “No no, that’s One of my favourite moments in the new book is something that happens in passing: there’s a chequer board lawn on which topiary hedges, spliced with crustacean DNA, are playing a game of chess. Reeve laughs. ‘Indeed in previous versions of this I had whole action sequences built around the topiary chess lawn, but it’s just been reduced to a little bit of set dressing.’ This is a good example of how Reeve sets about his work. When he finishes a draft, it’s usually ‘half as long again as the finished book, and possibly two or three times as long. So I hack away at them fairly ruthlessly to try and get them moving. I try and make them pacey, really.’ I ask him if it ever gets any easier. ‘It never really gets any easier,’ he replies, ‘you know people say you only learn to write the book you’re writing and then you have to start again on the next one, and I think to some extent that’s true.’ He often has ‘stacks and stacks and stacks of unused ideas.’ Reeve populates his universe with memorable characters, from the young Empress Threnody to her reluctant ally the criminal Chandni, to the trains themselves. We discuss the ‘cockney psycho train,’ Ghost Wolf, who falls in love with the Damask Rose. ‘She’s a lot classier than him!’ chuckles Reeve. ‘It’s kind of crossing class boundaries, this romance between trains.’ There’s a lot of that in the book, I say. ‘I guess there is … well there, you know, I’m English, so everything’s about class.’ He’s ‘always having to explain this to Sarah McIntyre,’ [the illustrator with whom he has worked on several collaborations, including Pugs of the Frozen North.] ‘As a writer you can’t escape class.’ I ask if he’s ever read Iain M Banks’s Culture sequence, which is a science fiction extravaganza set in a kind of utopia. He has – but only because ‘when Railhead came out everybody said, “Ooh, you’re obviously a Banks fan”’. His trick is he has this kind of perfect society, much, far more appealing than the one I’m writing about in Railhead, but he always leaves it. People from this society then go and have adventures on various sort of grubby worlds. It’s very hard to set a story in a utopia.’

18 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 not going to happen, we don’t need to worry about nuclear war at all, but what we need to worry about is in the future everyone’s going to have the means to broadcast their own lives. They’re all going to become broadcasters and they’re going to become obsessed with broadcasting to everyone else the minute detail of their everyday lives. And he wasn’t a technologist in any way, he didn’t see the internet coming, he was imagining people with little sort of home TV stations, video tapes, but he’s absolutely right, psychologically. He really understood where we were going.’ Before we finish, I am bound to ask him how he feels about his novel, Mortal Engines, being turned into a film, which is being directed by Peter Jackson.’It’s very good. I got to go down to New Zealand in the spring and meet some of the actors - they’ve finished now, finished shooting, all the live action, and now the 18 months of post-production are under way, large chunks of it are going to be CGI, and very state of the art CGI, so it’s not quick. So yes, we hope for the best. I think it’s going to look very good, judging on the sets I saw, and going round the costume department and going round the art department, where they have concept art for every scene pinned up. It looks remarkably close to how I imagined it really. I think it’s going to be great. What difference it makes to my life I don’t know really. We’ll see.’ Railhead and Black Light Express are published by Oxford Children’s Books.

Philip Womack is an author and critic. His latest novel The King’s Revenge is published by Troika Books and concludes the Darkening Path trilogy.

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 19 I wish I’d written… A F Harrold, author of The Imaginary and the new Greta Zargo series, wishes he could draw like Bill Watterson.

If I’d been able to draw, as well as of adventure constrained only by write, then I’d like to have made the limits of Calvin’s imagination, Bill Watterson’s Calvin and or that of the babysitter, or his Hobbes wonderful, moving, dad’s camping trip spirit. funny, beautiful, thoughtful, I love the room Watterson awe-inspiring, and once again found in the comic strip format to funny comic strip. explore comedy and philosophy Although that’s not really and ideas and imagination in true… The pleasure I get from general, as well as his drawing (I Calvin and Hobbes is as a brook no argument here) of the reader. I don’t want to know the best tiger. hours of dedication and wrist- I like to think that spirit of ache that went into thinking and philosophical playfulness in drawing it. I want to simply eat Calvin and Hobbes feeds into it up with my eyes and sit there my work, both the imaginary A F Harrold’s book, Greta Zargo feeling joyous. friend adventure of The and the Death Robots from Outer Calvin’s a boy with a pet tiger, Imaginary, but also into the The Calvin and Hobbes books are Space (978-1-4088-6947-5) is published by Sphere published by Bloomsbury Children’s a tiger who is smart and wise freewheeling no-nonsense girl Books, £6.99 pbk. and caring… all the things Calvin on a mission-ness of Greta isn’t. They’re opposites, but best Zargo, and even more so out friends, and they live in a world into the world she inhabits. BfK reviews Under 5s Pre – School/Nursery/Infant

Lois looks for Bob the Park Tiny Tantrum 978 0 85763 892 2 ++++ New Talent Lois looks for Bob at Home Caroline Crowe, ill. Ella Okstad, Hannah and Sugar 978 0 85763 891 5 Little Tiger, 32pp, 978 1 84869 677 8, +++++ +++ £10.99 hbk A brilliant wheeze for little tantrum- Kate Berube, Abrams and Gerry Turley, Nosy Crow, 14pp, £6.99 board book inclined people! Tiny Tantrum has Chronicle, 978-1-4197-1890-8, a big problem. She’s happy when £10.99 hbk These two new board books from the fabulous Nosy Crow books feature she’s getting herown way, but ‘you try Everyday Hannah’s dad is waiting WKHLU ¶ELJ ÁDS· IRUPDW SHUIHFW IRU telling Tiny that she has to wash her for her at the bus stop; a lovely little hands that want to participate. hair, or tidy up, or go to bed, and she’ll moment to look forward to. But Lois is a little black and white cat, scream, ‘That’s not fair!’ A series of Sugar is always at the bus stop Bob is her beautiful yellow feathered big, friendly monsters - purple, green, too. Sugar is a dog. Hannah is friend. In the park, Lois looks for yellow and stripy – use psychology on frightened of dogs. Then Sugar Bob behind gates and benches, up our Tiny, and she learns the secret: goes missing. She is still missing WUHHV DQG XQGHU ÁRZHUSRWV EXW %RE that tantrums are a waste of time, and when night falls. It must be scary is waiting for her at the picnic on the she’s much better off having fun. The and lonely, thinks Hannah. Where rhymes are jolly and there is even a an understated palette. There is ÀQDOVSUHDG$WKRPH%RELVQ·WKLGLQJ can poor Sugar be? song at the end that one can make up nothing limp or boring in the result. in the cupboards, behind the coats Shortlisted for the 2017 Klaus a special tune to. The text abounds The visual experience does not or the curtains but she’s delighted Flugge Prize, this is a debut picture with the sort of words that kids adore, mechanically repeat the story, it WR ÀQG KHU IULHQG DW ODVW VHWWOHG RQ book of real promise. With great such as ‘bum’ and ‘bottom’, ‘snot’ extends and enriches it – we can WKH DUPFKDLU (DFK WKLFN ÁDS LV D economy, Hannah Berube has and ‘stinky’ and the illustrations show see Hannah’s reluctance to pat die-cut shape that reveals another created an absorbing, engaging us smiley monsters who turn the Sugar, we feel her anxiety for the eccentrically named animal friend. story out of an everyday situation that tables on Tiny and want to bounce all lost dog, closing our eyes with her. It’s a lovely, simple format reminiscent many in her audience will recognise. night when she is tired and wants to Berube’s use of space is perfect of classic Spot the Dog but the bright Her text is simply presented, the sleep. Now she must use psychology providing variety and drama, and bold illustrations bring it right up language straightforward, concise, on them! It’s all good fun, and the text making use of the whole page and to date. An excellent present for little making effective use of repetition. and pictures are a combination that mirroring the story in a way that tots who love to explore. KC Complimenting the words are shapes the point nicely. Parents may the illustrations; fresh, childlike engages the reader at every level. want to take note and become happy, but with a subtle sophistication Here is a picture book creator to smiley, monsters with a good line in that combines bold lines and watch. This book is a treat. FH psychology! ES

20 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 reviews tone, as are the spectacles perched in all sorts of funny situations in Under 5s Pre - School/Nursery/Infant contd. on his beak. The text by Alex Field very bright colours, and the holes is straightforward and simple, on the cover that, with the picture This sets off a question and providing just enough of the story to underneath, make wide-open eyes Yoga Babies complement the illustrations, giving will be attractive to the browsing child. ++++ answer game between child and adult with Matty’s dad coming up them space. This is a picture book This should be good to read out loud Fearne Cotton, illus. Sheena with increasingly crazy responses where author and illustrator really to younger children who might just Dempsey, Andersen Press, 32pp, do work together to create what is a laugh, while children whose language 978 1 7834 4564 6, £9.99 hbk starting with using a neighbour’s big UHGWUDFWRUDQGHVFDODWLQJWRÁ\LQJRQ thoroughly enjoyable story that will skills are developing may like to guess Although the heart may sink when a a huge green dragon. Matty however, engage not just the young audience the rhymes and think up alternatives. celebrity name appears on the front VHHPV GHWHUPLQHG WR KDYH WKH ÀQDO at whom it is aimed, but the adults Jon Burgerman is an established cover, Fearne Cotton is a hands-on word until dad comes up with a totally who will be presenting it whether at artist who has now turned his hand mother of two small children, so UHDVVXULQJUHVSRQVHWKDWVDWLVÀHVKLV storytime or before bed. This is a book to picture books, and apparently she does understand the pressures young son once and for all. that is fun. FH the bright and playful style is his of family life, and she pitches this The warmly reassuring story is trademark. An author who illustrates well for those who do yoga and ideal for sharing with listeners around I Want to Go First his own books is sure to produce ++++ might practice at home or attend an Matty’s age, especially those with successfully exactly what he has in inclusive class. In her introduction she a tendency to worry about whether Richard Byrne, Oxford University mind, and this will be fun to share. DB explains that the text and illustrations their special adult will always come Press, 978-0-1927-4973-4, £11.99 hbk KDYH EHHQ DSSURYHG E\ D TXDOLÀHG for them. All though will enjoy the Logically, the story begins at the That Is Actually My Blanket, yoga instructor, and warns that this give and take of the wildly fanciful Front-of-the-Book nature reserve, Baby! is a book to be shared, so it is not exchange so vividly brought to life in and will end at the Back-of-the-Book ++++ recommended that children perform Aurélie Guillerey’s bold, retro style watering hole. A group of elephants, Angie Morgan, ill. Kate Alizadeh, any of the exercises unsupervised. scenes. JB brightly dressed for a day of splashing Little Tiger, 32pp, 978 1 84869 689 1, It’s not just for ‘yummy mummies’- and swimming, are lining up ready £10.99 there is a Dad doing the ‘cat’ with Big Box Little Box to make the journey from one to Bella has had her special blanket ever his identically curly haired son, ++++ the other. As the smallest elephant, since she was born, and she loves it and Prakash and his Granny enjoy Caryl Hart and Edward Underwood Elphie has to go last, but he really, dearly. It has always gone everywhere VWUHWFKLQJRQWKHÁRRU7KHWH[WLVLQ (ills.), Bloomsbury, 32pp, UHDOO\ZDQWVWRJRÀUVWDQGFRPHVXS with her, and is now ‘sparkly, muddy, rhyme: “Maya’s made a clever bridge, 978 1 4088 7278 9, £6.99 pbk with some sneaky ways of making painty, and smelly’. When a new baby see how she’s arched her back. Cats love to sit in boxes and this that happen. Addressing his readers brother arrives on the scene, complete Who’s pushed his car right under particular cat is trying every type of direct, Elphie asks us to shout out the with new blanket, Bella is delighted, her? Cheeky brother Jack!” Children box going in this stylish rhyming book name of the elephant just in front of but she only wishes the baby would may soon get to know the rhymes if from the always excellent Caryl Hart. him. On the count of three, we do, stop crying. She tries everything to they have this read to them regularly. Cat is enjoying trying boxes of every and Eleanor stays behind to see who stop him, but nothing works until he Sophie and her family are having a colour, size and shape when she wants her; Elphie moves up the line. discovers her special blanket. He GUHDGIXOGD\EXWJHWWLQJRQWKHÁRRU discovers one box has a hole in it. The Next he asks us to make a hissing loves chewing on it, and poor Bella to do some yoga makes them all feel culprit is a little mouse and a chase noise, that frightens Elizabeth up a doesn’t quite know what to do. It better, and the baby goes to sleep: ensues but after a scurry mouse and tree and again, Elphie is one place is her blanket after all. She comes that might be worth a try. nearer the front. As the pages turn, on up with the perfect answer. She will Sheena Dempsey’s illustrations FDW ÀQG RXW WKDW WLFNOHV SXUUV DQG warm fur are a nice combination. Elphie’s instructions readers wobble show baby how to do everything she are fun, and show some realistically The story ends with the new friends WKHERRNDQGÀQDOO\VTXHDNDQGURDU likes doing – painting, sticking things untidy households, just as they tend sharing a box. in an attempt to send the biggest together, and ‘singing and dancing in to be in the daytime with children This bouncy rhyme is great fun to elephant to the back of the line. Elgar, muddy puddles’- and soon his new around. There are drawings on paper read aloud and the cool illustrations however, is wise to what’s going on blanket will be just like hers and he (and on walls), toys and socks on the from newcomer Edward Underwood WKRXJK D VXUSULVH ÀQDO WZLVW OHDYHV will love it just like she loves him! It’s ÁRRUGULQNLQJFXSVKDQG\DQGVRPH feel fresh and contemporary in an Elphie on top again, and leading the a lovely ending to a lovely story of two interesting detail to spot. Rex has attractive retro palette. Children will troupe on the journey home. siblings getting to know each other. long hair, a guitar and a small piano– love the mouse twist and the friendly 7KH ÀQDOH ZLOO KDYH HYHU\RQH The pictures, full of the vitality and his is a musical family. Maya and ending is sudden but very sweet. A laughing, but there’s lots to entertain joy that a new baby can bring, show Jack are mixed race, with their white book that is sure to be particularly along the way, and Richard Byrne’s understanding and love. There is no Mum helping them do yoga in front welcome in homes with cats, and bright illustrations are wonderfully sense here of resentment of the new of a map of Africa on the wall. The demands to be read over and over HQHUJHWLF$IXQSLHFHRIPHWDÀFWLRQ baby, just pleasure at his presence in children are indeed mixed: Emily and again. KC for the very young. LS her life, and an understanding that he Prakash are Asian, Winnie and her will need his own special blanket and family are possibly Afro-Caribbean, Mr Darcy the Dancing Duck Rhyme Crime that this is something she can give Tom and Sam are twins. The children ++++ +++ him. ES are all named and illustrated on the Jon Burgerman, illus. Jon front end-papers, with the exercises Alex Field, illus. Peter Carnavas, New Frontier Publishing, Burgerman, OUP 28pp. Fairy Tale Pets similarly demonstrated on the back 9781912076574, £11.99 hbk 9 780192 749505 £6.99 pbk ++++ end-papers. This is a fun book with Meet Mr Darcy and the delightful “Once upon a time, a thief committed Tracey Corderoy, ill. Jorge Martin, serious intentions, and could be a crime. Everything he stole was Little Tiger Press, 32pp, 978 184869 useful for parents and in libraries. DB Lizzy. No, we are not in the pages of an Austen novel, though we are in replaced by a rhyme…” and we have 441 5, £10.99hbk Pemberley Park, where Mr Darcy, a to guess what will be the rhyming Bob lives happily with Rex his dog Daddy Long Legs replacement over the page. It’s ++++ particularly dapper duck (observe his in their neat home but there’s one JHQHUDOO\ QRW GLIÀFXOW +DPP\·V QHZ thing wrong, they’re hard up. Time Nandine Brun-Cosme, ill. Aurélie incredible top hat), longs to be able to dance. He would love to join Lizzy and hat was replaced by - a cat, and there to get a job, thinks animal-lover Bob Guillerey, Two Hoots, 32pp, are sometimes clues, but sometimes and pet-sitting is the perfect one. Bob 978 1 5098 4271 1, £11.99 hbk her sisters as they circle the Maypole. Can Maria the mouse, Bingley the there are surprises, too. Marlow’s advertises all over town. With echoes of ‘Hush Little Baby’ this horse and Caroline the cow help? happy smile became a crocodile, and 1H[WGD\KLVÀUVWFXVWRPHUDUULYHV is a tale of paternal devotion put to Peter Carnavas’ illustrations dance sleepy Boomer’s brain was replaced bright and early: a golden-haired girl the test. off the page as Mr Darcy learns to by a train. Of course the thief has clutching a baby bear. Not quite what Matty is at nursery, driven there in dance himself. The energy of his lines trouble when he tries to steal Bob had anticipated but business is Daddy’s old green car; but after all combines with his use of colour to Tumble’s orange, and he invents lots business. Almost immediately, the the splutterng and struggling to get great effect. There is nothing heavy of mad possible rhymes. Smorange? “little poppet” is making his presence it going, the child is already worrying to detract from this light-hearted story Zorange? His indecision seems to well and truly felt, ranting on about that his dad won’t make it back in with its tongue-in-cheek reference to lead to his capture by the police, eaten porridge, a chair and a bed. time to collect him at the end of the the Austen classic. No explanation but his rhyming skills ensure that he Pretty soon business is booming. session. “What if the car doesn’t start is required – the absurd height of doesn’t stay in jail for long. Bob has taken in Jack’s goose (Jack again?” he asks. Mr Darcy’s hat is enough to set the Huge cartoon people end up paid with beans) and three “nice,

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 21 BfK Makeda has had a chance to settle in DIÀQLW\ZLWK$OOVFKRROVQHHGDFRS\ Under 5s Pre - School/Nursery/Infant contd. they both enjoy playing, cuddling and of this book particularly ones with sharing stories together. Nurseries in them but this could quiet billy goats” that straightway This is a simple, warm story with be used right up into Year 6 as it is start trip trapping trampling around appealing illustrations about adopting a really simple illustration of how the place. Three little pigs come next a new pet, the pleasure it can bring losing one’s temper can impact on accompanied by an outsized “puppy” and the responsibilities it presents. everybody around you. which huffs and puffs and completely The advice it contains is endorsed by There are several instances of Fergal demolishes Bob’s residence. the National Cats Adoption Centre. ORVLQJKLVWHPSHUDWÀUVWDQG,WKLQNLW Totally exasperated, Bob decides The trip to the library is a nice touch, would be fair to say his animal family enough is enough: he quits pet-sitting linking this book to a previous Lulu and friends cut him some slack. It is leaving himself jobless and homeless. story Lulu loves the Library. A great WKH QH[W ELW ZKHQ KLV IULHQGV ÀQDOO\ All he has left (apart from Rex) is addition for fans and collectors of have enough, that would be useful that handful of beans. Now what the popular Lulu series and perfect for schools. His mum explains why use could they be? Enter Bob the for young cat lovers and would be cat they’ve had enough and she gives gardener … owners everywhere. SMcG Fergal a different strategy to try. We Children will delight in the multitude then relive the instances but this time of fairy tale characters that invade Fergal is Fuming with Fergal’s new approach. He also +++++ Bob’s peaceful abode in this fast and goes on to explore his animal friend’s furious read aloud entertainment, Robert Starling, Andersen Press, ways of controlling their temper which is made all the more hilarious 32pp, 9781783445332, £11.99 hbk which, again, would be a really useful by Martin’s rumbustious scenes of because cats are hard work. They go Fergal is a little dragon who just tool for discussion. pet-induced pandemonium. JB WRWKHOLEUDU\WRÀQGRXWKRZWRORRN can’t keep his temper in check. The illustrations are fab as they have after cats and then Lulu practices at As a little dragon this has serious a simple quality about them with Lulu Gets a Cat home. Finally Mummy agrees and consequences because he breathes sketchy backgrounds to highlight the ++++ they visit a cat shelter to choose a cat, ÀUH DV KLV WHPSHU LV OHW ORRVH ZKLFK animal characters. Fergal’s shape Anna McQuinn, ill. Rosalind although in the end, the cat chooses makes Fergal somewhat destructive! is perfect to make lots of different Beardshaw, Alanna Books, 32pp, them. Following advice from Jeremy This is a perfect picture book for Fergal expressions in class-his little 978-1-907825-163 £11.99,hbk at the cat shelter Lulu and her family individual readers and classes alike eyes say it all and make this book a Lulu really likes cats, she has several prepare so that their new pet isn’t too because the reasons for Fergal losing delightful, thought provoking read. toy cats but would love a real one worried. Lulu names her Makeda after his temper are all ones children will , ZLOO EH XVLQJ WKLV RQH LQ P\ ÀUVW of her own. Mummy is not so sure, DQ$IULFDQ4XHHQ/XOXÀQGVWKDWDIWHU recognise and therefore have some assembly of the year. SG

5 – 8 Infant/Junior

The Cranky Caterpillar Picture This! Perfectly Norman and the background are in grey, black +++++ +++ +++++ and white. This is not a grim, dim Richard Graham, Thames & Paul Thurlby, ill. Hodder Children’s Tom Percival, Bloomsbury, 32pp, background but a simple presentation Hudson, 978-0-5006-5108-7, 32pp, Books, 48pp, 978 1 444 93369 7, 978 1 4088 8097 5, £6.99 pbk of the fact that Norman has always been different, even if unknowingly. £10.99 hbk £5.00 hbk Norman has always been ‘perfectly Ezra is at a loose end. Wait – what In this book, created in collaboration normal’. He loves playing with his :KHQKHVSURXWVZLQJVDQGÁLHVZLWK the birds, we see more colour in his is that noise coming from the piano? with the gallery itself, readers are friends, eating ice cream, and doing life, but on the ground whilst wearing (]UD H[SORUHV WR ÀQG D YHU\ FUDQN\ taken on a tour of the National Gallery. all the other things kids do. And caterpillar who complains that he his yellow coat, everything around him It introduces children to one of the then one day, a surprised Norman has been stuck in the piano for a is again colourless. It is only at the ÀQHVW FROOHFWLRQV RI SDLQWLQJV LQ WKH discovers he has grown a pair of wings. long time. How can Ezra cheer him world, and the stories behind them, end when he comes to understand 7KLV VHHPV JUHDW DW ÀUVW  +H FDQ up when nothing seems to work? Ezra including works by Renoir, Velazquez, his potential and accept his has an idea... zoom through the air and have all the Rembrandt, Degas, Seurat, Monet, difference that we see him becoming There is a strong element of delicious feelings that birds share. But Van Gogh and many others, as well as his colourful self. The colours (when the surreal and perhaps a nod to soon, he is ‘down to earth’ – literally. masterpieces by lesser known artists. they come) are explosive and quite, Lewis Carroll, creator of the original What will his parents think? And his The book is divided into sections quite beautiful. With sophistication grumpy caterpillar, in this enjoyable, friends? The only option seems to be quirky story about friendship and the such as Amazing Nature, Children and a wistful truth, it explores every to wear a big coat so no one can see transformative power of both music Like Me and Fashion Fabulous, each child’s need to be ‘normal’ and the WKH ZLQJV 7KLV SURYHV YHU\ GLIÀFXOW and working together. The narrative of which is allocated a double spread; fact that everyone has his or her own and every section includes information and his bemused parents look on as is concise and effective carrying normality. Outstanding. ES the reader through the book, while about the artists whose paintings are he bathes in the coat, goes to bed in a clever use of the font adds to the featured, something to consider, an WKH FRDW DQG ÀQGV WKDW LW LV WHUULEO\ experience without detracting from Rapunzel activity or two – yes you are encouraged hot and uncomfortable. He can’t go +++++ clarity. Through his illustrations, to draw and write in the book. The swimming or play with his friends Graham creates the perfect visual whole thing is written in a carefully Bethan Woollvin, Two Hoots, 28pp, properly, and he is miserable. He 978 1 5098 4267 4, £11.99, hbk compliment to the text. His pen considered, engaging text, with small and ink outlines allow him to move realizes that it isn’t the wings that are Bethan Woollvin continues her re- funky bold, bright illustrations by Paul the problem, but the coat. When his between the impressionistic and the Thurlby throughout, as well as on the appraisal of fairy tale heroines that ORYLQJSDUHQWVÀQDOO\VD\WRKLPZK\ precise, capturing the imaginative front cover. she began with Little Red. As you setting and providing it with a perfect not take it off, he throws it off with joy, might expect, this Rapunzel doesn’t logic. Only Ezra brings colour to every The reproductions of the paintings are on the small side, but essentially I exposing his wonderful technicolour sit wanly in her tower waiting for a spread; this is her story. Originally ZLQJV  6RRQ KH LV Á\LQJ DJDLQ DQG passing prince. A pair of scissors is all published in the US, this is a welcome see this as a kind of guidebook book to use prior to, or perhaps during, a furthermore, he is joined by other she needs, luckily, the witch doesn’t addition to our bookshelves whether miss them. Rapunzel swiftly cuts a in the classroom (plenty to discuss) or visit to the gallery itself, so one hopes children who have been wearing at home. Recommended. FH children will see the real works of coats too. As a book about diversity hair ladder (rungs and all) from her art too. Spirally bound and costing a in all its many forms, this could not be JORZLQJORFNVGRZQVKHJRHVÀQGVD PHUHÀYHULW·VLVDUHDOEDUJDLQJB better. The illustrations picture a boy horse in the forest to call her own and standing out from other children from sets about revenging herself on the the beginning; he is in colour and they witch who has imprisoned her. This

22 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 reviews double page spread with Orange I’m sure most, if not all children will 5 – 8 Infant/Junior continued looking glum and rejected on the recognise and it has a good easy to right. But the other fruit “are feeling read font with those appealing spaces turns out to be surprisingly simple. maples, yews and conifers. Whilst rotten, ‘cause there’s someone so as not to overwhelm. It’s the scissors again, and this time WKH ÀUVW HQGSDSHU GHSLFWV VSULQJ they’ve forgotten.” And, hooray, here Cinder Ashok is the hero of the the choice of a bobbed look. At an with birds perched in the treetops, comes apple on the right, followed book. I probably don’t need to say too opportune moment, a good short back WKH ÀQDO RQH LV GLVWLQFWO\ DXWXPQDO by everyone else to reassure Orange much about the story but it’s a clever and sides gets rid of all that hair and OHDYHVÁ\LQJLQWKHZLQGDQGOLWWHULQJ that, really, he’s Smorange, which twist on Cinderella. His best friend witch as well. Meantime, resourceful the ground, amidst which we track means totally awesome in every way. ‘Buttons’ hangs out with him in his Rapunzel has braided her own vine large bear footprints. Altogether a So, at last, all the fruit can celebrate favourite place-mine too-the library. rope ladder and stashed it under the very satisfying book, with more to their fruitiness together. The brilliantly Together they share a love of comic bed. Down she comes again, mounts discover on subsequent reads. GB bonkers rhymes get steadily madder. book heroes. His step mother and her steed, and masked and caped A rousing fruity chorus – “FRUIT, brothers are predictably wicked and (the horse is masked as well), off Piggy Handsome: Guinea pig they’re healthy, happy, colourful, and nasty – drawn with great fun by Mark VKHJRHVWRÀQGRWKHUZLWFKHVWRVOD\ destined for stardom cute”, occasionally bursts out. And %HHFK7KHUH·VDGHÀQLWH5RDOG'DKO While there is nothing too surprising +++ there’s an expertly characterised Quentin Blake feel to the pictures cast, including the frustrated Orange, which all add to the humour in the now in a feminist twist to fairy tales, Pip Jones, ill. Adam Stower, Faber it is Woollvin’s illustrations that make & Faber, 186pp, 978-0-571-32754-6, at turns exasperated by the rhymes ERRNDQG,WKLQNWKLVZLOOGHÀQLWHO\DGG the story distinctive. These have £6.99, pbk or, despite himself, in awe of their to the sheer enjoyment of reading this dramatic composition, expert use of inventiveness. It’s hilarious, it little corker. Piggy Handsome is a guinea pig promotes healthy eating (although There are many quirky twists to the page, sly humour, and an elegant leading a comfortable life; with a simplicity of line and colour, mainly feeding a cantaloupe to an antelope the original Cinderella story the roomy cage (or maisonette as he likes is probably not a good idea) and it will most important of which is the in monochrome but with blocks of to refer to it), a friend in Jeffry the yellow, acknowledging the central have young readers joining in with the replacement of the ball with a Royal budgie and very little threat from the party mood, feeling sad for Orange on Quintain Contest where the successful part that Rapunzel’s hair plays in the rather over fed cat Cranky Scrapper. story. It’s such a beautifully realised WKHVLGHOLQHVDQGÀQDOO\UHMRLFLQJDW participant would win a favour of However Handsome is not content. his inclusion. CB their choice granted by the princess. narrative that the brief text is almost He comes from a line of famous VXSHUÁXRXVCB Practising when you are banished to ‘Handsomes’ and feels he is failing in Dread Cat the attic rooms is a bit tricky but Cinder his duty to the family name if he does +++++ manages very well and then dials ‘999 Big Brown Bear’s Cave not achieve greatness and recognition +++++ Michael Rosen, illus Nicola O’Byrne, Fairy’ for a bit of extra magical help himself. Despite the opportunity to Little Gems, Barrington Stoke, from...... Guess who? SG Yuval Zommer, Templar Publishing, escape his cage regularly he has 978 1 78112 588 5, £6.99 pbk 978 1 78370 647 1 , £11-99 hbk. not achieved his dream so far until Continuing the series of wide-ranging They came from Planet one day Jeffry spots an advert for How much stuff does one bear need? stories for newly independent readers Zabalooloo! a chip eating contest at the beach, :KHQ%LJ%URZQ%HDUÀQGVDQHPSW\ is this clever cat-and-mouse tale of +++ cave, he knows immediately it is just a perfect opportunity for Piggy to achieve fame. But how will they get WUHDFKHU\ DQG GHÀDQFH XQLW\ DQG Sean Taylor, illus. Kate Hindley, the right size for a bear like him. come-uppance. there? A crazy journey to the beach Walker Books, 32pp, But that night, no matter which way 9781 4063 7434 6, £6.99 pbk follows with Piggy and Jeffry travelling 'UHDG &DW LV IHURFLRXVO\ ÀHUFH he bear-stretches, he cannot get a killer of a cat. The mere sight of at break neck speed by roller boot. Three aliens from Zabalooloo have comfortable, for it just doesn’t feel him is enough to make the mice On the way they encounter some different characteristics: Zoron like home. Pondering this problem scamper down their hidey-holes. Of dastardly robbers whose escape plan tells the story, and he says he is on a gentle stroll, he comes across course, this does nothing for Dread our hero inadvertently thwarts. Will very clever; Bazoo is so strong, a village, the houses each with an Cat’s reputation for he doesn’t get Piggy achieve his dream as a world and Zob gets over-excited and does attached cave. Dark and dusty man- to pounce on a single mouse. So he record chip eater or more importantly crazy wiggle-woggle dancing. Their caves, just full of STUFF. Big Brown comes up with a plan and offers the recognition as a robber thwarter? space ship has space biscuits and Bear decides he too needs stuff. So mice a truce. He invites them to walk he starts gathering, favourites being This is a rollicking and amusing a party area with balloons, and they adventure which newly independent SDVW KLP DW QLJKW LQ VLQJOH ÀOH DQG are on an epic adventure to bring stuff with wheels, stuff with handles promises to greet each with a tasty readers with a taste for the ridiculous something special back from Earth and stuff that comes in boxes. He tells morsel of cheese. The lure of cheese is will enjoy. The illustrations within the with their supersonic sucker with himself he won’t stop collecting till he just too tempting, so they agree. Dread text add to the humour. The inept and shrinker-nozzle. First they search KDV ÀOOHG HYHU\ FRUQHU RI KLV FDYH Cat seems to be keeping his word – rather revolting Dahlesque villains for something big: “wow wee – an What happens when his three bear but soon their number dwindles. It’s Dan and Dolly Dixon’s attempt to hold elephant!” They creep up on it with friends come to visit, hoping to come time for the mice to investigate. up the jewellers is very amusing. Piggy the supersonic sucker, but Bazoo in? No room for visitors, only stuff! The story has a wide appeal. A is a rather pompous yet appealing ZDQWV D VHOÀH ÀUVW 7KH HOHSKDQW When they call again, wanting Big charming, deeply satisfying tale in character well supported by a much wakes up and makes a big-size %URZQ%HDUWRMRLQWKHPRQDÀVKLQJ itself, its moral – solidarity in the more sensible sidekick in Jeffry. I bottom-trumpet sound, and the smell trip, poor BBB is truly stuck, trapped face of danger – will trigger much suspect this duo is likely to return with is so awful that they change their under piles and piles of stuff. Oh discussion and appeal to readers more adventures as Piggy’s quest for minds. Similar mishaps occur when what trouble the friends have to free with a higher interest level. The story him. POP! At last he is freed. What to stardom continues. SMcG they try to capture a medium size is suspenseful and tautly crafted. thing, a lion, and this time it’s Zob’s do, other than return all that stuff to Filled with rhythm, wit and vigour, the humans? We see the empty man Nothing Rhymes with Orange wiggle-woggle dancing that wakes +++++ it reads well aloud, using repetition the lion and they run away before it caves, all four bears heading towards and alliteration to great effect. The them, loaded down with clocks, Adam Rex, Chronicle Books, 48pp, can try to catch them. A small-size 978-1-4521-5443-5, £11.99, hbk expressive illustrations sit elegantly duck looks more promising, but is so chairs, hoses, lamps, rocking horses, on the page and work harmoniously guitars, vacuum cleaners… and boxes If nothing rhymes with orange, then cute that this time it’s Zob who both with the text. AF wants a funny photo and does crazy galore. Finally, the cave is empty of all $GDP5H[ÀQGVUK\PHVWRJRZLWKMXVW that stuff. At last there’s room for BBB about every other fruit you can think dancing- will that frighten the duck? Ash Boy No , it eats their space biscuits from to stretch and scratch, and yes, room of, as more and more of them, all with +++ for his three friends too. For the very sketched on faces and spindly arms their hands, poses for a photo, and charms them so much that they ÀUVWWLPHWKHFDYHIHHOVOLNHKRPH$ and legs, gather for an increasingly Lucy Coats, ill. Mark Beech, fun story, BBB discovering that what riotous party. As the page gets more Barrington Stoke, 56pp, can’t bear to take it away, and they 9781781127186, £5.99 pbk he needs most of all is friends, not and more crowded and the rhymes go back into space, rejoicing in their stuff. The illustrations keep close get crazier and crazier (and what Ash Boy is a lovely little antidote for successful mission: they have taken contact with the story line, and the is Friedrich Nietzsche doing here?) reluctant KS2 readers right up to Yr 6 DVHOÀHZLWKDGXFN« stylised trees in the endpapers are billy-no-mates Orange loiters in really who might be struggling to make Sean Taylor has written more a delight, more than a dozen trees the corner wondering if he is ever sense of text or be over phased by too than 40 books for young readers, with differing bark on the trunks going to be invited to join the fun, compact a text. It’s got all the elements including When a Monster is Born, and carefully shaped leaves, so especially when even kumquats and to ensure a relaxing non fraught read. which is also fun, and he knows what will appeal. The words are very funny, WKDW LGHQWLÀFDWLRQ LV SRVVLEOH RDNV currants are allowed in. Cue a blank It is based on a famous fairy tale which

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 23 BfK begin. The rhyming text gallops stopped once more by the children, 5 – 8 Infant/Junior continued along as victim number one hoves for next comes a …? What could be into sight, and is challenged by the ELJJHU DQG PRUH RYHUÁRZLQJ ZLWK and there is the clear issue of the children will quickly return and want big blue troll, standing astride the children than the school bus? Troll relative sizes of the things that the to read for themselves. Familiarity bridge. “A guzzle! A gollop! Who shouts, “Oh what slobbersome luck! aliens want to capture. Kate Hindley with the traditional tale The Three wants to eat goats? I’ll chomp little Such scrumptious young morsels all has illustrated his work before in Billy Goats Gruff will ensure the book children and chew up their coats.” covered in ….” He almost ends up as Don’t call me Choochie Poo! and becomes a real winner. Joining in We see a tiny boy on his bike, Troll Soup, but manages to escape her style suits the whackiness of the chant will provide opportunities viewed between the huge legs of back to his mountain hovel, thinking the story, with little touches like the for class or family participation, as the troll, being persuaded to wait how tasty goat will be after all. The elephant blushing when he makes well as for prediction of what will for the car following behind, with end paper glows with the softness his bottom sound adding to the fun come next. Troll, bored of his diet two little children to chomp. Keen of twilight, as the tale comes to for younger children and KS1. DB of goats (despite his recipe book, readers of the illustrations will spot an end. With rhyme and rhythm 100 Ways to Cook Goats, seen in a the cunning number plate on the throbbing, it will surely be a story to Troll Stroll picture,) decides to venture down car! Here the illustration of the town read and share again and again. GB ++++ from his lofty cave on the hillside is delightful, soft pastels fading to Elli Woollard, ill. David Barrow, (Hovel Sweet Hovel!) to the town the lightest of brush strokes, trees Nosy Crow, 978-0-8576-3972-1, EHORZ5HIHUWRWKHÀUVWHQGSDSHU and foliage added with wet paper £6-99, pbk where the beautiful water colour technique to great effect. Troll, licking his lips, anticipates children This should become a favourite read painting shows us the route he with chips… but no, he is eventually aloud story, one to which young takes, and where his adventures

8 – 10 Junior/Middle

The Wizards of Once always adding to the fun. Different fonts My Mum’s Growing Down You Can’t Make Me Go to +++++ are pressed into service throughout +++ Witch School with the whole project a marvel of ++++ Cressida Cowell, Hachette, 394pp, imaginative energy and comic gusto. Laura Dockrill, ill. David 9781444936704, £12, 99 hbk Tazzyman, Faber & Faber, 145pp, Em Lynas illus Jamie Littler, Nosy There is no-one else quite like this 978-0-571-33506-0, £6.99,pbk Having triumphantly signed off on her author for generating unreserved Crow, 232pp, 978-1788000130, excellent How-to Train your Dragon pleasure for her readers on every page; This is a collection of poems by £6.99 pbk stories Cressida Cowell now brings all catch her while you can. NT writer and performer Laura Dockrill Daisy Wart wants everyone to see her trademark wild energy to the start with amusing line drawings by David her Bottom. She’s set her heart on of what promises to be an equally The Lifeboat that Saved the Tazzyman. It is written in two parts, being an actress you see and can’t successful new series. Magic still World WKHÀUVWDVLIE\DER\ZULWLQJDERXWKLV wait to appear in her primary school’s mum and the second reporting what ++++ production of A Midsummer Night’s his mum says. The main premise, Dream. Acting would certainly seem Irving Finkel, illus Dylan Giles, addressed directly in the opening to be in her blood, given her tendency Thames & Hudson, 978-0-5006- poem and title of the collection, is that for dramatic outbursts, but Granny 5122-3, 104pp, £9.99 hbk instead of being a ‘sensible’ grown Wart is convinced that Daisy is a witch It is going to rain – and it will not be up, his mum is getting, or at any rate and on her eleventh birthday delivers just a gentle summer shower; there is behaving, like a young child, because her to the prestigious Toadpit Towers, JRLQJWREHDÁRRG9HU\TXLFNKHDUV in her view ‘Life’s too short for boring- school for witches. Daisy is aghast and his father conversing with….a Voice? ness , it’s time we had some FUN!’ determined to get out and back in time :KDWLVJRLQJRQ"+HVRRQÀQGVRXW In My Mum is a Gamer we discover for curtain up. The school has other Atra-hasis has been told to build a her prowess with computer games ideas, and it’s not just the teachers boat, an ark into which he must load and in a later poem are surprised you have to watch out for here. There’s his family and a pair of all the animals with her football skills. This is a non- a garden full of pupil-eating plants, in the world. How can this work? It is conformist mum, who can’t cook and and even the doors have minds of their up to Very-quick to help. is not so good at cleaning, she is an own. School rules are enforced by the Yes, the story will be familiar, but individual with highly distinctive dress ghost of the original headmistress, who the names are very different. This is sense which her son applauds in My patrols the corridors to make sure that not the story that is recounted in the Mum does not dress like a mum and there is absolutely no running. Daisy’s Old Testament about Noah. This is a that’s good and rather unusual hair new friends are ready to help though, retelling of the much older version styles which he seems less keen on. as is mean Dominique, teacher’s pet, from Mesopotamia in the Epic of There are closely observed situations who has her own reasons for wanting Gilgamesh. It is a lively narrative. here such as the way adults frame to see the back of Daisy. Irving Finkel tells the story with requests to children eg to ‘pop’ to Letting the naughtiest girl in the great verve, not just introducing his the shops, or even ‘pass that exam, school cause maximum mischief while abounds, but this time the setting is the readers to a human cast with real win that prize’ in My Mum makes enjoying midnight feasts with her Sussex Downs at a mythical time when character, but also to a pantheon everything sound easy when actually friends is a tried and trusted formula Warriors and Wizards maintain an of Mesopotamian gods who are as it’s not. Many older children will relate DQG WKHUH DUH ORWV RI ÀFWLRQDO ZLWFK uneasy peace following years of mutual noisy and quarrelsome as any family. to a number of poems about how schools too, though none quite like attritional violence. Enter therefore Xar, Supporting Finkel’s text, Dylan Giles’ embarrassing mums can be in public, this, and Em Lynas has successfully a quite extraordinarily stupid wizard black and white illustrations add a in this case at a restaurant, the conjured up her very own mix of school child expert at putting himself and visual element which is contemporary cinema, a museum or even worse on and magic. It’s great fun and Daisy is his long-suffering followers into one in style but cleverly references the parents’ day at school. These poems a hugely appealing central character, dangerous situation after another. On past. celebrate the unconventional, they with a distinctive and memorable the other side, the young warrior girl $QG LV LW DOO D ÀFWLRQ" :HOO )LQNHO are full of warmth, humour and loving voice. Indeed, young readers may Wish is equally daring and disobedient, introduces his young readers to the advice, ‘you get on with being you and well decide that she is ac-chew-ally and when they inevitably meet there amazing fact that this story can be I’ll get on with loving you.’ SMcG (to borrow Daisy’s impersonation are sparks galore. As before, an read in cuneiform script, written on of deputy head Ms Thorn), their adventurous narrative is enhanced by clay tablets which can be seen in favourite apprentice witch. Daisy, to the author’s numerous cartoon-gothic the British Museum. Here is a very Dominique’s horror, turns out to be the black and white pictures, sometimes old story brought to life for a new Best and Brightest witch in the school, taking up a two page spread and audience – excellent. FH though she’s still a rebel, and there will

24 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 reviews there is enough real jeopardy, emotional judging by the few seen in the proof.JC 8 – 10 Junior/Middle continued insight and dry humour in the tale to NHHSDQ\RQHVDWLVÀHGCB The Island at the End of be further adventures to enjoy. LS uneasy atmosphere. There are plenty Everything of macabre details, particularly to The Snow Angel +++ Spy Toys: Out of Control do with eyes, and some fast-paced ++++ Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Chicken ++++ action but the plot does become Lauren St John, ill Catherine Hyde, House, 250pp,978 1 910002 76 6, Mark Powers illus Tim Wesson, rather over-complicated by the end Zephyr, 210pp, 978-1-7866-9589-5, £6.99 pbk Bloomsbury, 207pp, and readers will need to concentrate. £10.99 hbk This story is set on Culion, an island 978-1-4088-7088-4, £5.99 pbk This book provides plenty of dark Makena longs to be a mountain off the Phillipines coast where a The second in a new series, Spy humour amidst the action and some guide like her father and her dream real leper colony existed for many Towers: Out of Control cleverly mixes key messages about not following is to climb Mount Kenya with him. decades. Ami lives with her adored action, adventure and the kind of the crowd, being brave, looking Her most treasured possession is a mother Nanay who is ‘touched’ humour that appeals to children and beneath the surface and resisting jar of melted snow from a glacier her helping her mother plant special adults. It opens with evil hedgehog controlling bullies. Those readers who beloved Baba had brought back for ÁRZHUV WR DWWUDFW WKH EXWWHUÁLHV VKH Professor Doompickle and his are hooked into the strange world of KHU  2Q KHU ÀUVW WUHN ZLWK KLP VKH loves in their meagre garden. dastardly plot to take over the world. Perfect can look forward to the sequel is spooked by the cackle of hyenas Their lives are changed forever by Fortunately for humankind, he has indicated at the end of the book. SR at night but her feeling of unease is WKH DUULYDO RI D *RYHUQPHQW RIÀFLDO reckoned without the Spy Toys: Dan, mitigated when she spots a beautiful Mr Zamora who decrees that the a teddy bear with super strength; Abel’s Island bat-eared fox. island must be divided into clean and Arabella, a rag doll with a mean +++++ Back home her parents leave her unclean - sano and leprosa. Sano karate kick and an attitude to match; William Steig, Pushkin, 128pp, in the care of friends while they go to children are to be taken from their and Flax, robot rabbit. These toy 978-1-7826-9147-1, £8.99, pbk look after a sick Aunt in Sierra Leone. families and sent to an orphanage super-heroes, rejects from the factory When Pushkin Press is not bringing Makena has never been apart from on the next island in the belief they that made them but still possessed us wonderful stories in translation, it’s her warm and loving family before will be offered a better chance in of computerised brains, now work giving re-issues to once-loved English but after her parents do not return OLIH   6R $PL ÀQGV KHUVHOI ULSSHG for the Department of Secret Affairs, texts that have unaccountably dropped- from their week away she becomes from all she knows and packed off righting wrongs and generally putting out of print. This, by idiosyncratic increasingly anxious and that is when on a boat with other children to the baddies out of business. No sooner American author and illustrator William she discovers Ebola has struck and neighbouring island Coron along with have they dealt with Doompickle than 6WHLJ ZKLFK ÀUVW DSSHDUHG IRUW\ \HDUV her parents will not be returning. 0U=DPRUDDQGKLVEXWWHUÁ\FROOHFWLQJ they are on to their next case: a rival ago, is a quirky take on the theme of Makena is then farmed out to a paraphernalia as he is also a toy manufacturer is out to destroy desert island survival. The castaway half-uncle and his wife Pricilla who lepidopterist. Ami takes the smallest Snaztacular Ultrafun, the company LV $EHO D UDWKHU VHOIVDWLVÀHG PRXVH immediately uses her as an unpaid boy Kidlat under her wing as he is that created them, and in spectacular who lives a life of genteel turn of babysitter for her children and takes heartbroken to be leaving his family. fashion. Arabella goes undercover the twentieth century respectability. the money meant for Makena’s Although the nuns on Culon are to work out who is behind this piece Picnicking on champagne and caviar education to buy herself fashionable kind Mr Zamora rules with a rod of of crazed industrial espionage, and with his adored wife Amanda, they are clothes. When Makena is thrown out LURQ  +H LV KRUULÀHG E\ OHSURV\ DQG it all reaches a thrilling climax on overtaken by a horrendous storm; and, of the house by her step-uncle as his avoids coming into contact with an airborne helter skelter hurtling FKDVLQJ$PDGD·VÁ\DZD\VFDUI$EHOLV ZLIHLVWHUULÀHGRIFDWFKLQJ(ERODVKH the children for fear he might catch through the air towards a nuclear swept away down river to land up on decides to go back to Nairobi. Lonely the disease. He cruelly denies power plant: James Bond, eat your an island. To begin with, he is smugly and afraid she does not know who them letters from home and has heart out! FRQÀGHQW RI KLV DELOLW\ WR VXUYLYH EXW to turn to once there but is found by a particular dislike for Ami. In Mr Daft as it sounds, the plot actually after various attempts to escape have an albino girl, Snow who lives in the Zamora’s room are hundreds of makes perfect sense, and the three failed, he sets to making himself a VOXPV7KH\VRRQEHFRPHÀUPIULHQGV EXWWHUÁLHV²WKHFKLOGUHQDUHVKRFNHG toys are distinct and appealing VKHOWHU DQG ÀQGLQJ IRRG DOO WKH ZKLOH and are enjoying a rare moment of WRÀQGKHLVFKORURIRUPLQJWKHPWRNLOO characters. Packed with super-hero rather resentful that no one has arrived happiness on Makena’s birthday them and study them – the evidence and action-hero in jokes, and some to rescue him. In text and illustration, when a bulldozer raises their part pinned to the wall of his hut in rigid sharp-ish digs at modern life, the Steig follows Abel’s continuing of the slum to the ground and they rows yet he becomes so animated humour works on different levels, and schemes for escape, his thoughts of become separated. In the nick when talking about them. Ami soon this will be favourite bedtime or story- home and his love for Amanda, and of time Makena is found by an aid EHFRPHV ÀUP IULHQGV ZLWK D UDWKHU time reading for children and grown- KLVDWWHPSWVWRÀOOKLVWLPHDVVXPPHU worker and taken back to Hope 4 ORQHO\JLUO0DUL:KHQ0DULGHÀHV0U ups alike. MMa turns to autumn and then to winter. Africa Home for Girls. There Makena Zamora and brings Ami a letter she From having led a privileged life, in is slowly nursed back to health by found addressed to her friend hidden A Place Called Perfect which he has never done a day’s work, Helen and her team but when she in a box he threatens Mari with the +++ he becomes steadily more resourceful, ÀQDOO\ZDNHVXS+HOHQKDVJRQHEDFN workhouse. The letter carries bad more aware of the world around him, to her home Scotland for a family news for Ami as her mother is ill so Helena Duggan, Usborne, 363pp, bereavement. Even when Helen 9781474924160, £6.99 pbk and, in a life changing moment, turns the children decide their only way brings her to Scotland for Christmas back to Culion is to escape. They Violet does not want to move to the to sculpture, to give some tangible Makena feels let down and cannot repair a sunken boat and set off town of Perfect, but when her father form to his memories of Amanda and believe that anyone will want to care joined at the last minute by Kidlat is offered a dream job at Archers’ his family. He lives through winter and for her. Everything nearly ends in who had secretly followed them. Opticians she has no choice. Violet avoids the attentions of an owl. He disaster until the magical fox comes They manage to reach the island quickly realises that life in Perfect is makes friends with a frog with whom back to save her. surviving the many dangers along on not so perfect at all as everyone in the he converses about the meaning of 7KLV LV D OLIHDIÀUPLQJ DQG PRYLQJ the way. Although Mari and Kidlat town has to wear rose-tinted glasses, life. And then, after a year, he makes KLV HVFDSH DQG VXUYLYLQJ D ÀQDO KDLU story which packs a similar emotional are captured by Mr Zamora who is supplied by the sinister Archer punch to a Michael Morpurgo novel. brothers, to stop them going blind. All raising encounter with a cat, returns IXULRXVDWWKHFKLOGUHQ·VGHÀDQFHWKH It’s a tad uneven in places and tough kind nun Sister Margaritte creates a behaviour is expected to be creepily home to Amanda a changed mouse. issues are not glossed over but it is diversion to allow Ami some precious perfect and the town’s population It’s a tale that, like Russell Hoban’s such a compelling and compassionate time with her terminally ill mother. is unwittingly controlled via the free contemporary The Mouse and His tale that it carries you along willingly. The story ends ties up loose ends in provision of delicious Archers’ tea. As Child, uses small animals (and toys) Courage and love shine through the an epilogue 30 years later. Violet’s own sight starts to decline, her to make an existentialist approach heartbreak. Lauren St John’s skill It took a little while to get into mother turns into a baking automaton to life meaningful to a younger in setting the scene is evident in her the story but the beautifully written and her father disappears, Violet sets audience, as we watch Abel grow into depiction of both the warmth and and jewelled prose creates a vivid out to save her family and the town, self-consciousness facing up to the challenges of survival, buoyed up only colour of Africa and the colder but picture of the prejudices, ignorance aided by the invisible Boy and her own equally dramatic landscape of the courage and resourcefulness. by his love for Amanda. But there’s no DQG HYHU\GD\ FUXHOWLHV LQÁLFWHG RQ Scottish Highlands - so evocative and a marginalised community. The This quirky, creepy mystery need for any reader to get out of their visual you feel you are standing there bonds of family love and loyalty adventure story is an original debut philosophical depth. Perhaps best with Makena. This is a gem of a book. shine through although at times the that should intrigue 9+ readers who shared between an adult and a child (or The illustrations will be gorgeous too emotionally charged story feels a like their stories with an offbeat, perhaps read by a thoughtful teenager),

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 25 BfK She is thwarted with good humour by rather at odds with Miss Pinnacle’s 8 – 10 Junior/Middle continued her very caring (though she doesn’t Garden Hill School for Girls. appreciate this yet) extended family. The story evolves at a pace from WDG RYHU ZURXJKW %XWWHUÁLHV VXIIXVH Pool and I think I was unfairly One of Lyla’s ideas to escape here on and it is a touching read. the book with colour like a rich comparing Lyla and the book as a involves writing to the Ministry of There are issues around friendship, tapestry giving the impression of whole with this. Defence to offer up the grand house being who you are and also about surface decoration weaving the story Lyla is deposited by her Dad at her for military use. She believes she things not always being as they seem. together. The epilogue doesn’t seem Great Aunt’s enormous mansion to would then have to be sent back to War is there as a dark cloud in the to sit quite as easily with the rest of keep her safe during the war. However her mother in London. Her letter is story and touches everybody in some the story however. Fans of Girl of Ink VKH ELWWHUO\ ÀJKWV DJDLQVW WKLV IRU D intercepted and taken note of but way. There are then clever twists and Stars will love this. JC great part of the story as she feels not for the reasons Lyla would like, DQGWXUQVZKLFKKHOSWKHUHDGHUÀQG her Dad has stolen her away from her instead a whole girl’s schools is out the true motives behind Lyla’s School for Skylarks mum who she adored. As the story relocated to her Great Aunt’s house. father’s actions. ++++ goes on it appears that Lyla’s own This then moves the story on I found the book and characters memory of what happened isn’t quite to meet a much wider range of really grew on me. This book would Sam Angus, Macmillan, 344pp, characters - I think here it gets more give much food for thought for all 978-1-5098-3959-9, £6.99 pbk as it seems and her Great Aunt and absorbing as you really see more of readers and certainly for a class. I wasn’t sure about School for other characters try to open her eyes WRWKLV)RUWKHÀUVWSDUWRIWKHVWRU\ Great Aunt Ada, Solomon her trusted The education observations with Skylarks on my initial reading as I butler and Lyla herself. Lyla hasn’t Great Aunt Ada’s views versus Miss. KDYH DOZD\V KDG D SDUWLFXODU DIÀQLW\ she constantly tries to leave the house and get back to her mum in London. been to school and has had some Pinnacle were my favourite parts (I’m with Eva Ibbotson’s 7KH 'UDJRQÁ\ very interesting tutoring which is ÀUPO\LQ*UHDW$XQW$GD·VFDPS SG 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary

long believed that he was responsible underworld. Budi unintentionally for an accident that changed her upsets a local big-wig landlord known Ed’s Choice life. His own has been limited as a as The Dragon, who blackmails him result. Going back in time allows him and his uncle, putting them under to discover what really happened, and pressure to break the law, or face dire Overheard in a Tower Block therefore to change his future. consequences for the rest of the family. +++++ Judi Curtin is at her best when writing This is a gripping story which Joseph Coelho, illus Kate Milner, about feelings and relationships. She piles on the pressure for the main Otter-Barry Books, does so with a delicacy and sensitivity, character, Budi. But he is optimistic, 978-1-9109-5958-9, 112pp, £6.99 pbk an unforced warmth, and a real loyal and courageous, holding on Growing up on an urban estate in understanding both of young people to his friendship with Rochy and a tower block is not a comfortable and family dynamics. Beth and Molly his love of football, which help him experience. Joseph Coelho’s poems are strong individuals, but as a duo their survive through all his troubles and in this his second collection, are different personalities allow them to be GLIÀFXOWLHVLT not comfortable. They are sharp, the best they can be. Funny and moving, this is a really rewarding read. MMa The Empty Grave disconcerting, intelligent. They are +++++ also quite often humorous. They Kick Jonathan Stroud, Penguin, 548pp, pinpoint experiences, emotions, ++++ 978-0-5525-7579-9, £7.99 pbk the immediate, as he charts living in this world. They are snapshots – Mitch Johnson, Usborne, 304 pp, 7KLV LV WKH ÀQDO QRYHO LQ -RQDWKDQ the bin chute in Binley House that 978 1 4749 2815 1, £6.99 pbk Stroud’s superb Lockwood & Co is the mouth of the “zombie of a This story is about a football-obsessed series. It does not disappoint. Familiar block”; a tower block that literally eleven-year-old called Budi, who lives characters strut the ghostly stage swallows those who live there, the explore, to discover and to savour in Jakarta, Indonesia. Budi’s lives as effectively as ever, with Lucy’s seagulls catching the bread thrown because they will not always reveal in poverty with his parents and his dyspeptic talking skull in particular from the balcony, never landing, their secrets immediately – as the grandmother, and because they need ÀQHIRUP2QFHDJDLQWKHWHDPEUHDN leaving – just as his father left. Prometheus poet knows “The vaults his income to survive, he has to work in to various hotly guarded premises at Running through all the poems is of the gods are hard to break into,/ long hours at a factory instead of enormous risk and as ever just survive. a young boy’s sense of dislocation as thin as spider silk and treasure going to school. The factory makes But there is a limit to how many in a fractured family – captured hooked” – but they are well worth it. football boots for top-level players, times Lucy and partners can escape dramatically and vividly in A Child of The experience is enhanced by Kate and Budi dreams about becoming a otherwise certain death by inches Opposites “I stayed when my mother Milner’s clever vignettes that mirror superstar footballer such as his idol, while still maintaining credibility, and slipped/clung when my father the awkwardness, the curiosity and .HYLQ :DNHÀHOG ZKR SOD\V IRU 5HDO Stroud is wise to wind up the series drifted”. There are recollections of vigour of the boy. Congratulations to Madrid. Budi has a friend called while it is still going so strong. school, of friendships, of holidays, Otter-Barry Books for bringing us this Rochy who is a bit older. They look But how we shall miss this charming as well as charmed band RI D ÀUVW NLVV 7KHVH DUH SRHPV WR collection. FH out for each other at work, and in their spare time play football with two other of ghost-hunters! Stroud has an friends, or watch Real Madrid late at unmatched ability to mix humour Stand By Me in their kindly great-uncle’s life by night on Rochy’s television. with excitement. There are gruesome moments, but somehow they make ++++ ÀQGLQJ RXW ZKDW KDSSHQHG WR FDXVH Budi has a lot to endure. The it, and that means a trip to the 1960s. ZRUN DW WKH IDFWRU\ LV GLIÀFXOW DQG their effect without ever seeming Judi Curtin, O’Brien Press, While there are some excellent he is beaten by the foreman with a nauseating. As in the Harry Potter 978-1847179647, £10.99 tpbk jokes at the girls’ expense as they cane when he is slow, or makes a stories, there is also much about The follow-up to the well-received grapple with the peculiarities of a mistake. He has to be careful, as he death here, including yet another visit time-slip adventure Time after time that seems a million light years has an illness (haemophilia?) which to the Other Side. Things there are Time, Stand By Me again stars best- away from where we are now, it’s PDNHV LW GLIÀFXOW WR VWRS FXWV IURP VLJQLÀFDQWO\ ZRUVH WKDQ WKH VFHQH friends turned stepsisters Molly and not really the time travel element continuously bleeding. But he tries to in London, where citizens dare not Beth and sends them time-travelling that is the biggest concern for Judi keep positive, even in the face of all leave their houses after nightfall for RQFH PRUH :KHUHDV LQ WKHLU ÀUVW Curtin, rather it’s the opportunities his troubles. fear of toxic spirits on the prowl. An adventure the girls found themselves it provides to examine a relationship $ VLJQLÀFDQW HOHPHQW RI WKH ERRN overweening government agency transported back into the 1980s, this and emotions that have developed is the undercurrent of fear; from the supposedly there to hunt them out time they are going further back in over time. Uncle Graham loved a girl repressive government regime, from is in reality playing a more sinister time. They want to put right a sadness he knew as a young teenager but has FRUUXSWORFDORIÀFLDOVDQGWKHFULPLQDO game. But the tiny band of Lockwood

26 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 reviews All the Things That Could Go wants to become more independent 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued Wrong and to make new friends. When Laila ++++ manages to track down her Nana Josie’s Protest Book and discovers Mirin loves the skeleton, who she Stewart Foster, Simon and Schuster, calls Princy, as he makes her laugh. 316pp, 978 1 4711 4542 1, £8.99 pbk more about her dead grandmother’s Stanley is intrigued by him, but fearful, life as an activist a change of spirit is Alex has OCD. His hands are cracked sparked in Laila herself. She begins especially when Jaxon tells him all and sore from compulsive hand- about the tales of the grim reaper. In to work out her place in the world, washing, and his rituals make it to discover what she really believes one of their photos, the boys can see a GLIÀFXOW IRU KLP WR OHDYH WKH KRXVH scythe at the skeleton’s feet. Stanley is important, to make new friends His behaviour, and the fact that he DQG WR ÀQG KHU YRLFH LQ GHIHQGLQJ thinks in order to save his sister, he has to wear gloves to protect his needs to keep her away from Princy’s the rights of others, just as her Nana hands, make him a target for bullying Josie did many years before. clutches, but it isn’t quite as simple at his new secondary school. The as that. This is a powerful, moving, multi- bullying is nasty; intimidating and layered and deeply satisfying story The book is about courage and degrading. Although popular student coming to terms with loss in a family. RI \RXQJ SHRSOH ÀQGLQJ WKHLU SDWK Dan doesn’t really want to join in, he in a confusing, frightening world by The magical element adds a delicious is feeling angry and confused due to other-worldly dimension to the story. standing up for what they feel is right SUREOHPV DW KRPH DQG KH ÀQGV KH and taking action. Laila’s old and The skeleton is unsettling and scary can’t stop himself. ZKHQ LW ÀUVW DSSHDUV EXW LWV DQWLFV new friendships, with Kez, whose The story is told through the two Bat Mitzvah preparations form a make Mirin laugh, and gradually boys’ points of view, presented in Stanley comes to accept the part running moral core to the book, and DOWHUQDWH FKDSWHUV 7KH ÀUVW WKLQJ with Pari, a Syrian refugee, develop it plays. There are many issues to we read from Alex is his List of discuss in this well-crafted debut and strengthen throughout as Laila Worries. Writing out ‘all the things grows in understanding and empathy. novel, and the originality of its images that can go wrong’ is one of the and ideas stay with you. LT Themes of learning from the past and coping mechanisms suggested by his your own background whilst dealing psychologist. This gives us a great  FR LV ÀUPO\ RQ WKH FDVH GHVSLWH with the realities of the world you Roller Girl insight into how Alex thinks and feels, every effort to halt their enquiries. ++++ live in build to the climax of Laila Its members still remain perennially and it’s impressive how he manages organising her own barefoot protest young at heart as well as body despite Victoria Jamieson, Puffin, 240pp, to keep going, with all the anxiety he against local anti-semitism. Laila 978 0 141 37899 2, £7.99 pb all the travails they have experienced faces every day. At the same time, learns both to walk in other people’s in the past and will go on to meet This American graphic novel combines Dan is struggling with his feelings, shoes and to tread her own path. missing his brother Ben who has LQ WKLV ÀQDO YROXPH  SDJHV an action-packed sports story with a The author succeeds in portraying makes for a long read but Stroud’s coming of age tale as it depicts the been sent to a detention centre after the normal ups and downs of family many fans here and abroad will only summer ‘tween-ager’ Astrid becomes getting into serious trouble with the life and relationships in a warm and wish this story was even longer. And totally smitten with the sport of roller police. He writes to Ben frequently, inspirational way. Laila’s narrative and gets to visit him at the centre, GRHV /XF\ ÀQDOO\ PDQDJH WR GHFODUH derby whilst having to start high voice is believable and sympathetic and herself to her cheerfully Byronic boss school and re-negotiate friendships. ZKHUH KH ÀQGV KLV EURWKHU VXEGXHG the world portrayed is multi-cultural, Lockwood, the undeclared love of her When Astrid’s Mom, who likes to and intimidated by his environment. diverse and authentically inclusive. Dan and Alex’s mothers know each OLIH"5HDGRQÀQGRXWDQGHQMR\NT make sure her daughter has varied Readers of the previous titles will be cultural experiences, takes Astrid and other and suggest that the boys spend happy to encounter familiar characters, Skeleton Tree her best friend, Nicole, to see a roller time together in the holidays. Although but the book can stand alone. In +++++ derby game Astrid instantly falls in LQLWLDOO\KRUULÀHGWKH\FDQ·WJHWRXWRI her foreword the author urges young Kim Ventrella, Macmillan love with the sport and signs up for it, and Alex has to spend afternoons readers to work out what paths they Children’s Books, 228pp, summer camp expecting Nicole to and days at Dan’s workshop near will follow, what banners they will hold 978-1-5098-2869-2, £8.99 pbk follow suit. Nicole, however, chooses the beach, where they build a raft up and what words they will write on designed by Ben. Gradually they get to Emmie the Invisible is not really The ballet camp and a new friend instead them. In a sometimes dark and divided know each other, and the story races Skeleton Tree starts out as a bony and so Astrid begins a tough and world, it feels very important to be able to a satisfying conclusion. ÀQJHU JURZLQJ RXW RI WKH HDUWK LQ confusing summer of learning a new to recommend a book full of such hope This is an exceptionally good twelve-year-old Stanley’s backyard. sport, discovering what, and who, and positivity and to bring it to the novel showing the importance of Stanley is struggling to deal with all really matters to her, admitting to attention of as many young people as understanding differences and the tension in his household; his her own mistakes and making some possible. SR accepting people as they are. It father left ten months ago with no GLIÀFXOWFKRLFHV highlights the acute misery caused explanation, his mother is working This is a funny, poignant, warm- A Change Is Gonna Come by bullying, and helps young people long hours, trying to cope on her hearted graphic novel which +++++ empathise with those dealing with own, and his young sister Mirin expressively conveys Astrid’s Edited by Ruth Bennett with Aa’Ishah has a chronic illness. Mostly he’s confusion and uncertainty as her GLIÀFXOW LVVXHV %RWK FKDUDFWHUV Z. Hawton, Stripes Publishing, are sympathetically portrayed. Dan coping well, distracting himself with familiar world changes around her. 978 1 84715 839 0, 315pp, £7.99 pbk is likeable and we can see why he his favourite video game Skatepark The graphic format is perfect for In 2016, Stripes (an imprint of the behaves as he does, even if we Zombie Death Bash, and spending depicting the fast-paced, physical, Little Tiger group), published I’ll be can’t condone it. Alex is especially time with his best friend Jaxon. When girl-power world of roller derby with its Home for Christmas, an anthology of endearing, and his courage in trying he’s stressed, he imagines a zombie fearsome body art and intimidating new short stories and poetry on the to stop a tragedy from happening character called Slurpy can devour all names. Victoria Jamieson is both an theme of ‘Home’; £1 from every copy makes him a true hero. LT his problems, so he can continue to illustrator and a roller derby player sold went to the charity Crisis. This be helpful and supportive to his mum, herself so the setting feels completely Tender Earth year they have devised, with similar authentic and the fact that this his sister and the neighbour who +++++ integrity and ingenuity, A Change Is minds them, Ms. Francine. contact sport is probably not very Gonna Come. In a prefatory note, they The skeleton continues to grow out well known in the UK does not really Sita Brahmachari, Macmillan, say, “The purpose of this anthology is 412pp, 9781509812516, £6.99 pbk of the ground, and Stanley and Jaxon matter as it is Astrid’s steep learning to give creative space to those who try to take photos of it, so they can curve, perseverance and self- Sita Brahmachari returns to the world have historically had their thoughts, enter a science competition. Stanley discovery that form the heart of this of Artichoke Hearts and Jasmine ideas and experiences oppressed.” thinks that if he can win, he can get Newbery Honor Award winning book. Skies with this portrayal of Laila, the Stripes had in mind Black, Asian his dad to come back home again, At once humorous and perceptive youngest member of the Levenson and Minority Ethnic (BAME) writers and the prize money can help pay this novel is one to recommend family, as she copes with a time of of short stories and poems. They the hospital bills. But the skeleton to young people who may also be transition in her life. Laila’s older began by inviting eight established refuses to co-operate. Having fully IDFLQJ WKH GLIÀFXOWLHV RI FKDQJLQJ siblings, Mira and Krish, depart for writers to respond – free from emerged, he’s strangely elusive, IULHQGVKLSVDQGÀQGLQJWKHLUSODFHLQ university just as Laila is about to start editorial constraints – to the theme of appearing at unpredictable times an unfamiliar adolescent world. SR secondary school, leaving her feeling ‘Change’. They also wanted to give that and only visible to children and a few lonely and abandoned. It doesn’t “creative space” to new voices; getting adults such as Ms. Francine. help that Laila’s best friend Kez also published is hard enough, but Stripes

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 27 BfK the tale remarkable are its characters, all about family (and what that can 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued nearly all given individual black and mean) as well as about friendship white portraits by its Swedish author and also being able to reach your own believe it is even harder for writers from to use their limited funds and time and illustrator before the start, and potential, even if the rules say it is not minority backgrounds. In response to introduce non-BAME readers to developed so carefully in the telling possible. This was a really enjoyable to the publisher’s “call for work from such an anthology. Since the book is that, like people in your own life, you story for the 9+ age group and I look unpublished and unagented writers”, intended to be a means of Change in feel that you know them and can still forward to seeing more adventures there were over 100 submissions, itself, Stripes and their contributors be surprised by them. Sally, of course, from these characters. MP from which four stories were selected. deserve every success. GF is the most remarkable of them and the only one not to be pictured initially Love From Lexie In their effort to encourage diversity ++++ in publishing, Stripes also provided Thornhill (although she is later). Her status a placement for a “talented future +++ uncertain in the human world, without Cathy Cassidy, illus Erin Keen, Puffin, editor to get real experience of the Pam Smy, David Fickling Books, a speaking voice to make her feelings 336pp, 978 0 141 37968 5, £12.99 hbk book-publishing process”. Aa’Ishah 978-1-9102-0061-2, 544pp, £14.99 hbk known, although she can write, of Abandoned by her mother, Lexie feels Hawton worked alongside Editorial There is a mystery attached to Thornhill, course, she relies on the friendship lost despite living with kindly foster Director Ruth Bennett throughout the the bleak, dark, deserted house next of people who can recognise her parents and a feisty foster sister, process, from the selection and editing door. Who is the girl in the window? Why intelligence, her manual dexterity, Bex who takes her under her wing. of manuscripts to the production of the are there dolls in the garden? Thornhill her gentleness, and, above all, her 6KH VWLOO KRSHV WR ÀQG KHU PRWKHU ÀQDOERRN does indeed have a history – but you own capacity for friendship. Perhaps, and often writes to her, the letters in some sense, she represents the The range of the writers’ family QHHGWRUHDGWRÀQGRXW remaining unanswered. origins (included in notes about the This is a double narrative – a story outsider and the misunderstood in $IWHU ÀQGLQJ D ORVW WRUWRLVH LQ KHU authors) is more interestingly diverse set in the past (though not such a all of us. Almost certainly, she makes street Lexie realises she is drawn WKDQ WKH DFURQ\P %$0( FDQ UHÁHFW distant past) and the present. The an attractive heroine and observer towards helping other lost souls and “...born in North London to Nigerian difference, one story is told through for a child audience. In its scope and noticing there are many children who parents”; “her dad was from Jamaica the words; the second through its ability to create a world that is GRQ·WTXLWHÀWLQDWVFKRROGHFLGHVWR and her mum was Welsh”; “her mother the illustrations. This is not a new based in historical reality but full of set up a club together with her friend was Guyanese and her father was format but it carries dangers; will adventure and touched with fantasy, Happi and Bex as she understands Irish”; “born in Leicester to an Indian the two stories work together? Here the story reminds me of the work of how her friends have helped her. father and Pakistani mother”; “part Smy creates a dark and satisfying another recently translated author, They arrange the meeting in the local Indian and part Jewish”. The poet narrative that is full of tension, and far Timothée de Fombelle. It’s a real library as the friendly librarian, Miss Musa Okwonga “was born in London from cosy. In the past we meet Mary pleasure to have them both available Walker, has offered them the space to Ugandan parents and is now based Baines, a young girl in care – for that now for those of us who can read and Lexie has used the library as in Berlin”, but most of the writers is what Thornhill is – a care home for FRQÀGHQWO\RQO\LQ(QJOLVK/RQJPD\ a refuge in the past. But when the seem to live in London or elsewhere children – unloved, selectively mute the trend continue. CB school troublemaker turns up with his in Southern England; there is no and bullied. In the present there is Ella, friends under the misapprehension The Boy with One Name that they are there to audition for a reference within the stories to Black, also alone, her father away working ++++ Asian or Minority Ethnic experiences for long hours. This is not an original band - Lost and Found - everything in the industrial areas of the North or scenario. But Smy draws the reader J.R.Wallis, Simon & Schuster, turns on its head and Lexie soon 320pp, 9781471157929, £6.99, pbk the rest of the UK. That’s more a regret in. Mary tells her own story; we read it realises a band might be a great way than a criticism, since there is much as a diary, direct, unadorned. Ella we This is the story of what happens to pull everyone in. Lexie discovers to admire in the anthology’s quality of meet through Smy’s artwork, full page when two young people from widely she has a talent for song writing and content and narrative styles. With the black and white images punctuated differing worlds are thrown together WKH GLVSDUDWH JURXS RI PLVÀWV ÀQG sense of responsibility characteristic by stark black double spreads. The in an epic battle against monsters they have musical talents aplenty. of this book’s creation, Stripes include story builds slowly – unusual, perhaps, that we usually read about in books. Lexie also begins to fall for the DÀQDOSDJHZKLFKOLVWVWRSLFVFRYHUHG for readers accustomed to the action Ruby is running away from yet another notorious lead guitarist, Marley, even along with resources for any reader who of the graphic novel – but gripping. foster home when she is caught up in though she knows he is bad news. might be “worried about coming across The author has given us a stark read a shootout with an Ogre. Jones is an Just when the group are beginning to something that is particularly upsetting with an uncomfortable ending – and apprentice ‘Badlander’ being trained ÀQGWKHLUIHHWWKHOLEUDU\LVWKUHDWHQHG to you”. I’ll use that list to indicate the a question. This is not for the faint- to hunt down monsters in order to with closure and they all rally round as range of issues the stories implicitly hearted – the sheer size of the book protect the human world and during DWHDPWRÀJKWWKHGHFLVLRQHQOLVWLQJ address: bereavement, Islamophobia, might be daunting – but it will certainly this latest encounter his master is the help of a charismatic local painter Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, reward those who dare climb through killed. Ruby decides that she would 0LVV:LQWHUWRÀJKWWKHLUFDXVH racism, refugees, sexuality, terrorism. the barbed wire of the end-pages. FH love to be a ‘Badlander’ and be able Touching on issues such as The list could also have included Brexit to do magic, while Jones just wants to mental health, bullying and domestic and immigration, for that issue destroys The Murderer’s Ape ÀQGKLVUHDOSDUHQWVDQGOLYHWKHOLIH violence in a light handed and never a best-friendship in Nikesh Shukla’s +++++ of a normal boy; together they might didactic way this is a story bursting “We Who?” Since Change is at the Jakob Wegelius, trans. Peter Graves, achieve their ambitions. The problem with positivity and the power of core of the collection, it’s not surprising Pushkin, 648pp, 978 1 7826 9161 7, is that there is a truly wicked Witch friendship. Lexie is a wonderfully that the settings explore past, present £16.99 hbk living in their area of London and they drawn character, by turns vulnerable and future: Catherine Johnson’s tale It’s unlikely that you will otherwise will have to free Jones’ parents from yet with an inner strength that involves circus performers in the early ever come across a female gorilla KHUVSHOOLIWKH\DUHWRÀQGDKDSS\ comes to the fore in activating the 19th Century (based on a historical as the narrator of a story. Especially ending. Can they do this? FRPPXQLW\ VSULW QHHGHG WR ÀJKW WKH character); there are stories from our a story which begins in Portugal What a great adventure with two library closures. She has a real heart own times set in Nigeria, the Calais sometime in an imaginary nineteen very engaging main characters plus of gold despite her traumatic start in Jungle and Hackney and dystopias from twenties or thirties, and involves, a talking gun! That last phrase helps life and you cannot help but root for Irfan Master and Patrice Lawrence. among other episodes, a murder explain the quirky nature of the book her. This is a perfectly pitched feel- In his Foreword, Darren Chetty, that isn’t, a miscarriage of justice, and the strange world that the author good novel that is also a paean to drawing on his 20 years’ service in a kidnapping at sea, the friendship has created. Whilst it is basically our libraries and librarians everywhere. JC London classrooms, notes that “the of an undiscovered prima donna of own environment there is also this The Starman and Me range of books for children is still parallel, magical world which is solid traditional song, and an enforced ++++ WRR QDUURZ DQG GRHVQ·W UHÁHFW WKH sojourn for our heroine as the aide of and dark rather than light and airy. country or the world in which we live. an Indian Rajah. The story unwinds This will appeal to both boys and girls Sharon Cohen, Quercus, 326pp, But, although it’s been a long time at a leisurely pace but, with so many and both Ruby and Jones are full of 9781786540089, £6.99 pbk coming, this is beginning to change.” mysteries to be solved, rescues and energy and willing to get stuck in to all What do you do when you spot He mentions a child in his class who escapes to be made, and the ground of the action. The story is told in the a ‘caveman’ hiding on a local thought “stories have to be about constantly shifting under Sally Jones’s third person, which makes switching URXQGDERXW" :HOO .RÀ GHFLGHV KH white people”. This book should JRULOODIHHWLW·VDVWRU\WKDWFRQÀGHQWO\ between perspectives so much easier. ZDQWVWRÀQGRXWZKRLWLVDQGZKHUH shift such a perspective but the holds you in its comfortable grip and All of the main characters have issues they came from. The character speaks GLIÀFXOW\ OLHV DV BfK readers know, keeps you turning the pages. There that they are trying to resolve and an odd form of English and says his in persuading teachers and librarians are incidents enough but what makes the author uses the plot to give them name is Rorty Thrutch but cannot WKH FKDQFH WR ÀQG VROXWLRQV ,W LV

28 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 reviews 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued 14+ Secondary/Adult remember where he comes from, time is running out. If they cannot beat or why he is in England. He also has this sinister ticking clock then not only some amazing ‘powers’ which allow will the woods and the tomb be destroyed Things a Bright Girl Can Do Sweetfreak him to manipulate some aspects but Aidan’s father’s job with the horses +++++ +++ of a computer; all of which is very belonging to the local landowner, Sally Nichols, Andersen Press, 420 pp, Sophie McKenzie, Simon and Schuster, disconcerting to say the least. Things Lord Berryman, since the land will be 9781783445257, £12.99 hbk 352pp, 978-1-4711-4543-8, £7.99 pbk swallowed by the fracking process and VWDUWWRJHWPRUHFRPSOH[DV.RÀWULHV This story is set in the period of the Carey Logan is a British fourteen to discover Rorty’s origins and there the horses no longer needed. First World War and the passage year old who is best friends with are other people who are also on the The narrative races on, full of twists of the Act of Parliament that gave Amelia. Carey’s older sister Poppy lookout for this lost character. and turns and thick with tensions. The women over the age of 30 the right to was dating Amelia’s brother George. This is a quirky and wonderful three friends only discover the tomb at vote. It is told from the viewpoints of Carey showed Amelia a photograph story that has a distinct feel of Stig the very last minute, just as the frackers three very different women, namely: of Poppy kissing a Spanish boy while of the Dump or even Nation by Terry are about to detonate an explosion Evelyn Collins, a clever upper class she was on holiday. Jealous George Pratchett. It is the concept of the which will destroy it-and them-and girl with sights set on university; May dumped Poppy when he saw the ‘innocent abroad’ and the often very the twist at the end of the book Thompson, who is a middle class photo. Amelia starts receiving truly manipulative and even dangerous reveals a surprising villain and also an girl, like her mother a Quaker and a disturbing messages online from an world that we tend to live in; it also unexpected morality in Lord Berryman. unknown sender named Sweetfreak. looks at how we can use technology This is a roller-coaster of a read, and if SDFLÀVWDQG1HOO6ZDQVFRWWDÀHUFH young woman living close to poverty. She convinces herself that Carey is to change the way the brain works. the ending is a little too neat and tidy, the guilty sender. Their friendship At the heart of the story we have the then the merits elsewhere offer ample 7KH UROH DQG VLWXDWLRQ RI SDFLÀVWV LQ this period are rarely well depicted. ends. The police suspect Carey of theme of family and home and we see compensation. VR All three of these young women are online harassment. Now Carey must how Rorty just wants to get back to the militant suffragists. prove herself innocent. world that he knows. The author has The Girl who Drank the Moon Nichols’s book is unusually The reader initially fails to warm to given us some really dastardly villains +++++ the heroine of this story. It is Carey as well as some very unlikely heroes Kelly Barnhill, Piccadilly Press, herself who triggers the end of her and it is fascinating to see how they 386pp, 9781848126473, £6.99, pbk sister’s relationship by showing the are unveiled as the plot develops. I The people of the ‘Protectorate’ have photo to George. And whatever troubles really enjoyed the various layers of lived with fear and sorrow all of their the story in which differing elements DIIHFWRWKHUSHRSOHKHUÀUVWDQGRQO\ lives. For as long as anyone can thought seems to be for herself. But as gradually come together and create a remember they have had to leave events conspire to place Carey at the satisfying whole. It is a truly original the youngest child of the town out on centre of a nexus of suspicion (even story and I feel that it will have a long the hills, as an offering to a wicked her mother doubts her innocence) life as a classic tale for both individual Witch who lives nearby. Xan, the witch then the reader’s sympathy begins DQGDOVRFODVVUHDGLQJ,WZLOOGHÀQLWHO\ is actually a kind and loving person to be earned. She is cast in the lead be a hit with the top of KS2 and has and every year saves these children role in her school’s musical. But she is DOOWKHKDOOPDUNVRIDSRVVLEOHÀOPRU after they are ‘abandoned’; she then suspended from school and of course TV adaption, only time will tell. MP ÀQGVKRPHVIRUWKHPLQRWKHUWRZQV loses the prized lead. In one momentous year everything When the police are looking for The Warrior in the Mist begins to change when the mother +++++ Carey she runs away with no idea RI WKH VDFULÀFLDO FKLOG REMHFWV DQG LV where she is going. It did not seem Ruth Eastham, Shrine Bell, 203pp, overtaken by her grief. The baby is 978 1 9113 4238 0, £6.99 pbk entirely convincing that a sensible accidently imbued with magic and Xan fourteen year old would act in such a Ruth Eastham weaves historical decides to look after the child she calls wildly senseless manner. events through this fast-paced Luna. The book follows Luna as she The novel maintains its pace story to powerfully illustrate the grows towards adulthood and as she and ends with a powerful surprise profound impact of the distant heads towards 13 years things start to denouement. RB past on the present. Aidan’s village come to a head, because there really is being invaded by frackers, intent is a wicked witch but she is hiding in No Filter on plundering the land to harvest plain sight of the townspeople. VXFFHVVIXO LQ WKUHH VLJQLÀFDQW ZD\V ++++ its reserves, with no thought of This is a truly beautiful and magical The narrative emerges from three the damage they will cause to the fairy tale that deserves to become a Orlagh Collins, Bloomsbury, 368pp, very different protagonists. Nichols 978-1-4088-8451-5, £7.99 pbk ancient Carrus Woods, but only of the classic in the future. It has already makes each of them convincing and This summer romance makes perfect money they will make. This is a place won the Newbery Medal in the USA, she welds their contributions into summer reading. It begins at the which still echoes to the sound of something it really deserves and I a consistent whole. She captures end of term when Em (Emerald) is WKHFRQÁLFWEHWZHHQ4XHHQ%RXGLFFD would like to see it receive recognition impressively the passion these looking forward to the holidays with a and her Iceni warriors and the Roman in the UK. The author has a lyrical, women brought to their struggle for mix of excitement and apprehension. army-she as hopelessly outnumbered almost poetic way of writing at times the most elementary of political rights, Her friends have behaved cruelly to as the fracking protesters but, like and there are times when it really the right to a say in who governs. And another girl and though Em stood WKHPGHWHUPLQHGWRÀJKWRQ touches our heartstrings. Although she depicts with conviction what was She died heroically, but not it is told in the third person we are then a highly unconventional – not to XS IRU KHU VKH GLGQ·W GR VR ÀUPO\ enough to appease her conscience, before she had seen her daughters invited to share the thoughts of say illicit – sexual taste. and she’s very aware too of how easily slaughtered and their ghosts haunt the main characters and in doing Books set in period demand of she herself could become the subject the land, asking to be reunited in so we gradually begin to know and an author willingness to tackle a of her friends’ spite. These worries GHDWK,WLVWR$LGDQWKH\ÀUVWDSSHDU appreciate them. This story includes serious research task if verisimilitude are nothing to what happens when `wisps of bluish mist’-trying to lead all the elements that you would expect is to be achieved. Nichols is to be him to their tombs, the only things from a fairy tale; we have a quest, as congratulated on demonstrating her VKH DUULYHV KRPH WR ÀQG KHU PRWKHU unconscious after a suicide attempt. which will halt the frackers. There well as heroes and villains, a dragon power over what must have been a With her mother in rehab, Em is sent have been other clues such as gentle, and a poetry loving bog monster. mountain of research, though the to her grandma in Ireland. It’s another slow-witted Robbie’s discovery of a The story is multi-layered but it is detail never clouds the narrative. country in more senses than one, and gold armband, clearly from a royal about love and hope overcoming The publication of this book in the she soon decides to close her social grave site-but these have been sorrow and bitterness. It is also about centenary year of Passchendaele is media accounts for the summer, a destroyed by an act of arson and the accepting people for what they are; wholly appropriate. RB attempted murder of Robbie with a their personality rather than their clean break with her other life. fast-moving car. looks. I have now read this story twice 2QKHUÀUVWQLJKWWKHUHVKHPHHWVD Aidan and his friends Jon and Emmi and it still has the power to make me boy on the beach. Liam’s background YRZ WR ÀQG WKH VLWH RI %RXGLFFD·V WRPE emotional, I really do recommend this is very different to Em’s, though as we and thus halt the fracking company, but ultimately uplifting book. MP ODWHU ÀQG RXW WKHLU IDPLO\ VWRULHV DUH

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 29 BfK Everybody Hurts 14+Secondary/Adult continued ++++ Joanna Nadin and Anthony more closely linked than either of them feel, and their sense of betrayal too, McGowan, Atom, 343pp, realised. He has his own pressures as though the man they both love has 978 0 349 00291 0, £7.99 pbk to face: his dad’s building company somehow chosen to leave them. If Lexy had been there, Sophia tells FROODSVHG GXULQJ ,UHODQG·V ÀQDQFLDO It makes for harrowing reading – the us, she’d have said, “This is totally like crash and his father is determined deliberate spite of Foster’s next-door Romeo and Juliet”; and the annoying Liam will train as a Quantity Surveyor, neighbour is particularly shocking – thing is that Sophia knows Lexy would though Liam himself dreams of and a story such as this can have no have been right. Lexy is Sophia’s studying music. happy ending. Nonetheless, there’s ICE friend (In Case of Emergency); As their relationship develops, a sense that the stories we carry she insists on taking the role, since /LDPDQG(PÀQGWKDWZKHQWKH\DUH within us will sustain us. Foster likes she’s a drama queen and Sophia’s together, they can both be who they the squeaky sounds his dad takes a walking life-or-death drama, given really are, and the happiness and to making, which he compares to that she’s got a tumour the size of UHOHDVH WKDW FRPHV ZKHQ \RX ÀQG fairy language: ‘the thrum of wings a tangerine growing in her brain. someone who really gets you is the spinning around dragon eyelashes. It That tumour is the reason Sophia book’s dominant note. meant Dad was still telling stories on has an appointment at Mickey’s 2UODJK &ROOLQV GHVFULEHV ÀUVW ORYH the inside.’ (aka St Michael’s Hospital, Leeds) with a memorable intensity, and Original and well-written this powerful where, out of nowhere and after a readers will be rapt by this story of novel is well-worth seeking out. AR few witty exchanges, a boy she’s Emerald and Liam and their summer. A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars never met before kisses her. On the There are various moments when lips. Which is when Lexy’s comment their happiness seems under threat +++++ would have come in, since the whole and indeed they are revealed to be Yaba Badoe, Zephyr, 298pp, driven North by climate change and WKLQJLVQRWXQOLNH5RPHR·VÀUVWNLVV star-crossed, but in this story warring 978 1 786 69548 2, £10.99 hbk LWV FRQVHTXHQFHV 6DQWH ÀQGV WKHP ZLWK-XOLHW,W·VORYHDWÀUVWVLJKW1RW families are reconciled through their Sante can juggle, sing and dance, in her dreams, dwelling outside time in Old Capulet’s hall crowded with children’s love and honesty. In fact, we walk on a wire, turn somersaults, do in a spiritual otherworld; she needs to Verona’s glitterati, but the canteen at never really feel that these two young draw strength and love from them to Mickey’s where Matt – the unknown lovers will be separated, and the story EDFNÁLSVRQKHUVWDOOLRQ7DM0DKDO That’s not the half of it. Her birth tackle the perils back in her own time. boy - has just used some fake coins is all the better for that. Characters, name was Asantewaa, an Ashanti And the plot? All those circus skills to get a plate-load of trans fats at the VHWWLQJ DQG HPRWLRQV DUH ÀQHO\ from Ghana. As a baby she survived were hard-won through disciplined McDonald’s counter. described and this is recommended when a trawler carrying refugees to training, for when Sante was cast Matt and Sophia tell the tale in reading for the romantically inclined LS Europe was deliberately rammed ashore, she was found by Priss and alternating chapters which often race Forgetting Foster and sunk. She is also a ‘mind- also by Mama Rose, Redwood the along in breathless stand-up comedy whisperer’, able to tune in to other Harvard graduate, Midget Man, mode. Matt’s a novice at chatting up ++++ SHRSOH·V WKRXJKWV ´FDWFKLQJ WKH À]] Bizzie Lizzie and their friends who girls, let alone kissing them. Sophia’s Dianne Touchell, Allen & Unwin, and whirl of what’s deep inside ‘em travel the roads of Southern Europe, more experienced, at least as far as 240pp, 978-1-7433-6899-2, £6.99 pbk is what I do best,” she says. She living “off the grid” beyond the grasp the technical side of things goes. But whispers into the mind of Priss, a of Authority, performing as Mama neither has known anything of what A Small 'LDQQH7RXFKHOO·VÀQHQRYHO golden eagle who watches over her, Rose’s Family Circus. Sante’s 14 now they might call love; and even though Madness described the terrible and she even whispers to the spirits and she, Cobra and his snakes - ever page 1 of Everything Hurts lists 5 consequences of keeping secrets, of of the unquiet dead drowned that day responsive to his mystical summons things Sophia doesn’t believe in and a family failing to be honest, and in in the Mediterranean, revisiting those DQG&DWZLWKKHUÁDVKLQJNQLYHVDUH 1R LV ´/RYH DW ÀUVW VLJKWµ ERWK Forgetting Foster her subject is also desperate moments night after night the stars of the show. It’s a good life, Sophia and Matt long for subtleties a family experiencing bewildering and in her dreams. Sometimes she’s close not least because Sante’s certain and connections which go well beyond traumatic breakdown, and struggling to her infant self, launched clear of that one day she’ll marry Cobra. Sure, fumbling sex for sex’s sake. There are WRÀQGWKHZRUGVWRWDONDERXWLW the carnage in her sea-chest cradle; the Young Ones are impatient with the further echoes of R&J: a party when The story is told from the viewpoint sometimes she looks down, riding Old Ones at times – and vice versa - things are clearly going to go badly, of seven-year-old Foster. His dad has the gales on Priss’s back, sharing her but that’s Families for you. Tensions D YLROHQW ÀJKW EHWZHHQ ULYDO JDQJV always been a hero to Foster, whether eagle’s eye view. become serious when the teenagers ending in a bloody stabbing - though LQ KLV EXVLQHVV VXLW FRQÀGHQWO\ British-Ghanaian writer Yaba Badoe help to rescue a strange red-headed here the feud is not between “two conducting negotiations over the may well be drawing on storytelling English girl, Scarlett, who has walked households, both alike in dignity”, so telephone, or when he comes in to roots nurtured well beyond Europe. naked into the Atlantic near Cadiz with much as the cultures of two schools school to spellbind the children as a She’s wild and daring in the risks no intention of coming back. The Old from different sides of the tracks, one storyteller. Telling stories has always she takes in her frequent images – Ones are far from sure they want to private, one comp. been something the two have shared: yet unselfconscious: “suddenly, the take her in, but Cat and Scarlett have Their narrative voices, however, when Foster’s mum was very poorly love-shine in him beams from his connected with a passion that brooks could hardly be less Shakespearian. A in hospital, his dad made sense of it face and licks mine”; “he steps slow no challenge. So Scarlett stays. trawl of a few random pages produces: for his son through invented stories, as a parson on the highway to hell”. As Sante and her friends seek Fucknuts, wankers, knobhead, “he’s mum becoming a princess in her own She needs her darker images, for the those who killed her parents and their such a dick”, frick-fracking (Sophia’s fairytale. But when his dad begins evil threading through this adventure fellow refugees in the shipwreck, her favourite, as in “frick-fracking Jesus”), WR FKDQJH ÀUVW EHFRPLQJ IRUJHWIXO drives not only the murderous enemies are hunting her since they HIÀQJ DVLQ-XVWLQHIÀQJ%LHEHUHIÀQJ then confused and angry, no-one has want their share of the treasures EDERRQ·V$56(RU.LOOLPDQHIÀQJMDUR  the time to explain to Foster what is VKLSZUHFNEXWDOVRWKHVH[WUDIÀFNLQJ of teenagers reduced to helpless prey which were packed alongside her in Yet at the same time, there might happening, not his increasingly tense for human vultures – rich old men the sea-chest cradle. In the violent be references in Sophia’s chapters and exhausted mother, or his aunty, and cackling old women. climax, snakes and moths and a single to Sartre, Joni, Leonard Cohen and or the care-workers who become Readers need to be alert to judge dagger are lethal weapons as the – frequently – The Great Gatsby; regular visitors to the house. Instead, what’s dream and what’s tangible, XQTXLHW VSLULWV WDNH D ÀQDO UHYHQJH while Matt reveals an old-fashioned watching and eavesdropping, he’s left what’s spoken and what’s thought, for There are no easy comic distractions. decency and an honesty about what to make up his own stories to explain apart from Sante’s mind-whispering, It’s breath-taking stuff, handled with KH·VÀQGLQJRXWDERXWKLPVHOI,QWKH what is happening to his father and her friends the twins Cobra and Cat the daring and pace demanded by the privacy of their writing, both couple his family. also need no words to sense the risks of such storytelling. Things don’t LQWHOOLJHQFHZLWKUHÁHFWLRQ Touchell describes the onset and other’s thoughts or whereabouts. get much more original than this. GF Much of their narration thinks development of Alzheimer’s disease Then there’s the only other survivor through their feelings for each other. with a precision that is both exact of the shipwreck; he too can summon Nadin and McGowan may employ and lyrical. Readers understand up the restless drowned - but is he on elements which are very familiar to completely the awful sense of loss her side? Among those victims were experienced YA readers: the serious and grief that both Mum and Foster Sante’s mother and father, refugees illness, the catastrophic party, the

30 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 reviews Freshers for the state she is in could over so 14+Secondary/Adult continued ++++ many pages have soon turned into a prolonged exercise in privileged self- Tom Ellen & Lucy Ivison, Chicken ÀJKW WKH IXQQ\ DQG HPSDWKHWLF JD\ KDQGOLQJ IULHQGVKLSV ÀQGLQJ DQ SLW\ %XW GHEXW DXWKRU /\GLD 5XIÁHV House 384pp, 978-1-9106-5588-7, no longer a teenager herself but best friend, the alternating narrators. LGHQWLW\ (PPD ÀQGV KHUV ZKHQ DW £7.99pbk But beyond these features, they also her mother’s suggestion she begins ZLWK VRPH ÀUVWKDQG H[SHULHQFH RI Luke Taylor and Phoebe Bennet explore an intimacy which lies outside to develop her talent for making what Lux has to go through, largely went to the same secondary school, the grasp of Sophia and Matt’s clothes and realises that when she avoids going down this path by the though they were not special friends. closest friends (complex characters does this she not only likes herself exercise of her obvious intelligence, in their own right with psychological much better but also realises that she 'XULQJ WKHLU ÀUVW ZHHN UHDGLQJ her sharp wit and a lively prose style. disabilities you wouldn’t wish on does not need to be part of a couple (QJOLVKOLWHUDWXUHDWWKHÀFWLRQDO

Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017 31 Classics in Short No.125 Brian Alderson Is The Children of the New ForestWKHHDUOLHVW(QJOLVKÀFWLRQIRU children to never go out of print?

Captain Marryat in Edward’s accidental encounter, in the (or, sequentially, Midshipman, Lieutenant, role of Armitage’s grandson, with a newly Commander, Marryat) came somewhat appointed Parliamentary Intendant of the late to writing novels and later still to Forest and his daughter. Through this the writing novels for children. His run of plot opens out to some side-adventures, rollicking sea- and adventure-stories for a with villainy and bloodshed, rather in mainly adult readership had almost run its the style of those experienced by Mr course by 1840 when his children who, it Midshipman Easy in Marryat’s best-known seems, were fans of The Swiss Family novel of the same name. While not quite Robinson requested papa to write them a a deus ex machina, the Intendant, who sequel to that unexhausted kaleidoscope had been a friend to Cromwell, proves of desert-island life. more sympathetic than the latter’s more fanatical followers, and will ultimately Papa was appalled. become a saviour of the Arnwood estate Consulting one of the many varied and Edward’s father-in-law to boot. translations that were coming on the The problem market at that time he saw no good in it: ‘Amusing’ it may have been but ‘it does that confronted Marryat in the planning of not adhere to the probable, or even the the story was the dozen years that passed possible, which should ever be the case between the burning of Arnwood and the in a book, even if fictitious, when written Restoration during which the children of for children’. The want of seamanship was the New Forest all grow into twenty-year- predictable since that occurred regularly olds, while the political tensions more in naval writings, but it was ‘the ignorance, or less disappear. There is some sleight or carelessness’ in matters concerning of hand in the galloping history of those animal, vegetable, and topographic affairs assumed that the four Beverley children, years, but the fiction is saved at its final, that forbade any attempt at continuation. all orphans, died in the immolation. But, Hollywood-style denouement, by what So he decided to write a fresh account ‘in thanks to that vital ingredient in adventure has sustained it throughout: Marryat’s the same style’. stories, an overheard conversation, the success in the portrayal of his maturing children are rescued just before the characters. That turned out to be Masterman Levellers arrive and are taken into the Ready; or the wreck of the Pacific, In hopes forest to live with the Beverleys’ faithful of establishing his author as a distinctive the first volume of which was published retainer, Jacob Armitage. by Longman in 1841. Marryat saw it as a writer for children, the publisher bow at a venture, promising more if it was The four children, announced this work as the first of a successful, and in 1842 two further volumes two boys, aged thirteen and twelve, and ‘Juvenile Library’ of Marryat’s work and showed that that had been the case. For two girls, eleven and eight, are biddable gave the two volumes coloured title all its accuracy though, it shares with its learners, despite their rank, and, taking pages. They were also illustrated with forerunner unappealing moments of piety their harbouring in a forest cottage as twelve handsome etchings by Marryat’s and didacticism whose continuance in a bit of a game, adapt themselves to son, Frank. The project was short-lived print down to the twentieth century tells their suddenly restricted fortune. Jacob however because Marryat died before he more of the moribund nature of ‘reward- Armitage, on whose wits they are entirely could finish the next volume in the series: book’ publishing than of a genuine dependent, is a bit of a Masterman Ready The Little Savage, which Frank had to affection on the part of the readers. in his bluff practicality, but he is not given complete. It had less success, probably for that reason, but The Children established Contemporary success however, so regularly to homespun theology and his forest skills are the more easily passed a secure niche for themselves and have pointed a way forward for Marryat as a on to his pupils than would be those of never been out of print since their first writer and with the publication of The the old mariner. As time goes on, through sojourn in the New Forest. Children of the New Forest in two the development of the children’s native volumes in 1847 he aimed for a less abilities, the cottage retreat becomes The Children of the New Forest is formulaic children’s book. It opens in something of a successful smallholding published by CreateSpace Publishing 1647 at the time of the escape of Charles I – Edward, the eldest, becoming a great 978-1-4848-7348-9 from detention in Hampton Court and his deer-stalker and thus producer of saleable presumed flight southwards to the coast. venison, his brother, Humphrey, a natural Brian Alderson is founder of the Ruthless Levellers are after him, burning property developer and creator of a little Children’s Books History Society down, in the course of their hunt, the working farm. and a former Children’s Books Editor for mansion of the Royalist Beverley family The Times. His book The Ladybird Story: The tension at Arnwood, near Lymington, on the off Children’s Books for Everyone, chance that the King is hiding there. That between the need for secrecy and The British Library, 978-0712357289, might have been the end of the story some necessary contacts with the £25.00 hbk, is out now. since no quarter was offered and it was world beyond the cottage eventuates

32 Books for Keeps No.226 September 2017