Early Readers: September 2007 Archives

The highly innovative and imaginative illustrator Joel Stewart proves himself equally proficient at the pacing and plotting of fiction for young readers in “The Trouble with Wenlocks”. Travel on a train takes an unexpected turn when everyone slips into slumber save for Stanley Wells who experiences an apparition. This apparition is later revealed to have been a Wenlock, an ethereal being with the ability to remove fear and uncertainty.

With parents living apart, and voyages made between their respective home, Stanley has been the subject of great change. His train ride extends as a metaphor for the journey of his own life, one that he must travel, arriving at difficult decisions alone with regard to his outlook and intended destination...

Delightfully idiosyncratic and whimsical, Joel Stewart captures that sense of the surreal that accompanies feelings experienced for the first time. Caught, on the one hand, between the enigmatic Dr Moon's careful guidance and sage advice and, on the other, Joel Stewart's intriguing first novel, readers could not be in safer hands.

Although sometimes overt in the narrative’s placement of moral and ethical standards, the story nonetheless makes for a fast-paced, action adventure that will doubtless find a legion of fans foremost of these are likely to be those who are savvy with the fast evolving worlds of gadget and computer aided technologies. With often exotic and far-flung locations, an increasingly enticing array of spy gadgetry and the promise of top-secret assignments, this series has enough hooks to capture the imaginations of even the most reluctant of readers…

Assigned the task of looking after new pupil, Ivan, by headteacher Mrs Blaizely, Boris finds himself constantly trying to veil darkly threatening comments and a deliberate flouting of authority when translating his new class-mates comments from Russian into English for the benefit of teachers and pupils alike at the highly convivial St Edmund’s school. Throughout the course of the day, the problem escalates in magnitude, placing Boris into ever more cringe-worthy, difficult circumstances as he tries to meet and match Ivan’s menace with good manners.

Anne Fine’s trademark black humour is laced with a delicious sense of precision and of timing throughout the novel. As concurs with the author’s body of work per-se, however, underpinning this humour are keen observations as to the functionality of communication in modern life, the need for expressing one’s wants and desires across whatever boundaries we encounter in life – whether these be geographical or based around engaging with those from different ages or backgrounds to our own and a tendency for children’s voices to be marginalised alongside the egalitarian intents of those imbued with their education and wellbeing.

Publication of this admirable and compelling short novel is the flagship for Anne Fine’s revised and rejacketed backlist with Egmont books.