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| P. R. Morrison |
| Bloomsbury Children's Books |
| 074757950 |
| Feb 2006 |
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The Wind Tamer is distinctively sensual. First time author P. R. Morrison has a wonderful knack for grounding her prose with strong imagery. The brilliant pure white Ice Gulls against the bleak darkness of Westervoe in coastal Scotland and the slam and screech, whistle and roar of the wind make for a hugely atmospheric and at times filmic backdrop to an unusual novel that sweeps readers into its richly imaginative world of suspense and intrigue.
Archie Stringweed is turning ten; there’s a suspicion amongst his family that life will never be the same again… Several generations ago a curse was put on the Stringweed family and early on in the novel a terrible transformation takes place. A web of curiosities and mysteries involving green balls of light, talking gusts and blusters of wind, clouds of white birds, a huge amount of snow, a couple of coins and the sudden appearance of eccentric and well-travelled Uncle Rufus all come together as part of the conflict with the tornado Huigor. The main strength of this novel is its castlist of colourful and unconventional characters. They are painted with verve and good humour and each has their own particular anxiety to overcome. It is how they do this and the type of bravery they display that makes the novel both heartening and admirable. At times the onslaught of different and discursive story-elements leaves the reader feeling slightly wind-swept, but this is a book that will quench the thirst for action and adventure of even the most thrills-desperate child.
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Mystery/Thriller: January 2006 Archives
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| Nick Gifford |
| Puffin Books |
| 0141317329 |
| Jan 2006 |
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Eugenics – the wilful manipulation of the human gene pool with the assumed aim of betterment… By whose will, however, is manipulation carried out, and from what motivations do these actions arise? In Erased Nick Gifford explores these ideas to their utmost in a story that genuinely chills and chafes at ethical and moral certainty…
‘Home 4 the wkend? Surprise 4 mum. CU fri. Rsvp.’ Liam Connor receives exeat to go home and spend the weekend with his mother and father. On arriving at the family home, however, he finds it has been ransacked and his mother and father are missing. The situation descends still further when, returning for a second time the following day, neighbour Mr Mendes fails to recognise him or to acknowledge that the Connor family have ever resided there. Memories and the world that Liam has inhabited are fast being erased, leaving him to rely on wile and wit to survive and discover the truth both of his origins and his time at the sinister NATS school. A ‘flesh’ of fact must cover bones of horror if fear is to be instilled into readers and this is where Nick Gifford excels with his work. Though he writes of extreme situations there is plausibility… Search through the annals of history and the blight of eugenics and the power that megalomaniacs who wield it as their ideological club are inked upon the pages of history books in human blood. Erased is a real romp of a read. That it equips readers with an awareness of the mechanics of inhumanity must be a step towards ensuring history’s mistakes are not repeated.
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