ACHUKAblog
Reissue of Spinelli memorable novel first published in 2000.
She’s as magical as the desert sky. As mysterious as her own name. Nobody knows who she is or where she’s from. But everyone loves her for being different. And she captures Leo’s heart with just one smile.
Parker Grant doesn’t need perfect vision to see right through you. That’s why she created the Rules: Don’t treat her any differently just because she’s blind, and never take advantage.
A moving story of the extraordinary friendship between a boy and his fox, and their epic journey to be reunited. Beautifully illustrated by multi-award winner, Jon Klassen.
The author has said, “With Pax I wanted to say something about the unfairness of the damages done to kids when adults wage war, but also something about the amazing and redemptive connections that are possible between young humans and animals.”
Amanda has a secret. At her old school, she used to be called Andrew. And secrets always have a way of getting out…
The author, an American living in Tennessee, writes from the perspective of a trans woman. “I wrote If I was Your Girl because I want young people to know that, though it might be hard and complicated, a trans life can be filled to bursting with success, friendship, and love.”
Book two in the new supernatural DEMON ROAD trilogy from bestselling author DEREK LANDY, creator of international sensation Skulduggery Pleasant.
The follow-up to Wheatle’s YA debut, Liccie Bit, returning to the South Crong estate. The INDEPENDENT called the first book “Wise as well as witty, understanding rather than blinkered… a joy to read.
The second novel by the author of Solitaire, Alice Oseman – one of the most talked-about YA writers currently, and still only 21, completing her studies at Durham University.
A YA coming of age read that tackles issues of identity, the pressure to succeed, diversity and freedom to choose.
For various reasons my reading of contemporary YA fiction was not as comprehensive during 2013 as it should have been and I found myself attending the presentation of this year’s Branford Boase Awards (for a first children’s novel) having only read two of the shortlisted books. The winning book, Infinite Sky by C. J. Flood, was not one of them.
When I interviewed Jon Walter recently (on publication of his debut novel Close To The Wind, which I can confidently predict will be shortlisted for the Branford Boase next year) he made a telling comparison between his own writing style and that of C. J. Flood’s, using the metaphor of photography. “Her writing is like she is looking through a 50mm lens the whole time and she doesn’t vary it. I think of distance a lot when I write, so I zoom in and zoom out. With her you feel she has this beautifully composed view that she moves around at the same focal length.” And in case this could be construed as an implied limitation, he added, “You have to be really skilled to do that well.”
Having now read (and enjoyed and admired in equal measure) C. J. Flood’s book, I can see exactly what Jon Walter meant. The novel has an emotional intensity that reminded me at times of the mood in some of Anthony Masters’ books, whose short YA fiction was popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Interestingly, the eviction of gypsies from a campsite was often the subject of one of Masters’ improvised Book Explosion events.
Here the gypsy encampment is small and is mainly a botheration to Iris’s father, who jumps to conclusions when his toolshed is broken into. The father’s fierce protectiveness towards both Iris and her older bother Sam are understood by the reader in relation to the fact that his wife, their mother, has recently abandoned home to go on a trip of self-discovery.
Flood’s handling of the romantic bond between the 13 year old female narrator, and the slightly older gypsy lad Trick, captures the magic of first love in writing that manages to be both lyrical and firmly realistic. Flood’s viewpoint may be, according to Walter’s observation, through a 50mm lens the whole time, but (to take the photographic analogy further) she knows just when to open up the aperture throwing the surround into soft-bokeh relief. The small rendezvous that they kit out with cushions for their trysts is only visited on a few occasions, the last time by Iris on her own, but the reader is left feeling they know this place as well as the characters in the story. (The hardback had a wholly suitable illustrated cover design, which I wish had been retained for the first paperback edition – the latest paperback cover shown above is much much better.)
I did not anticipate the dark and violent turn of events, but was swept along by them. Notwithstanding the book’s Prologue (which personally and in retrospect I consider to be an ill-judged inclusion), you start reading Infinite Sky lulled by the mood of summer, by the title, and the fact that young first love is in the air, into thinking that all will stay rather lovely and soft-focus, with the occasional conflict between siblings, and between parents and children, not knowing that tragedy and inescapable retribution are just around the corner.
A superb novel, a well-deserving winner of the Branford Boase Award, and a book that cries out to be filmed.
WHY WE TOOK THE CAR by Wolfgang Herrndorf
I am sitting here exhaling air in the way you do after reading a book that has blown you away, leaving a bereft ache in your heart. In the case of Why We Took The Car, a German YA novel originally published in 2010 under the title of Tschick (the name of the co-leading character), and now available from Andersen Press in a superb English translation by Tim Mohr, the sense of heartache is all the more awful for having discovered just now, via a quick search on the interent, that the book’s author, Wolfgang Herrndorf, shot himself last summer, after being diagnosed with a brain tumour a few years previously.
This is the only Young Adult book he wrote (his other work is for adults), but it should find a lasting place as one of the very best books in its genre.
Mike Klinkenberg, the narrator of the book, would like to be less boring. He’d like to have more friends. He’d like to be invited to parties. And he’d like Tatiana to take notice of him. His mother’s an alcoholic and after writing an all-too-honest essay about her, which his class find hilariously weird, he’s dubbed ‘Psycho’.
Things change when new boy Tschick joins the class. He’s Russian and an oddball – often turns up blind drunk, but doesn’t let anyone, including the teacher, push him around.
For Tatiana’s birthday (another party to which he is not invited) Mike creates an oversized drawing of Beyonce but seems unlikely ever to have the confidence to present it to her.
But when Tschick picks him up in a ‘borrowed’ Lada car, one of the first things they do is drive over to Tatiana’s house, where the party is in full swing, to present the drawing.
No sooner have they handed it over than they’re doing a 180 degree turn in the middle of the street and speeding away on a week long road adventure that will be the happiest time of their lives.
Everything that happens on the road has that raw authentic feel that you get from the best of European films (indeed, it is easy to visualise this book as a movie).
I’m not going to attempt to describe the experiences the two of them have, or the characters they meet along the way. Read the book for yourselves. Before going into English translation it already had more than one million sales in foreign editions. If any book is deserving of multi-million readership it is this.
Publishers Weekly picks up on the controversy and Twitter debate about the a novel already released in the UK but not published in America until June. I cannot help but think this coverage is anything but helpful to the book’s chances of gaining a readership 🙂
The book’s language first drew media attention on February 4, when Telegraph culture editor Martin Chilton wrote an opinion piece addressing the language issue. Chilton wasn’t so much taken back by the obscenities – although his profanity list for a 16-page stretch of text is sizable – but rather he expressed concern that the publisher is using the fact of the strong language to publicize the book. “It is not as though publishers, Bloomsbury, are unaware of the novel’s content, which they have issued simultaneously on their YA and adult list… because they are using the swearing to publicise the book,” Chilton wrote. “Charlie Higson’ verdict (that the book is “funny and foul-mouthed”) is included on the press release along with two ostensibly humorous promotional slogans: “Welcome to the world of Dylan Mint. He’s going to take you on one *#@! of a journey” and “When Mr Dog Bites is controversial, hilarious and #@!Δing brilliant!”
