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Archives for March 2006

The Colossus of Rhodes

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The Colossus of Rhodes by Caroline Lawrence

Dolphin Paperbacks

1842551388

Oct 2005

Having read about a forthcoming television series to be made of Caroline Lawrence’s popular Roman Mysteries series by the BBC, I was compelled to catch up with the antics of Flavia and friends. The most recent paperback, The Colossus of Rhodes, takes to the sea, with the usual appealing mix of mystery, history, humour, myth and adventure. Each of the Roman Mysteries tends to focus on one of the four main characters – and this is Lupus’s story. Setting sail from Ostia in Lupus’s ship, with Flavia’s father as Captain, the friends embark on their latest mission – to find and free the children kidnapped into slavery by the evil Venalicius the slave-dealer. Lupus also has his own agenda – to fulfil a sacred oath to himself to find his long-lost mother.
Lawrence’s skill at mixing humour and tragedy is once again demonstrated as Lupus’s dream is dangled in front of him in an emotive, frantic but ultimately abortive quest. There is some resolution as far as the kidnapping strand to the story goes – but only after Flavia and co have run the gauntlet of obstacles and red-herrings, as always ducking out of mortal danger just in the nick of time. The journey from Ostia to Rhodes entails some wonderful descriptions of the Mediterranean and Greek Islands, conjuring an atmospheric backdrop and a vivid sense of time and place. Perfect entertainment for any families heading to the Greek Islands this holiday season, The Colossus of Rhodes keeps up the momentum of this excellent series, making you eager to read the next one. Visit RomanMysteries.com for more information about the BBC adaptation and details of forthcoming books in the series.

Alice Next Door

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Judi Curtin

The O’Brien Press

0862788986

Mar 2006

The O’Brien Press are a small independent publisher based in Dublin. They run a distinctive and distinguished list and can boast the accolade of having discovered both Eoin Colfer and Siobhan Parkinson. With Judi Curtin, they present a challenge to the mantle currently held by the ever-popular Jacqueline Wilson.
‘Alice Next Door’ is structured around two best friends, Megan and Alice who are separated when the latter moves from their home-town of Limerick to start off afresh with her mother in Dublin. The book focuses on their endeavours to stay in touch, the feelings of loss both experience and a, perhaps, none too cunning plan to stay together!
Where this book succeeds so well is in showing the repercussions that decisions made by adults have on children and the ways in which, accordingly, they must live through these. A happy-ever-after scenario is not presented at the end of the novel, but then this would not be feasible either for Megan or for Alice. The resultant ending is about compromise and leaves the way wide open for a sequel featuring this indomitable duo. At once perceptive and humorous, this novel will doubtless strike a chord with many young readers.

Road Closed

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Jan Mark

Hodder Children’s Books

0340861002

Mar 2006

Published posthumously, this short novel illustrates just what a loss Jan Mark’s is to the world of children’s literature. Connie is staying with her gran as preparations for a street party take place. Anxious that she will not know anyone, Connie is unsure that she wants to attend’
‘Road Closed’ takes seriously the very real and sometimes paralysing childhood fear of the unexpected and of not knowing anyone that often accompanies parties and indeed attendance at other social gatherings. It sensitively shows how being oneself, showing awareness to others and meeting the needs of those around us responsively not only helps us have a good time, but also ensures that others do too. The story here powerfully demonstrates how the situations we are placed within and our responses towards these play key roles in determining the type of person we are seen to be’
A genuinely surprising ending is not easily achieved within so short a time-span and for such a young audience, it is testament to the writer’s skill and indeed to her latent understanding of the importance of childhood to all of us that one is here posited. A book with a big heart and a bold view regarding the ongoing significance of childhood years.

Butter-finger

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Bob Cattell and John Agard

Frances Lincoln

1845073762

Mar 2006

‘Calypsos are about serious things, they about funny things, but they are always bursting with life.’

Familiar to many as the author of the ‘Glory Gardens’ series, cricket writer extraordinaire Bob Cattell is teamed with poetsonian* John Agard in ‘Butter-Finger’, the fourth book in Frances Lincoln’s new fiction list for 8 to 12 year olds.
Riccardo Small ‘ diminutive in name, stature and the regard he is held within by Calpyso Cricket Club ‘ has big dreams of playing with and winning alongside his team. Things do not go according to plan, however, when Riccardo is afforded the opportunity to play for the team and he misses a catch. This is compounded still further when the band strike up with a new calypso called ‘Butter Finger’.
This short book sensitively illustrates just how crushing defeat and petty name-calling can be for young children. It also carefully outlines team-work and the roles all individuals are able to play in contributing towards this. Sometimes serious, sometime satirical but always life affirming. A brilliant blend of poetry and prose that begs to be read aloud!
* According to John Agard, a poetsonian is a poet who feels a close connection with Caribbean calypsonians

The Year the Gypsies Came

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Linzi Alex Glass

Puffin

0141382783

Mar 2006

‘Alles moet verbygaan’


This is the ideal book for reading in one sitting on a long, hot summer’s evening when the ways of the world feel slowed and yet, somehow, more sharply focused.
Linzi Alex Glass shows a real affinity for writing ethereal, poetic prose. She conjures indelible images that carry an almost overwhelming weight of nostalgia for childhood’s transience. Taking as its central preserve the notion that failing relationships appear at their strongest to those who know little about their ‘insiders’, ‘The Year the Gypsies Came’ forces consideration into the costs invoked when appearances gain greater standing than substance and inner-workings.
The pace at the start of the novel is lethargic, perfectly capturing the ways in which the Iris family feel to have stagnated amidst the heat of the summer. There is a sense in which great undercurrents of emotion already ebb and flow beneath the thoughts and actions of each of the characters even at early stage, however. It is the news that guests will be staying with the family, ‘gypsies of a kind’, that pours placatory oils over unsettled waters’
Any thoughts that Jock, Peg, Otis and Streak might be conciliatory influences quickly become dispelled as these large-as-life guests make their appearance. The travellers have a raw, untamed and ‘ at points ‘ almost savage approach towards life and its living. They bring with them their own set of values and their own prejudices which contrast greatly to the Iris family’s civilised, genteel outlook.
The urge of mother, Lily Iris, to find adventure and pace in her life and the eagerness of her husband to appease such desires leads daughters Sarah and Emily into danger and ultimately to the tragedy that besets the famil,y tearing its very fabric apart.
Here is writing that is seductively sensual, here is writing that is at once powerful, yet tender, here is a story that arises from a loose thread that once pulled leads one deeper and deeper to uncover layer upon layer of memory and self perception’ a remarkable work.

A Darkling Plain

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Philip Reeve

Scholastic

1904442714

Mar 2006

The fourth and final book in the Mortal Engines series. Six months after the seismic events described in Infernal Devices, Tom and his daughter Wren are working the Bird Roads in their beloved airship, the Jenny Haniver. While Wren thrives, Tom secretly struggles with his weakened heart and his unresolved feelings for his wife Hester, who, in a supreme act of self-destruction, deserted her family and surrendered herself to the stalker Shrike. However, Tom gains a renewed sense of purpose when a serendipitous (or so it seems) series of events lead him full circle, back to the ruins of London. Meanwhile, the uneasy truce between the Traction Cities and the Green Storm proves dangerously vulnerable to exploitation.
I absolutely loved this book, having already relished the earlier titles in the series. Reeve’s exceptional fondness for his characters frees them to behave in complicated, inconsistent and often misguided ways, and the relationships between the characters are similarly complex (Hester and Shrike being the most poignant example). This is writing of much greater emotional subtlety and empathy than is suggested by the muscular ‘steampunk’ setting. A Darkling Plain is not as unreservedly fast-paced as the earlier books; despite the dreadful thrill of the escalating hostilities between the Traction Cities and the Green Storm, the narrative is interspersed with strange little episodes of introspection, as the Stalker Fang explores her inimical dual personalities, and Tom contemplates his rapidly failing health. Moreover, the conclusion of the book is simply astonishing and alters the reader’s sense of everything that has gone before, through an extraordinary shift of perspective. I could go on’

Wolves

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Emily Gravett

Macmillan Children’s Books

1405050829

Aug 2005

Progression in post-modern approaches to picture books has brought exciting changes to the format. Notable innovators who have explored and evolved these boundaries include Pablo Bernasconi, Lauren Child, Sara Fanelli, Mini Grey and Neil Gaiman/Dave McKean to name but a small handful. ‘Wolves’, the debut book by Emily Gravett constitutes her own singular addition to the oeuvre.
Ostensibly a book about wolves, this book brilliantly charts the mimetic processes of reading undertaken by the poor, unfortunate rabbit who finds himself the hapless protagonist in this post-structural work having curiously just borrowed a familiar looking book about wolves from West Buckinghamshire Public Burrowing Library!
If this sounds staid or unappealing, it is the dynamism between the crisp, clear, well-defined illustrations and the sparse, informative text from whence, between both, the resultant meta-narrative blossoms, that brings this highly original three-tone book to life’
This truly is a book to be loved, cherished and adored by all who value reading because it wonderfully maps the way words and pictures hold that remarkable ability to fuel our minds and imaginations, drawing us gradually further into their clutches until the boundaries between reader and what is read become blurred at the edges!
The intense preoccupation and determination of the rabbit brings to mind John Tenniel’s interpretation of the White Rabbit in Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’. Here is a rabbit who is so intent upon doggedly continuing his reading and his quest for knowledge about wolves, that he is oblivious to the fact that first his ear, then his posterior and gradually his entire body becomes consumed within the narrative of the book, ultimately to be consumed by the wolves therein’
If that sounds frightening the author quickly asserts:

‘no rabbits were eaten during the making of this book’

and an alternative ending is provided for sensitive readers. If this sounds like pandering towards readership in pursuit of the ubiquitous ‘happy-ever-after’, it is worth noting this comes after the book within the narrative is laid down and is itself pieced together from scraps of the ravaged book ‘ a concession, or something further to think about? The choice is yours! Roll on Emily Gravett’s next book, “Meerkat Mail” published in August this year…

The Carnival of the Animals

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Ed. Benson, Chernaik, Herbert Ills. Kitamura

Walker Books

1844280217

Dec 2005

Instantly recognisable and highly distinctive, Satoshi Kitamura has developed an illustrative style that speaks the unspoken sensitivities and imaginings of the ‘inner-child’.
Following on from picture books ‘Once Upon an Ordinary School Day’, ‘Igor the Bird Who Couldn’t Sing’ and ‘Pablo the Artist’, all of which explore the importance of the imagination and the roles of creativity and expression, it seems natural and organic that the progression should be Walker Books’ ‘The Carnival of the Animals” more a creative enterprise and a genuine inspiration than a book’
The origins of this project span an impressive amount of time. Over a hundred years ago French composer Camille Saint-Saens wrote a series of musical vignettes depicting animals in a zoological ‘frame’ setting. In the present day, Gerald Benson, Judith Chernaik and Cicely Herbert from Poems on the Underground commissioned poets to write a poem for each of the animals.
Music, poetry and illustrations are carefully interwoven to breathe new life into the menagerie of animals presented ‘ the majesty of the monastic lion, the flightiness of the flightless cocks and hens, the power of the horses, through to the grace and elegance of the swan. A collection of creative vision, this is truly a book to treasure, to read and to return to – a great introduction to the arts of poetry, classical music and illustration!

The Great Tug of War

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Beverley Naidoo

Frances Lincoln

1845070550

Mar 2006

One of the most familiar Tricksters in literature has got to be Brer Rabbit, featuring in eight volumes of animal tales written ‘ or rather retold ‘ by Joel Chandler Harris in the ‘Uncle Remus’ series. The 185 stories these volumes consist of are retellings of tales told by slaves on the plantation where Harris worked as a printer’s assistant. In ‘The Great Tug of War’, by Beverley Naidoo, published as the third book in Frances Lincoln’s new fiction range for 8 ‘ 12 year olds, the origins of these stories are traced back to Africa in Mmuthla (pronounced m-moo-tl-ah) a trickster hare’
The eight stories explore the hoodwinking, hoaxing and habits little Mmutla employs to gain the better of the larger animals; elephants, hippos, lions, giraffes and baboons to name but a few’ Readers are allowed privileged position whereby they see the unravelling of the chaos Mmutla creates leading to a wonderful sense of anticipation and impatience to learn how this might all end’ The language of the book is beautifully lyrical and there’s a sense of richness within the untold tales that comprise constituent parts of the landscape that lies outstretched’ here is a masterpiece made in miniature!

Hey Crazy Riddle

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Trish Cooke

Frances Lincoln

1845073789

Mar 2006

The mood is light, the rhythm is tight in this collection of fast tempo poems published as the second book in Frances Lincoln’s new fiction range for 8 ‘ 12 year olds. Trish Cooke ‘ familiar to many as the award-winning author of popular picture book ‘So Much’ ‘ brings lightness of touch and great verve to these exuberant explanations of how dog lost his bone, why wasp can’t make honey and’ of course, the eponymous ‘Hey Crazy Riddle’.
In the author’s note, Trish explains how she is still able to hear her father’s mischievous voice teasing as he used to when he told her the stories. This lends the poems a real sense of heritage and you cannot help but feel a part of an age-old oral tradition when reading them aloud ‘ and they must be read aloud and be allowed to be shared, because it is then that they become alive!