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Daniel Hahn |
OUP |
9780199695140 |
March 2015 |
hardback |
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| Of all the books I own I think my reference books are the ones that bring me most continuous pleasure. They are not necessarily the most loved, and certainly not the most life-changing, but they come down from the shelf most frequently, partly because they are so desirably dippable. The majority of them are the work of numerous contributors (I have contributed to a fair few myself) but the ones that are the most satisfying are those that have been mainly compiled or driven by one person’s opinion – books by the likes of John Sutherland or Martin Seymour-Smith, whose immense and magnificent Macmillan Guide to Modern World Literature is famously outspoken, and correspondingly entertaining. A random example: in ending his entry for Margaret Drabble, Seymour-Smith writes, “It is a pity that in an age when good journalists are almost non-existent, this clever author should have chosen fiction. It is a greater pity that she should have been taken so seriously.” This new edition of the Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature is never as rude as Seymour-Smith dared to be, but it nevertheless carries the imprint of its new compiler, Daniel Hahn, who has reworked the original (written by Humphrey Carpenter and Mari Pritchard and published over thirty years ago in 1984) to produce a thoroughly updated, judicious and finely curated overview of children’s literature. It is a book that will have pride of place on those reference shelves of mine, and be strategically shelved so that it is always in arm’s reach. The task that Hahn undertook should not be underestimated. How much of the original book to retain? How much of what was retained needed rewording, or could be used verbatim? What to omit? Which new names to include? Of those names that would ideally be represented in the book should space and length not have been an issue, which names were to be cast to one side? Of course everyone flipping through this book checking to see which of the authors they admire are included and which not will find that occasionally Hahn’s decisions do not accord with their own. I have to say this has happened very rarely in my case. I was delighted to see Ursula Dubosarsky’s entry. The one absent name that I would have been electioneering in favour of has to be Gaye Hicyilmaz. Watching The Watcher, Against The Storm, The Frozen Waterfall – these and others by her are as good as anything written in our period. It is not a surprising omission, but a regrettable one, as this fine author is truly deserving of a lasting readership. There – I’ve got that out of my system. But, as I say, in very large part Hahn’s judgements about the length and tone of entries seem to me to be spot on. Authors such as Charlie Higson, Darren Shan, Robert Muchamore and Anthony Horowitz have their popularity and easy readability acknowledged without unnecessary lengthy endorsement. Reading the book alongside the original edition, it has been fascinating to see those judgements at work. The first new addition, alphabetically, is Douglas Adams; the second John Agard. Which reminds me, I will need to immerse myself in the book more deeply, but my impression is that, on the whole and Agard notwithstanding, children’s poetry is not quite so generously treated as children’s fiction. The same could possibly be said of children’s illustrators. Anthony Browne’s entry is much shorter than that of several writers of lesser stature or significance. Inevitably, some of the longer entries in the original edition have needed condensing. But I applaud Hahn’s decision to retain both the length and tone of the entry for William Mayne. Hahn has very slightly reworked the wording of the original and then added this at the end: “Near the end of his life Mayne served a prison sentence for sexual abuse of a number of young girls, which led to his work being dropped from many reading lists and pulled from many library shelves. His books remain, however, among the most accomplished writing for children in recent decades, though their challenges mean that they are sometimes more acclaimed critically than widely read by child readers.” The book is as up-to-date as any printed reference book can possibly be, with entries for The Hunger Games, The Wimpy Kid and John Green. The original edition had a quaint listing for ‘Adolescent fiction’, with a pointer to an entry for Teenage Novels. In the new edition, ‘Adolescent fiction’ has been quite rightly dropped as a term, and now ‘Teenage Novels’ points to an entry for Young Adult. Hahn’s largely completely new entry here is one of the best things in the book. I was pleased to find Hahn is as enthusiastic an admirer of Marcus Sedgwick’s Revolver as I am myself. This author’s entry taught me a new term. Apparently much of what Sedgwick writes can be described as ‘goth-froth’ – I would have appreciated a separate entry giving a definition of this genre (said with a smile in my eye). Anyone who follows Hahn on social media will be in awe of his ability to carry off a work of this scope and stature whilst, apparently, never being in one place for more than a few days at a time. A tremendous achievement and a very worthy successor to the original. You should buy a copy.
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The Dolls
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Kiki Sullivan |
Usborne |
9781409584001 |
March 2015 |
paperback |
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| Yes, well it’s hard to take a book seriously that chooses to name its Gothic, southernswamp voodoo world after a French supermarket chain, Carrefour – yes, really! It’s perfectly possible that Sullivan, as an American, was unaware of the unfortunate naming assosciation, but surely someone in her editorial team should have pointed it out, and advised on a replacement. They ought, also, to have advised against such silliness as using the spelling ‘sosyete’ for society, for no apparent reason. It’s a shame, because I was enticed by the Note from the author at the start of the book to think I might be in for a real treat. “I wanted to create a world that swirled with magic, but I felt strongly the magic should feel tangible and possible…. I wanted the book to remain true to the enigmatic, colourful spirit of Louisiana..” Sadly the magic, referred to here as ‘zandara’, is all made-up-word mumbo-jumbo nonsense. “Mesi, zanset. Mesi, zanset. Mesi, zanset.” When it’s working well, all too briefly though, the book is a mixture of the TV series True Blood and a Tim Burton movie. In fact, the whole concept behind the book is much better suited to film scripting than to novel writing. The Dolls of the title – exclusive, high-fashion conscious babes – never really register as real characters. The main character and first-person narrator, Eveny Cheval, does and this is just enough to hold reader attention. Whether it will be sufficient to carry a readership through to subsequent titles in the proposed series is another matter. The current viewing figures for The Dolls theme tune are not encouraging.
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Spotlight On Sunny
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Keris Stainton |
Catnip |
9781846471872 |
March 2015 |
paperback |
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| You’d be right if you thought this wasn’t going to be quite my cup of tea. But, hey, I find it amusing to read pink-jacketed teen fiction when travelling, and this was pleasingly slim enough to fit in an already full camera bag. Also, since this author has quite a reputation and a following, I thought it high time I read one of her books. Early on I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. In fact, I feared I might hate it and have to give it a bad review. It seemed to be trying so hard to cover all types of diversity (illness, disability, race, religion…) and I was quite fearful for the direction the reader seemed to be being taken with regard to one of the characters. But this is actually rather a clever little book. Light but not frothy. Non-judgemental and managing a depth of emotional resonance that is unusual in books of this type. Three fourteen-year-old girls come down to London to attend a two-week summer film-making course. It’s a neat device for placing such young teens away from family ties in the middle of a capital city. (London’s landmarks feature prominently in the book.) These are girls who have previously appeared in Starring Kitty, the first in a ‘Reel Friends Series’. The London course was a prize in a film-making competition the girls collaborated on in the first book. Presumably, book number three in the series will be all about Hannah, the third girl. Sunny is an observant Moslem. She prays regularly and her head is always covered with the hijab. The three girls find that they are having to share their room with a fourth, slightly older girl, Danielle. Danielle is presented very negatively. She is cast as a selfish sloven, and Sunny is particularly critical of the way she dresses. One of the boys on the course suffers from Hypermobility Syndrome and Sunny and Danielle find themselves in conflict for his attentions. The book’s style is highly readable. I liked the way it was written in the third person, but from the central character’s rather than an omniscient narrator’s perspective. I wish more books would eschew the pervasive first person continuous present for this more classical voice. It is clearly popular. Is it a true teen/YA novel, whatever that may be? Not according to my definition. I’m not suggesting this distinction particularly matters, but I fancy the readership level of a book such as this is more 10-14, than 12+. Once readers have passed the age of the participants, one would hope that they have already grown up sufficiently to not require the lesson in putting yourself in another’s shoes that the plot so gently but firmly delivers, with the reader, as well, as the girls, eventually seeing Danielle in a new light.
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Nightbird
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Alice Hoffman |
Simon & Schuster |
9781471124211 |
March 2015 |
paperback |
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| There was a period when books such as this – books by the likes of Joan Bauer and Sharon Creech for example – were more plentiful than they are today. Which possibly explains why I savoured this short, compact and so perfectly and beautifully written novel as if I were eating a cake or a sweet that reminded me of a time when such deliciousness was more commonplace. Set in the Massachusetts countryside around Boston, it is a contemporary novel not a historical one, but is written in such a way that should Nathaniel Hawthorne unexpectedly time-travel into our own era, this is a book he might comfortably be able to read without too much disorientation. Hoffman handles the atmosphere and mystery with great skill and conjures up the rural, smalltown Sidwell (a place known for its pink apples) with both cinematic, picturesqueness and legend-like magic realism. I can’t recommend this book highly enough, for readers aged 10 and over. It is going to become our new “What are we telling everyone they should read?” title.
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Learning With Nature
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Marina Robb, Victoria Mew & Anna Richardson |
Green Books |
9780857842398 |
January 2015 |
paperback |
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| I attended the public launch of this title a week ago, and since then have been able to have a leisurely look through the book. What an impressive collaboration between writers and the publisher’s design team this is! “A unique must-have resource for families, schools, youth grouops and anyone working with children,” the back cover proclaims – and yes, it is! I commend it without reservation. I hope particularly as many schools as possible will obtain copies for their staff libraries. Although many of the recommended activities included in the book, together with the accompanying photos, suggest the need for a forest or woodland context, there are also numerous suggestions that would work just as well within the boundaries of schools that enjoy at least a little bit of green space. It is also undeniably the case that many of the children who are fortunate enough to be taken to the kinds of workshop organised by the book’s authors are from backgrounds that are already sympathetic towards outdoor learning. The book can have most impact if its ideas are taken up in classrooms up and down the country. One of the speakers at the launch event remembered attending a local primary school in the 1960s. Every Wednesday afternoon the class would be taken up onto the Downs for nature study. The teacher would sit down with a packet of Weights cigarettes, while the class was given freedom to identify wild flowers and plants using Ladybird field guides. A bygone era indeed. The loss of such experiences from the school curriculum (how many infant classrooms even have a Nature table any more?) would not matter so much if children were still doing more of the same in their own time. But they’re not. The book carries an impassioned foreword by Chris Packham, who notes, alongside a sharp decline in the numbers of kestrels, skylarks and lapwings, another “tragic extinction”:
Each of the three authors has been actively and successfully involved in running outdoor workshops for children over several years. They don’t pretend to have thought up all the activities themselves. This is a compilation of tried and tested activities guaranteed to engage and enthuse. The book has four main sections – with easy to navigate coloured page tabs: The book is generously illustrated with photographs that have all been scrupulopusly credited to no fewer than thirty separate photographers. The book has an excellent index, an Afterword from Jon Cree, Chair of the Forest School Association, and author biographies. Marina Robb is founder and managing director of the outdoor learning association Circle of Life Rediscovery; Anna Richardson is a forest school facilitator and trainer; and Victoria Mew, also a qualified forest school practitioner, has a particular interest in animal tracking. I very much hope it comes to the attention of the judges of the SLA Information Book Award.
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The Art Of Being Normal
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Lisa Williamson |
David Fickling Books |
9781910200322 |
January 2015 |
hardback |
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| The trouble, when there is a lot of pre-publication excitement surrounding a novel, particularly an issue-driven YA/crossover novel such as The Art Of Being Normal, is that the actual reading can leave you wondering quite what all the fuss is about. For a long period in the middle third of this dual-narrative story I felt that this was going to be my abiding impression. But the book certainly gathers power towards the end – sufficiently so for me to at least see why there has been such support for the book. The cover (by Alice Todd) is quite brilliant. It tells us at once that this is the story about a girl struggling to liberate herself from having been born in a masculine body. In that sense we are primed to see David as the main character of the book and the focal point for the transgender theme. It is initially a surprise therefore when Leo, the other narrator and a new arrival at the school, receives equal if not more favourable narrative attention. Eventually a significant twist is revealed which explains this equal weighting, but not before the tenor of the novel has become well-nigh indistinguishable from any YA book about secondary school life in which a loner is bullied for being different, and wild rumours are spread concerning a new student. Williamson’s writing was rather too flat and even-toned to engage me emotionally, but I have to accept that other readers have been emotionally engaged by the characters in ways that I was not. Even in the comparatively powerful climax to the book her writing is very reliant on heavy hints from dialogue to convey the tenor of a situation. “I feel like I’m in an incredibly low-rent music video,” one character says, as a way of telling the reader how to receive the scene. Elsewhere, and again in this best section of the book, the narrating character tells us twice that the scene is “surreal’. Great writing conveys these ambiences without them having to be spelt out in this way. Readers of my reviews will know that I always tend to have a problem with dual narrative novels. I find my engagement is split and dissipated. David’s family and home life are more successfully rendered than Leo’s. There is a class and background distinction between the families which is signalled with broadbrush cliches: Leo’s mum goes to Bingo and keeps housekeeping money in a tin. As for the transgender theme and predicament, everything pans out quite wonderfully in the end. In fact, if the book is ever made into a film I would wager that the screenwriter will need to wheedle in a good amount of edginess to counter the sugary-sweet tone of the Christmastime climax. A YA Transparent, the quite brilliant black-humoured TV film created by Jill Solloway, this is not.
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Daisy Saves The Day
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Shirley Hughes |
Walker Books |
978140634899 |
September 2014 |
hardback |
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| How lucky we are that Shirley Hughes is still producing such wonderfully written and illustrated picture books. Set at the time of the coronation of King George V, when the actual day of the procession comes round Daisy, working as a scullery maid in a big house, is left Cinderella-like alone. She ingeniously fabricates some bunting from red, white and blue laundry, including a pair of red bloomers belonging to one of the two old ladies Daisy is employed by. They are much annoyed about this, but fortunately an American niece, staying in the house at the time, helps to prevent Daisy from being dismissed. She stays on, but in disgrace, and is hardly spoken to by the other servants. Then, when a fire breaks out, it is Daisy who ‘saves the day’. Here is Shirley Hughes herself, talking about the book:
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The Promise
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Nicola Davies, ill. Laura Carlin |
Walker Books |
9781406355598 |
September 2014 |
paperback |
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| An affecting picture book for older children, well-received in hardback last year, and now in paperback. The book is narrated by a boy growing up in a mean, hard and ugly city. He lives by stealing, usually pickpocketing on crowded streets. Then one night he tries to snatch a old woman’s handbag but she hangs on tight and will not let go until he has made a promise to “plant them”. He is expecting the fat bag to be full of coins. But when he opens it he finds only acorns. “I stared at them, so green, so perfect and so many, and understood The Promise I had made. I held a forest in my arms, and my heart was changed.” Not a particularly seasonal book, but foll of genuine Christmas spirit. A book author, illustrator and publisher can be proud of.
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Is There A Dog In This Book?
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Viviane Schwarz |
Walker Books |
9781406345612 |
September 2014 |
hardback |
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| Hooray, a lift-the-flap book that is actually fun and clever and in which the flaps are used meaningfully. We open the book and immediately meet three cats, Tiny, Moonpie and Andre – identified by the names on their foodbowls. On the next page they are looking disgruntled. Someone has drunk up all their milk. Someone has chewed Tiny’s tiny toy. And Andre reckons that mean there’s a ‘dog in this book’. Cue for some hide-and-seek. They hide behind the sofa. Then inside the piano. Next in a wardrobe. Finally in a suitcase, which is where the dog sniffs them out. My favourite spread is coming up. The three cats recoil, but then notice the dog looks friendly. Tiny decides to reach out and… (turn the flap) touch. Moonpie, from looking terrified, reaches out and says, “Ooh! It is… so soft.” Andre goes next and agrees. The reader is ionvited to stretch out a hand and stroke the dog. But the dog gets frightened and runs off. Now we need to lift the flaps to find the dog. This is Viviane Schwarz’s (in 2011 she was a winner of Booktrust’s Ten Best New Illustrators Award) third Cats book. It’s fab!
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Noah’s Ark
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Francesca Crespi |
Frances Lincoln |
9781845079376 |
September 2014 |
hardback |
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| A delightfully traditional pop-up book from Francesca Crespi, whose earlier pop-up version of the Nativity has sold 200,000 worldwide. Crespi’s background is in Italian theatre design, and it shows in the wonderful backdrops she provides for her pop-up scenes.
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