ONE OF US by Jeannie Waudby

Reviewed by Jackie Marchant

This is a timely book, about terrorism and taking sides.  It’s about prejudice and the danger of judging a whole section of society by the actions of a few.   And what it’s like to be hated because of who you are.

After surviving a terrorist bombing, K Child is full of antagonism towards those who carried out the attack – the Brotherhood.  When the enigmatic Oskar asks her to infiltrate the Brotherhood by attending their top boarding school to seek out extremists, she finds herself agreeing.  After winning her trust, Oskar gives her a completely new identity, a new set of Brotherhood clothes – and leaves her alone at the Brotherhood school gates.

At first K is terrified.  She is not only a stranger here, but a spy.  But no one seems to notice and, not only that, the people she meets are friendly.  They’re ordinary, like her.  For the first time in her lonely life, she is surrounded by people who care about her.  More than that, she’s falling in love.

At the same time, she begins to have doubts about Oskar and his true motives.  Then she witnesses the sharp end of the hatred citizens have for the Brotherhood – the same hatred she felt towards them on the day of the bombing.  But they are not all like that.

Can the two sides ever be reconciled?  This is the aim of the government, but, as K is drawn further into a web of deceit and anger, it seems increasingly unlikely – especially as K comes to realise the true horror of what Oskar wants of her. 

One thing we never learn is what the Brotherhood actually believe in.  They have longer names and wear slightly different clothes, but their doctrines remain elusive – they are hated because they are Brotherhood, but no one seems to know why.  As K learns, we are all the same – and there are people on both sides who advocate violence.

This is an exciting read, with romance and danger in equal measure.  It’s part thriller, part love-story, but all page-turner.  I can recommend it for younger teens.

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PLAYING WITH MY HEART by Valerie Wilding. Reviewed by Ann Turnbull.

'I am so angry, and it is all Miranda's fault. She is the most stupid, loose-tongued friend it is possible to have.'

So begins Valerie Wilding's story - a historical romance for young teens, based around the Globe Theatre in 1599.

When Patience's father, a carpenter, starts doing some work for the theatre company, she and her sister Dippity also find employment there - Dippity as a skilled needlewoman and Patience copying scripts for the players. Their father has a new apprentice, Kit - a thoroughly nice, hardworking boy - and soon Patience and Kit become attracted to one another and everyone is pleased.

But the playhouse brings trouble. Patience meets the handsome and seductive Jeremy de la Motte, a boy player who takes female roles. At once she has eyes for no one else. Her risky pursuit of this young man has dangerous repercussions for the whole family.

I liked the way this story showed a real family busy with everyday work, running a home, worrying about money and helping out neighbours and friends in their small riverside community. This close-packed community complicates life for Patience as she is watched by a nosy neighbour and pestered by the devious Miranda. The story is told in first person in diary form. This makes for short sections and lively, natural story-telling.

Patience - wilful, silly, often self-centred but essentially sound - is a heroine that young readers will be able to relate to. The story is easy to read and subtly conveys a lot of information about the Globe Theatre. There is also a historical note and a timeline at the back.

Published by Scholastic, 2014.





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CRACKS by Caroline Green, reviewed by Cecilia Busby

I thoroughly enjoyed Cracks, although it's not the best of titles for a sentence like that - actually, it's hard to think of a sentence with the title in that wouldn't draw a snigger from several of the teenage protagonists of this book. That aside, it's a rip-roaring adventure that will appeal to many of the readers who devoured The Hunger Games, and reminded me of some of the futuristic thrillers I read as a child by Peter Dickinson, John Christopher, or Robert Westall. Essentially, it's the revolutionary underground against the evil system, but there is scope in that general area for all sorts of interesting things to happen, and Green adds her own inventive take, with some memorable characters and a good deal of exactly the right kind of nail-biting tension and multiplication of layers of plot which need to be uncovered.

In the first part of the book, we meet Cal, who appears to be an average teenage boy, stuck with a rather nasty stepfather and older stepbrother and a mother who's turning a blind eye to the bullying going on in the family. But from the first sentence we are aware that all is not as it seems: Cal sees a crack running across the ceiling of the school toilet which, when he runs and calls for help, has disappeared. More cracks appear and disappear, he hears strange voices, saying things like, "He's waking up. We need to increased the dose", and sudden stoppages or slippages in time. Despite these clues, it's actually quite a shock when Cal "wakes up" and we discover where he really is.

I don't want to give too much away, because one of the joys of this book is that, along with Cal himself, you have to piece together what's going on from little bits of information or disinformation, and often Cal is forced to reassess things he'd previously thought he had nailed. But essentially, from the point he wakes up, Cal is fighting to find and regain his lost identity, as well as to avoid the establishment scientists who took it away in the first place. Along the way he makes contact with some other lost souls, and meets a girl, Kyla.

The future as painted by Green is recognisably extrapolated from our present - more terrorism, more control, more marginalisation of the poor or non-white. It therefore asks teenage readers to think quite hard about the possible end results of the casual racism, anti-immigration and fears of terrorism we are constantly showered with by the current government and press. White teenager Cal, by way of contrast, associates his warmest memories with an Asian family who ran the local shop in his home-town, and the girl he falls for, Kyla, is black - his growing feelings for her are tenderly drawn, as is his friendship with her best mate, also black, Jax.

I read the book in a little under a day, and it was perfect for that fast-paced, can't put it down, plot-driven story that is sometimes just exactly what you want. Green has recently published a sequel to Cracks, which continues the story, but focuses on Kyla, called  Fragments - I will definitely be looking out for that one, too!


Cecilia Busby writes as C.J. Busby, and writes funny, adventure-filled fantasy for readers 7+

Website: www.cjbusby.co.uk
Twitter: @ceciliabusby



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HAPPY CHRISTMAS and THE COMPANY OF GHOSTS by Berlie Doherty, reviewed by Adele Geras.

With this review of a wonderfully seasonal book, Awfully Big Review pauses for a while. Thank you for reading our 2013 reviews - and we will be back with more on the First of January 2014. A happy holiday to you all! 


Meanwhile, from Adele Geras . . . 

THE COMPANY OF GHOSTS by Berlie Doherty
 

A new novel from Berlie Doherty is always something to look forward to and yet again I have to offer a disclaimer. This writer, like so many of those I review on this website, is a friend of mine and I’m sorry about that, but if I had to avoid books by people I know, I’d be very hamstrung in the matter of reviewing and would scarcely ever be able to do it. As it is, showing good new books to readers who might otherwise miss them is something I regard as one of my main functions as a critic.

This is a ghost story and I love ghost stories, so I seized on it when it came through my door. Doherty has opted for a particular kind of tale. There are no big old houses here with creaking doors; no graveyards, no rattling chains and indeed most of the accoutrements of the traditional story are absent and instead we have an idyllic (in many ways) island off the Scottish coast and a teenager marooned there all by herself.

Ellie is running away from an unpleasant situation at home when she accepts an invitation from Morag, whom she scarcely knows, to spend some time on the island. This place is deserted. Morag’s family spend holidays there in a very basic dwelling and there’s a disused lighthouse but apart from that, nothing. It’s reached by boat, and that is an erratic sort of service, down to the availability of a local fisherman.  Circumstances combine to leave Ellie alone there for what she thinks will be only a short time but which, terrifiyingly, extends and extends until we realize, gradually, that through various accidents, no one is going to come and rescue her. She is on her own, having to cope, desperately scared at times and trying to be sensible and brave in really scary circumstances.

 
This would be bad enough, but of course, we know from the title that Ellie is not alone…..there is the ghost. The way Doherty introduces this spectre, the way the supernatural is interwoven with the natural is both spine chilling and lyrical. She specializes in wonderful descriptions of nature and in this case, because our heroine is an artistic child, of her paintings as well. Ellie writes letters to her father, who, in her opinion, has deserted her family to go off to Cornwall on his own leaving her mother to marry someone else and these letters, interspersed with what’s happening on the mainland to George, Morag’s brother, who, through no fault of his own, has failed to arrange Ellie’s rescue, both ease the tension on the island and also rachet it up a few notches as the novel progresses.

The story of the ghost turns out to be a love story, and towards the end, we sense that Ellie’s narrative, too may be moving in that direction….

This is a book full of  moments of really creepy suspense and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants something both unusual and romantic and set in a landscape which is at the same time threatening and very beautiful. It’s a well-written, intriguing and often genuinely scary story, just right for Christmas.

Publisher: Andersen Press  

Price: £6.99 (pbk)

ISBN: 9781849397292

Reviewer:       Adèle Geras

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The Lion of Sole Bay by Julia Jones. Reviewed by Dennis Hamley.

The Lion of Sole Bay by Julia Jones

Reviewed by Dennis Hamley

The Lion of Sole Bay is most suited for the 11 -16 age group. Its plot is sophisticated and the language level is fairly high. The prose is lucid and concrete but makes few concessions to less confident readers. 

Julia Jones's Strong Winds trilogy, with its acknowledged debt to and echoes of Arthur Ransome translates into a tale set in a relentlessly and realistically troubled modern world. 

The trilogy stands as a remarkable achievement and a speaking example of how the world of independent publishing is becoming as potent a force as the now ailing image of traditional commercial publishing. 

 Is The Lion of Sole Bay a continuation of the Strong Winds trilogy? I don’t think so.  Luke, the main character, was a minor player in those stories and the new main characters only inhabit this imaginative world, although their issues with adults are as urgent and desperate as anything depicted in the earlier books.  This novel has a tighter structure altogether than the free-ranging trilogy. The issues raised are subtler and more complex - and more terrifying as well. The characters are drawn with unsentimental accuracy and some ugly depths are plumbed of a sort which never appeared in Strong Winds, outspoken though that was – including the attempted wholesale drugging of everybody coming to a party, which may sound funny but certainly isn’t! 

This is an ambitious novel in a way different from – and an advance on - its predecessors. Luke is hoping for a week with his father in his boat Lowestoft Lass. He's thwarted by an injury to his father in which the hyperactive Angel is involved in a way which, at first, Luke completely misinterprets, thus setting off the first of many important flashpoints.  Meanwhile Helen is desperate to get home to Holland but is trapped on board the Drie Vrouwen with Hendrike, her drug-fuelled mother, and Elsevier, the Kapitein, the fanatical friend who controls her. These two women are dangerous and frightening. The nerve-shredding climax involves all the young people trapped in the out-of-control Drie Vrouwen at the mercy of a wild sea and two seriously disturbed and incompetent adults. 

What binds all these elements together, besides the waning moon, Hallowe'en and Julia Jones’s understanding and love of boats and the sea? The Lion of the title was once the figurehead of the Stavoreen, a 48-gun ship of the Dutch navy, but now used as a pub sign. It is both a memorial of a seventeenth century naval battle between the English and the Dutch and a potent national symbol which Elsevier believes has to be recovered to further her delusional dreams of power. 

This is an extraordinary mix which at first sight looks almost impossible to handle as a coherent plot. But Jones succeeds magnificently. The plot lines are sharp; the writing, especially in the tense, dangerous climax, is taut and economical: the tension is almost unbearable. And, not as bits stuck on but essential to the novel's structure, there's even a mad old man in the woods who must be homage to Arthur Ransome's Old Peter, he of the Russian Tales, and a series of lectures on the 1672 Battle of Sole Bay by a character so keen to deliver them that he'll use the garden gnomes as an audience. Terrific book.  I loved every word.

The Lion of Sole Bay by Julia Jones

Published by Golden Duck: £7.99

ISBN 978 1 899262 18 2

Also available on Kindle:  £3.99

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The Bone Dragon by Alexia Casale, reviewed by C.J. Busby


The Bone Dragon is an extraordinary book - strong, delicate, magical and matter of fact all at once. It's beautifully written, and will, I'm sure, be deservedly feted by prize committees. It's also gripping, and funny, and very original.

The main protagonist, Evie, is a young teenager who is adopted, and gradually recovering from childhood abuse. At the start of the book she has had a number of shattered ribs removed, and the remnants of one of them is carved into a dragon, to keep by her bedside. The piece of broken rib, symbol of her helplessness against the violence she's suffered, is transformed into a symbol of strength and endurance. But it is soon clear that it is more than just a symbol -  the bone dragon comes to life, becomes a kind of protector spirit and guide. In a number of strange, magical interludes, the dragon takes Evie on a slow journey of healing, their night-time adventures exploring the moonlit fens around her house gradually helping to dissolve some of the anger and the strong defenses that have partially shut Evie off from her new friends and adopted family. Casales makes it clear that the dragon does not exist just in Evie's imagination - there is real mud on her clothes in the morning, and real consequences of some of the dragon's acts: this is magic. But it's a strange, wayward magic that is woven into an otherwise very straightforward narrative of Evie's life and recovery. We learn about her ups and downs with her new family, the process by which they themselves are gradually coming to terms with the death of their son and their brother's wife in a car accident, Evie's troubles at school, her relationship with a teacher who also becomes her counsellor, and the physical complications of her rib operation. Magic and matter-of-fact events mingle, as night follows day, each equally gripping.

It's the counterpoint of these two elements that makes the book so unusual, especially in children's literature, where books are generally either fantasy or 'real-life'. Casales is even more unusual in weaving this thread of magic into a book that deals with the very contemporary and troubling issues of domestic violence and abuse, and particularly in producing a book that deals with those issues obliquely, delicately, without the least bit of sensationalism or easy emotional tugs on the reader. What Evie suffered at the hands of her birth family is never specified, although it can be inferred - she herself, as the narrator, avoids giving it words, cleverly deflecting the probes of her teacher/counsellor, and indeed avoids even thinking about it except in sideways, partial glimpses. We feel the weight of its horror at moments, but always counterbalanced by the warmth, love and understanding Evie is surrounded with from her adopted family. Similarly, the bullying she suffers at school is painful, but always balanced by the support she gets from her two best friends. And ultimately, the anger and fear she still feels about her birth family is balanced by the steadfast, if elliptical, promise of the dragon.

The bone dragon acts as a kind of counterpart to the trauma Evie has suffered - as if the outrageous wrongness of what happened to her has called forth an equally outrageous and irrational magic in response, to rebalance the world. And there is indeed a kind of rebalancing in what the bone dragon achieves - a measure of peace for Evie and a measure of justice in the world. Along the way Casales offers us some wonderful characters and some extremely moving, funny, true-to-life interactions between them - I particularly love Evie's adopted Uncle Ben (everyone should have an Uncle Ben - where can I get one?). I've read reviews that carp slightly about how lovely Evie's adopted family are, as if Casales makes it all too easy. I don't think she does - I think what she shows is just how scarring this kind of experience is for any child, even when they get the best possible second chance, but also, just how much difference such a second chance can make. Personally, I mistrust books that pile on the misery, and one of the things I loved most about this book is precisely that Evie gets the love and security she deserves, and the help she needs, whether from her new family or from the magical bone dragon.

At the end of the book, Casales informs us that she herself, like Evie, has a piece of rib in a pot, and notes that potential critics should beware: it is just waiting to become a dragon. This, I assume, explains the incredibly assured and vivid descriptions she gives of the pain and feeling of shattered ribs. But since this is a nice review, she (hopefully) won't be needing that dragon to protect her!


C.J. Busby is the author of a knockabout magical fantasy series for children aged 7-9, Frogspell and sequels (see www.frogpell.co.uk)
Twitter: @ceciliabusby

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AFTER THE SNOW by S.D.Crockett. Reviewed by Pauline Chandler.

Not another dystopia story! Not another tale about a hopeless future, after we’ve destroyed the planet!  Yes, “After the Snow” is set in a harsh future, but don’t miss it:  it’s a deceptively simple adventure story, highly enjoyable as a quest story, which yet highlights deeper issues about types of government, survival skills, trade, barter, money, justice, as well as fundamental human relationships.  

Told in the distinctive voice – part boy, part primitive hunter - of the main character, Willo, the story follows Willo’s quest to find his family, who have been taken away, by harsh government forces. Kidnap and death are commonplace, in this snow-covered world, and Willo is frightened, but, with great courage and resourcefulness, he sets out to find them.  “After the Snow” is really the story of Willo’s coming-of-age on this quest.

Born after ‘the sea stop working and the snow fall and fall and fall’, Willo doesn’t know much about the world ‘Before.’ His skills are making fire, storing food, trapping animals and, especially, in making fur clothes, something which stands him in very good stead on his quest.  I always enjoy scenes where people are working and using their hands to make things, so this part especially appealed to me.

I also loved Willo’s character, his resilience and also his very human doubts, that make him so appealing. Early on in his quest he comes across two abandoned children, who will certainly die without his help. His head tells him that he will have to leave them behind. He doesn’t have enough food to share and they will hold him back on the trail, so he moves on, but his heart makes him go back for them. By this time the younger one is dead and the older one, a girl, has difficulty leaving him. These are harrowing scenes, but the author handles them with fine sensitivity.

There are other scenes in the book, also not for the fainthearted. At one point Willo is thrown into prison, cruelly treated and made to witness an execution, but the emphasis is on Willo’s refusal to give in to tyranny, a strength he needs to fight the regime.

Willo’s father appears only in memories and words in the book. Willo remembers that his dad called him a ‘beacon of hope’. It’s not until the surprising ending to the story that Willo, and the reader, knows why.  

A thought-provoking and exciting story, which gripped me from the start. 

‘After The Snow’ – S.D. Crockett     Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2013-09-22

Recommended for able readers aged 10+

Pauline Chandler  

www.paulinechandler.com 

 

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