VERDIGRIS DEEP by Frances Hardinge: reviewed by Gillian Philip

So Frances Hardinge has the coolest style, especially when it comes to hats and gorgeous long coats. I was at the Fantasy WorldCon in Brighton last year when I met her. The convention happened to take place over the Halloween weekend, and Frances was laughing when she turned up one evening, because someone on the street had congratulated her on her Halloween costume. When she wasn't actually wearing one.

Hmm. I don't know; I think there's some kind of sorcery on the simmer here. Verdigris Deep was her second novel, and I picked it almost at random from her Amazon page because I was intrigued by the blurb: One evening, Ryan and his friends steal some coins from a well... Then the well witch appears, with her fountains for eyes and gargled demands. From now on the children must serve her – and the wishes rotting at the bottom of her well.

If you think it sounds as much like horror as fantasy, you'd be right, and yet there are moments of sinister comedy. Who'd have thought shopping trolleys could be sentient creatures of dread and terror? I was completely convinced, and I'll never pass the Tesco trolley stacks again without looking at them askance and wondering if they're watching me.

The witch at the bottom of the well is herself an extraordinary creation, seen initially in Ryan's visions after the three children steal her coins to pay for bus fare. She is introduced stealthily but horrifically: via Ryan's reflection in his own bathroom mirror, or in the eyes of a smiling model on an advertising hoarding. When the witch's true nature is at last revealed, there's something tragic about it despite the horror. She's doing what she was always meant to do, after all; but three twenty-first century children can't possibly have known just how deep a simple wish can go.

Ryan is the terrified, ultimately brave young hero, but his friends Josh and Chelle are if anything even more complex and engaging. All of them go through more changes than the reader expects, and they do so through challenges that are far deeper, darker and more twisted than they (or the reader) could foresee. Their happy expectations of being wish-granting Angels are gradually destroyed by the true natures of the wishes and the people who make them – and, of course, their own. Their peril lies as much within themselves as in the supernatural forces around them.

I never felt confident of a fully happy ending, and I feared most of all for Josh, who begins the story as the arrogant, charismatic leader of their small gang but falls apart, morally and psychologically, with every chapter. That genuine uncertainty is not too common in children's fiction, and it kept me reading into the small hours. (And no, I'm not going to tell you.)

It's a dark, intricate tale of fantastical but convincing danger, and it's written with stylish beauty, too. It's mysterious magic, is what it is.


Verdigris Deep by Frances Hardinge (Macmillan Children's Books, 2007), £6.99

www.gillianphilip.com




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JINX, THE WIZARD'S APPRENTICE by Sage Blackwood. Reviewed by Penny Dolan.

(Warning. This review contains plot spoilers.)

Looking through a pile of children’s books, I opened up Jinx and was immediately drawn in to the fantasy. Sage Blackwood’s writing has an attractive openness and confidence. Familiar folk tale tropes appear in a nicely simple, matter-of-fact manner that makes them perfectly acceptably to the intended mid-junior fantasy reader.

The novel starts as young Jinx is led, Hansel-like, by his stepfather away from the village and into the Urwald, the dangerous forest that is almost a character in the book. Just as he is about to abandon Jinx to the trolls and werewolves, Simon Magus appears on the path. After some cunning trading, the wizard claims Jinx as his apprentice.

Jinx’s life as a servant in the wizard’s strange cottage.is safer, better-fed and more interesting but it is also full of contradictions. Is the short-tempered, self-centred magician good or evil? What does Simon really want from young Jinx?

Grumpy and bad-tempered, Simon insists the boy is too stupid to instruct in any magic or - at first - allow into his secret workroom. Jinx tries to match what he sees, feels and knows with the evidence around him, including Simon’s mysterious room. Naturally, as time goes on, Jinx becomes curious, especially when he feels that Simon is somehow travelling to other places and receiving visitors in his room, and curiosity always causes trouble.

The book has an interesting range of characters, all strongly depicted and often eccentric. Jinx ends up with two young companions. The heroine is young Elfywn, a girl in a red hood. Suffering from the curse of truthfulness, Elfwyn is trying to find her grandmother so the curse can be removed. The other boy – and often the source of Jinx’s jealousy - is Reven, the self-styled “king’s son” who speaks and acts like a hero learned from a book. Reven has his own secret curse too, one that brings fear to the forest.

There are magical adult characters too. Jinx is partly terrified by Dame Glammer, a lively sharp-tongued witch with her own morality and travelling butter churn. On the other hand, he grows fond of the good wizard, Sophie, who arrives from a land where magic is forbidden, even though her meetings with Simon often end up in wrangling. I feel that many children will half-recognise this pair as two adults who care for each other but who are unable to live together: the couple’s squabbles are very convincing. Finally, the plot includes the most powerful wizard of all - the evil Bonemaster – the enemy that Simon Magus warns Jinx about, even though Jinx gradually discovers the two have a far more complex relationship.

Simon is so busy with his own plans and projects that he does not recognise Jinx’s own supernatural gifts. The first is an ability to see the true feelings of people as swirls of coloured light, as auras that help him know how they are feeling. Jinx imagines everyone has this; he never thinks of it as just his power. However, when Simon casts a power spell on Jinx, he removes this gift. Bereft of this extra sense, Jinx’s faith in Simon’s intentions crumbles.

Jinx still has one secret skill left. Jinx is the Listener, the one able to hear the conversation between the trees, the one who can understand the voice of the vast Urwald, even if the meanings are not always clear.

Eventually, trying to get free of their curses, the three children are imprisoned in the Bonemaster’s towering castle and the wizard decides to use Jinx to lure Simon into his power. When Simon does not come, Jinx becomes convinced his old master is as evil and uncaring as the Bonemaster, and enters his own world of sadness. Were his worst fears right?

Nevertheless, the trio try to get free. While Reven tries to find an escape route, Jinx and Elfwyn search for the Bonemaster’s souce of power. Under the castle, in a hidden cellar, they find rows of bottles. Each contains a small, silently screaming, human figure: the Bonemaster uses these captive deaths as an energy source. Then, within a second chamber, Jinx finds an even greater magical source, an object that makes him feel even more confused about Simon’s possibly wicked intentions. But the way out has been discovered!

Here comes the spoiler. Trying to protect Elfwyn while she climbs down the Ladder of Bones, Jinx falls to his death. His spirit floats above his body, floating over above the whole Urwald. From high up, he witnesses the arrival of Dame Glammer and Simon Magus. Eventually, with his power source gone, the wicked Bonemaster is imprisoned.

The grieving Simon makes sure that Jinx’s body is carried to safety. There by a reversal of the big mysterious spell, Simon returns Jinx to life again. One by one, the major conflicts are resolved, especially between the wizard and his pupil, for as Elfwyn points out, being rude and ill-mannered isn’t the same as being evil.

Personally, although I really enjoyed the early part of the story, I rather feel that the hero’s death and apparent restoration to life after sleeping for three days means that Jinx may not be a book for children who have recently had a sudden death in the family, even if the storyline is echoing the classic hero’s mythical journey structure. Maybe my reaction was because the characters had felt so very believable until that turn in the plot? And maybe top juniors are less sensitive and much tougher than I am?

To conclude, I really liked the brave and compelling young hero at the heart of this novel. I enjoyed the writing, the characters, and the magical world described within these pages, as well as the many twists and turns not yet mentioned. The ending suggests “Jinx” is intended to re-appear in more books so here’s a few good wishes to this particular wizard’s apprentice.

JINX, THE WIZARD’S APPRENTICE by Sage Blackwood.

Published in 2013 by Harper Collins (USA) and Quercus (UK)

Review by Penny Dolan

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FIZZLEBERT STUMP: The Boy Who Ran Away From the Circus (And Joined The Library). By A.F. Harrold. Review by Penny Dolan

 

I met the author of this book, A.F. Harrold -  a red-haired, red-bearded poet – at the Stockton Children’s Book of the Year event just before Easter. I also had to admit I’d never heard of his book title before.

An aside: That "new book to read" moment, in itself, is one of the strengths and pleasures of the many regional library awards. 

From my experience, having also visited the West Sussex Children’s Book Award, these carefully-thought-out reading projects seem, within the limited number of titles on their lists, to offer a wide variety of fiction to all the children and schools involved. The awards introduce the young readers and the schools to wider range of reading styles and enthusiasms than they might choose for themselves. So a huge hooray for all those unsung librarians who do the work that keeps these regional awards going!

Meanwhile, back to the subject of this review - and our oddly named hero.

Fizzlebert Stump lives with his two busy parents (a clown and a strong man) in a caravan, because he is a circus child. Surrounded by adults and animals, Fizz is not very familiar with the ways of the ordinary world. He is also lonely and longs for another child to be his friend.

One day, Fizz meets a gang of friendly children. However, when he reveals his full name, they tease and bully him.  In all the fuss, one of the gang drops a library book which is a concept unknown by Fizz. Asking around, he is told there is a library nearby. Deciding to do the right thing, he returns the book to the mysterious building.

There Fizz makes an error. He tries to borrow a book and discovers he needs to have his own personal ticket. The librarian has handed him a long and official form that his parents must sign. Fizz is totally dejected. They would fill it in with his now-derided name, and besides, he wants the book now.

So Fizz agrees to let two old people fill in the form, using a false, ordinary name – John Smith – and he lets them claim they are his grandparents. Oh dear! Once outside, Fizz finds he is in their power.

The two Stinkthrottles grow nastier, in true Dahlesque style. They terrify poor Fizz, insisting he is a lying thief who stole a book, and take him to their house. Their home is disgustingly, overwhelmingly dirty (Warning: The book is best not read by adults alongside any food or meal) and Fizz is now their servant. Even worse, Fizz realises that his parents do not know knows where he is!

In the middle of the dump that is the Stinkthrottle home, Fizz discovers Kevin, a boy kidnapped a few days before. The pair are suitably stoical, brave and resourceful and, by the inevitable rescue, true friends.

However, what this account of the plot does not tell you is the way the book is written. 

This is a story that delights in expanding its telling. Much as in Philip Ardagh or Lemony Snickett’s writing, there is a great deal of “authorial presence.”

Whole paragraphs are given over to the explanation of words or the expansion of an idea and the closing of a chapter and so on. Harrold, being a poet, uses words almost for the sake of the words, as well as brackets and asides and all sorts of similar literary devices.

At times, the writing gets almost to the point of overbalancing - or so one worries – but the reader is kept going by the simplicity and fun (and disgusting details) of the basic plot as well as the appeal of Fizz as the central character.The children who chatted to me about the book enjoyed this wildly wordy style tremendously.

Who is it for? Fizzlebert Stump, the Boy Who Ran Away from the Circus (and

Joined The Library) seems to me to be the kind of book that would be a delightful holiday for a middle grade reader. It might also be the kind of book that a grown-up could read aloud and share with slightly younger readers.

Finally, here's a sample of the style, here’s the start of Harrold’s description of the Stinkthrottles home. I couldn’t bring myself to type out any of the more gruesome description, though.

“Their house looked just like the set of a disaster film, just after all the big action has happened. To call it untidy would be an understatement of monstrous proportions. In fact to call it untidy would be a bigger lie than the fib Mrs Stinkthrottle had just told Fizz about the library. If there is a word which describes quite how much of a tip their house was I don’t know it (I looked) but I imagine it would be spelt with a lot more letters than just the six that make up the unsatisfactory word “untidy.”

 If you know a child that likes words and humour,, this may be the book for them.

FIZZLEBERT STUMP:  

The Boy Who Ran Away From the Circus

(And Joined The Library). 

A.F. Harrold. 

(Bloomsbury)

Review by Penny Dolan

www.pennydolan.com

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