The Blade Itself, reviewed by C.J. Busby

The Blade Itself is written for adults, but it's a book that might also be enjoyed by older teenage readers, especially any who are fans of G.R.R. Martin. I picked it up almost by accident from my sister's shelf while visiting this summer. She is an extremely discerning reader of fantasy and sicfi and I always trust her judgement, so I knew it would be good. But I wasn't prepared for just how good.

The Blade Itself is the first book of a trilogy set in an alternative world but one that is reminiscent of medieval Europe, albeit with a very different history. There are no maps, so my sense that I almost recognised the topography and names (Angland? Midderland? The southern, oriental-type empire called Ghurkul?) added a certain resonance, but also left it all nicely vague. The world is one that has a recognisable kinship with G.R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire - swords, men at arms, politicking, and scepticism about the apparent reappearance of old magic. But it's not derivative - for all the inevitable resonances any epic fantasy has to other epic fantasies all the way back to The Lord of the Rings, Abercrombie's world is original enough to really engage the reader, and what's more important, his writing is cracking.

The story is told from the viewpoint of a number of different characters, and I loved all of them - whether it was bitter, twisted torturer Sand dan Glokta, vain, lazy, aristocratic Lieutenant Jezal dan Luthar, the tough northern barbarian fighter Logan Nine-fingers (also known as the Bloody Nine), the seasoned northern scout, Dogman, or the long-suffering army stalwart, Major West. Each has a distinct voice, and although the threads intertwine, each also has a distinctly interesting journey and their own sub-plots to follow, so I greeted each change of chapter/voice with the sense of excitement of catching up with a really interesting old friend.

But it's not just the characters - Abercrombie's writing is sharp, clever and above all funny. I like my fantasy laced with a decent amount of self-deprecation and deadpan humour, so for me this was the best aspect of the book. Despite some very dark moments, gritty realism and a lot of blood, it also had me laughing out loud in parts. Sand dan Glokta has a nice line in bitter sarcastic humour, while Luthar is unwittingly funny just because he's totally lacking in self-insight. Nine-fingers, as well as having the ability to eviscerate an opponent on autopilot, is master of the one-line put down. There are also some nice moments where Abercrombie subverts the usual fantasy fare - the powerful wizard who's drawn Logan down south turns out not to be the white-beaded old sage standing by the front door, but the person Logan barely glanced at - the stocky butcher with blood half-way up his arms, dissecting an animal in the yard below.

The plot follows a lot of disparate strands, all, like the characters, with their own fascination, and there's an underlying sense that all of them are going to turn out to be interrelated. There is an empire on the move in an unholy alliance with dark magical forces, a conspiracy needing investigation at the heart of the corrupt, class-ridden central Union, a wizard who apparently still lives hundreds of years after he first made an appearance in the Union's mythology, and some violent orc-like creatures overrunning the Union's northern borders. It's a full-scale adventure, and one that's very hard to put down. I had to stop after book two of the trilogy because I had my own pressing writing deadline to make, but as soon as I'm done I'll be diving into the last book.

The Blade Itself is gritty, bloody, and there's a lot of politics to keep up with, so I wouldn't recommend it to those under 16, but there's nothing that would worry the older teenager. There is a lot of swearing. But you probably hear worse on an average secondary school bus...

So, in return for all the great reads we adults have had from YA fiction, here's one that crosses over in the other direction: older teenagers (and adults), I give you Joe Abercrombie. Enjoy!



C. J. Busby writes fantasy for 7-12. Her latest book, Dragon Amber, is out with Templar: the first in the series, Deep Amber, was published in March and has been shortlisted for the Stockton Book Award..

"A rift hopping romp with great charm wit and pace" Frances Hardinge on Deep Amber

www.cjbusby.co.uk

@ceciliabusby

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ROBIN HOOD by David Calcutt and Grahame Baker-Smith. Reviewed by Ann Turnbull.

"Robin was out hunting in the forest. It was a morning early in the year, cold and still, with frost on the ground and a freezing mist in the air. He was wearing a thick woollen cloak wrapped tightly around his body, its hood pulled down low over his face. The branches were bare and last year's leaves lay thick and deep on the forest floor. They crackled softly beneath his feet as he made his way through the trees."

The first thing to say about this book is that it's a work of art - beautifully written by David Calcutt, and decorated on almost every page with stylish, dramatic illustrations by Grahame Baker-Smith. As well as some terrific double-spread battle scenes (my favourite is the one of Robin Hood and Little John fighting on a bridge) there are decorative borders and leafy overlays and small pictures of woodland animals on nearly every page.

Author David Calcutt's greenwood was inspired by the forests near his home in the West Midlands, and there is a strong sense of place and weather throughout that adds realism and strength to the stories. From the many ballads of Robin Hood he has drawn a selection that makes up a narrative of the outlaw's adventures and life in the greenwood. Each chapter tells a different story and each begins with verses from a traditional ballad. The stories are told simply and the characters use modern speech. There is plenty of action, and a lot of killing of both men and deer. This is true to the original tales, and Robin comes across as a typical folk-hero - bold, boastful and ready for anything, but always on the side of the underdog. All the familiar characters are there: Will Scarlet, Friar Tuck, Maid Marian and, of course, Robin's arch-enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham.

In the last chapter, Robin is allowed to disappear into the greenwood, and into legend, keeping the mystery of his end uncertain - though the author hints at a few different versions of his death.

This book is available in paperback and also in a hardback edition. I have not seen the hardback but it is apparently larger and no doubt even more desirable. Either would make a lovely gift for a wide age-range - I'd say around 7-13.

Barefoot Books, 2012.
Paperback ISBN 978-1846867989
Hardback ISBN 978-1846863578





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My Ocean, by Enrique Perez Diaz. Reviewed by Saviour Pirotta

Title: My Ocean
Author Enrique Perez Diaz
Translator: Trudy Balch
Publisher Groundwood Books, October 2008

Enrqiue Perez Diaz is an award-winning Cuban author whose work, sadly, seems to be mosly unkown on our side of the pond.

His books include The Golden Age, New Pines, Ismaelillo and 

My Ocean was published in 2008. It is a long, introspective and semi-autobiographical letter to the sea that surrounds Perez Diaz's native island. Growing up in a time when everyone around him - friends, family, neighbours - seems to be emigrating illegally to El Norte, the US, Enrique seems to be left alone to make his was in a fast-chaning world.  And this world is not changing only because of the political situation in Cuba but also because Enrique is growing up. He is altering from a boy to a man and this forces him to change his perspective on life.

In this world of turmoil, but also of triumphs and hope, Enrique returns continually to the sea, to talk to it and listen out for its answers.  The sea is his sanctuary, reassuringly unchanging, the magic mirror that reflcts back only the truth.

The vignettes that spark the conversations with the sea are beautifully drawn: a terrifying encounter with sharks; a first date; an invitation to become a 'pioneer', a young communist; realistation that he can never read the letters from his unpatriotic grandparents now propsering in the US.

The book was originally written in Spanish and the translation does sometimes feel a bit stilted. Nevertheless this is a book I would recommend highly, if only for its insight into life for teenagers in Cuba.

Saviour Pirotta

Follow me on twitter @spirotta
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Website http://www.spirotta.com











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Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face and the Quest for the Magic Porcupine, written by John Dougherty and illustrated by David Tazzyman: published by OUP

First of all, I have a complaint to make. This is the second book in the Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face series, and the next one isn't out till JANUARY! My grandson whisked the first one away before I got chance to review it. Now we’ve just read this one together – but we’ve got MONTHS to wait before the next. John Dougherty, I hope you’re hard at work on the fourth. And fifth, and sixth…

I had actually read the first one, Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers, before it disappeared, but that was several months ago and I've read a lot of books since and, in all honesty, I couldn’t remember all that much about it. But there was no need to worry. Oskar had loved it, and he remembered everything. So here goes. 

SB and his little sister KF live on the Isle of Kerfuffle, along with King Toothbrush Weasel and his army, which consists of Malcolm the Cat, and various other eccentric characters. (Their parents conveniently disappear when there’s a story going on.) If you noted the title, you will realise that the villains of the first book are a troop of exceedingly bad badgers. SB and KF triumph over them and they are cast into jail – but at the beginning of the second book, whilst playing Monopoly, the badgers discover a 'Get Out Of Jail' card, which they promptly use – so horrors! Once again, they are free to plan evil and wicked things, to do EVILLY and WICKEDLY.

SB and KF soon realise what has happened and determine that once again, they must defend Kerfuffle against the badgers. Fortunately, they meet a whole bunch of characters, brilliantly illustrated by David Tazzyman, who help them in their task. My favourite is the amazing Ninja Librarian, who has magic powers and also a very sharp sword, which she threatens to use to chop the heads off anyone who misbehaves in her library. She helps SB and KF to research what they must do to defeat the badgers: it involves catching a number 36 bus (which has an amiably dim – but very jolly – driver called Mr Jolly) which will take them on their quest to find the Magic Porcupine.

The story rollicks along – you never have a clue what’s going to happen next. But the best thing about it is that it’s so funny: Oskar was chortling out loud on every page. There are quirky, anarchic characters and excellent baddies. But there’s something else interesting going on: John Dougherty plays about with the conventions of a book. He does interesting things with typefaces. He tells you that SB and KF will have to wait till page 55 to find out what their quest will be – and then has the characters whiling away the time and the pages till they get there. He subverts expectations – notably with the arrival on the scene at the end of a chapter of a fearsome shark - who actually turns out to be a great help. And he reminds you all the time that this isn't real life, but a book. I’m sure there’s a proper term for this (meta-something?) but I don’t know what it is. I thought it might be a bit of a problem for a young reader, but far from it – Oskar was intrigued by and really enjoyed this aspect of the book.

So, a great hit. Right up at the top of Oskar’s personal chart, in fact. We can’t wait for the next one!

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The Diamond Thief by Sharon Gosling - reviewed by Tamsyn Murray

Rémy Brunel is a bird of paradise, flying on a trapeze above the ring in Le Cirque de la Lune in an exquisite pink and black feathered costume. That's her day job. She's also a jewel thief, one of the best in the business, and the circus gives her the perfect cover, taking her orders from Gustave, the circus owner. Rémy doesn't plan to be a thief forever, just long enough to get herself and her best friend Claudette enough money to make a life for themselves away from the circus. Gustave has other ideas...


When the circus arrives in London, it's not long before Gustave has his eye on a glittering prize - the Darya-ye Noor diamond - the Ocean of Light - which is on display at the Tower of London. He sends Rémy to steal it but things don't go to plan, especially when she encounters the determined and conscientious Thaddeus Rec, the only policeman to suspect her. At the end of the night, the diamond is in Rémy's hands but nothing is what it seems and she is forced to go on the run in fear of her life and her future.

Featuring a cast of fabulous characters, confounding contraptions and a rip-roaring ride of an adventure that leads us deep under London's Victorian streets, The Diamond Thief is a highly enjoyable, action-packed story. Rémy and Thaddeus in particular stand out  - Rémy shines like the jewels she steals and she is exactly the kind of character I wish I had written. I feared for Thaddeus at first because of his principals but he falls just the right side of immovable and makes the right choices when it comes down to it. I couldn't wait to get back to this book and yet didn't want it to end - thankfully, there's a sequel, The Ruby Airship, so I get to find out what Rémy gets up to next.

I recommend this book for aged 12+ - a great Steampunk adventure with a romantic heart and plenty of thrills and spills along the way.

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Corpse Talk Season 1 by Adam Murphy

Fans of Horrible Histories will love the first volume of Corpse Talk, a dead funny comic strip that first appeared in the pages of The Phoenix. 

The concept is deceptively simple, freakishly funny and wonderfully ghoulish. An interviewer – artist and writer Adam Murphy – digs up the bodies of famous folk from the past, and then quizzes them about their lives, and in many cases, how they shuffled off this mortal coil. 

Kids with a love of the macabre will be suitably grossed out by the historical figures' gaunt mummified looks, while Murphy expertly condenses the main events of 33 notable lives into single or double page strips. 

The author's dry wit transforms potentially dry facts into full-on belly laughs that educate as they entertain. You'll certainly never look at the likes of Emmeline Pankhurst, Dick Turpin and Jane Austin the same way again, while familiar faces like the many wives of Henry VIII, Mahatma Ghandi or Charles Dickens get a fresh approach (well, as fresh as a mouldering cadaver gets anyway).

One to file under 'why has no-one ever done this before' Corpse Talk Season 1 proves that history - and the dead for that matter - needn't be stiff and starchy.

Reviewed by Cavan Scott

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The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones & Ursula Jones; reviewed by Gillian Philip

We’ll never know how it should have ended. At least, we’ll never know how it would have ended, had Diana Wynne Jones not died before completing her last novel. We don’t even know where she stopped writing, because the book doesn’t tell us; we only know that somewhere along the journey, Diana’s sister Ursula took over the story and completed it. When she first read to the end of the existing manuscript: “It was a shock,” says Ursula Jones in her Afterword. “It was like being woken from sleepwalking or nearly running off the edge of a cliff.” But taking as her launch point a clue she spotted in the manuscript, and with her understanding of her sister’s style and writing process, Ursula caught the apprentice Wise Woman Aileen and her friends before they fell, and carried them along to the end of their adventure.

When we meet Aileen, it’s the morning after her abject failure in her initiation as a Wise Woman, and she’s being comforted by her Aunt Beck, a full-fledged Wise Woman (and one Scots would call a nippy sweetie). She’s not unkind, though (well, not deliberately), and her no-nonsense attitude chivvies Aileen along into both adventure and a discovery of her true abilities.

I have no idea, and neither does anyone other reviewer I’ve read, where Ursula Jones took over the story. To me it was a seamless adventure with everything a reader could wish for in a fantasy: quests, danger, transformations and impossible obstacles; quirky friends and loathsome enemies and plenty of human frailty in between. As Aileen travels from her home in Skarr to the isolated kingdom of Logra - via the islands of Bernica and Gallis - she accumulates the kind of friends that every fantasy heroine should have, not all of them human (the best of them is the magically elusive cat, Plug-Ugly). And of course, just as it should be, the stern wisdom and acerbic guidance of Aunt Beck is lost to Aileen through a wicked spell; it’s down to the failed young Wise Woman to save the day and break the spells that bind not only her aunt, but the whole kingdom of Logra.

It’s never openly stated but the four islands are very much inspired by the four nations of the British Isles, with Skarr loosely based on Scotland, Bernica on Ireland, Gallis on Wales, and Logra on England. The languages, the peoples and even the living emblems of each island are reminiscent of the respective countries; it’s a rather lovely concept in the islands' links that might soon have an elegiac tone.

Even as you read, there’s a sense of sadness that this was Diana Wynne Jones’s last book. But it’s a lovely coda to a wonderful body of work. I’m just glad Ursula Jones seems to have shared such a telepathic empathy with her sister.

The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones (completed by Ursula Jones) (Harper Collins, £12.99 hb)

www.gillianphilip.com

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Captain Beastlie's Pirate Party by Lucy Coats and Chris Mould - reviewed by Damian Harvey

Captain Beastlie is a dirty, smelly pirate but his ship is smart and his crew are clean. The filthy captain shouts and bellows, stamps and stomps around his ship as he counts down the days left until his birthday - just in case his crew should have forgotten.

Children will delight in Beastlie's dirty habits - 'picking a bogey out of his nose and licking it', then 'rootling a glob of peanut butter out of his ear', and much more besides. They will also love seeing his crew as they busily prepare a birthday surprise for their bellowing captain. But what is it they are preparing?

Lucy's text is a joy to read with its rhythms, pirate language and expressive dialogue. A great book to share and a real must to read aloud to a bunch of lily-livered limpets ahar! But please beware! It's impossible to read in anything other than a traditional pirate voice... And quite right too.

Chris Mould's artwork is always a joy to see and here he brings Lucy's characters to life with lots of fun and added detail in his own inimitable style giving the readers so much to look at.

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Skim words by Mariko Tamaki drawings by Jillian Tamaki review by Lynda Waterhouse

This is a graphic novel based around the diary of sixteen year old goth girl and trainee witch Kimberley Kaiko Cameron aka Skim. At the beginning of the story she has broken her arm. She tells her best friend that she broke it falling off her bike but in reality she ‘tripped on altar getting out of bed and fell on Mum’s candelabra.’

Her parents’ marriage has broken down and her friendship with Lisa is becoming fractured. Popular girl Katie Matthew’s is dumped by her boyfriend and appears with a black broken heart drawn on her hands. There is a hilarious scene in the book where Lisa and Skim attend a coven which turns out to be an AA meeting.

Then Katie’s ex –boyfriend commits suicide and this changes everything at school. Skim is targeted by Miss Hornet, the school counsellor who says ‘students who are members of the ‘’gothic’’ culture are very fragile,’ yet it is Katie who falls off a roof and breaks both her arms.

At the same moment as the suicide Skim falls in love with her drama teacher. Her friendship with Lisa breaks down. Skim is in emotional freefall with no one to talk to. A friendship from an unexpected source brings her joy. There is only one drawing of Skim laughing which is a powerful contrast to how she is portrayed in the rest of the novel.

This novel captures the humour and intensity of Skim’s life and how it is possible to turn a corner in life.

Published by Walker Books

ISBN 978-1-4063-2136-4

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Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

   

This is an exceptional and wonderful book.  I was given it as a prize on the History Girls blog but had resisted reading it for some weeks because the blurb made clear that this was a story that took us into a Second World War concentration camp, and I had a suspicion that it was going to be a harrowing read. 

It is harrowing, but so very rewarding that I urge you all to take a deep breath and read it.  How does it reward?  With wonderful characters one believes in and cares about, and who reflect that war is never a simple matter of goodies versus baddies.  With a plot that surprises even when we already know what happens in the bigger picture.  With detail about life in one corner of one horrific Nazi death camp history that came as news to me (I'd no idea, for example, that manufacturers such as Bosch and Siemens used slave labour in camps to manufacture the very bombs, gas and gas chambers with which that slave labour, and their friends back home, were being killed).  And with beautiful writing that includes some very accessible and moving poetry, along with descriptions of flying by an author who knows about that first hand. 

Rose Justice is a young American woman who has come to England to work in the ATA delivering planes and personnel for the RAF.  Chasing a doodlebug in the hopes of bringing it down before it reaches Britain, she loses her way over France, lands in Germany, and is captured.  She is sent to the Ravensbrook camp for women.  There she meets a range of women from a range of countries who meet a range of fates, but the ones who most stay with us are the Polish 'lapins'; the 'rabbits' that Nazi doctors experimented on.  I'm not going to give away what happens, but promise that we finish the book with damp hankies but feeling energised to make our world better.  I felt uplifted by it. 

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Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders reviewed by Julia Jones

“ 'We wish we could go to the future,' Cyril said, 'But somewhere quite near, please.' ” At the beginning of Kate Saunders's heart-wrenching final adventure of Edith Nesbit's Psammead, the four older children – Cyril, Anthea, Robert and Jane – are still living innocently in 1905. The Psammead is the ancient sand-fairy who has been granting them wishes, with varying degrees of success, since they first dug him up in the classic story Five Children and It (1902). Nesbit's children encountered him again in The Phoenix and the Carpet (1904) and once more in The Story of the Amulet (1906). The Amulet is a time travel story and includes scenes set in a benign Utopian future which reflects the author's own Fabian aspirations. The real future for those young Edwardians would be cruelly different. In the prologue to Saunders's Five Children on the Western Front the Psammead sends the children forward from 1905 to 1930 to visit their friend, the professor. While they are there Anthea looks at some photographs – but what they show is not the same as the photographs they glimpsed during The Story of the Amulet. “ 'I saw a couple of pictures of ladies who looked a bit like Mother and might have been me or Jane but I didn't see any grown up men who looked a bit like you boys. I wonder why not.'

Far away in 1930 in his empty room, the old professor was crying."

And so was I! The current spate of World War 1 remembrances is hard on the emotions and one or twice I've been ashamed to find myself suffering something close to compassion fatigue. I approached Five Children on the Western Front with slight trepidation – was it just going to be a clever idea brought out at an opportune moment? I read it in the happiest of circumstances (lazing in the sunshine down a river on a boat) and was completely unprepared to find myself sobbing helplessly over the final pages. With my head I had guessed what would happen; in my heart I was overwhelmed. I opened that last chapter again just now to check the sequence of events and, dammit, I'm needing to wipe my eyes and blow my nose before I can carry on writing.

How has Kate Saunders managed this? Her novel is far richer and deeper than Nesbit's and, for my taste, funnier as well. This isn't intended to be dismissive of the Founding Mother – Edith Nesbit has a stature and originality that the rest of us will only ever dream of – but rereading her Five Children and It did make me aware of the limitations of the string-of-adventures format. Five Children on the Western Front has several story-lines, a plot, a wider range of tones and characters and the scope to be part of something that is bigger than itself. It's certainly a book which hits that magic, inter-generational space where both adults and children can read with full engagement.

Five Children on the Western Front belongs less to the children than to the Psammead. The sand-fairy is in trouble, deservedly so. “By the sound of it you behaved like an absolute cad,” says the Lamb. “My dear Lamb everyone kills a few slaves.” He is comic, he is nasty and can be seen as the prototype of all fallen emperors. There's a brief chapter where the action fast-forwards to 1938 and he's discovered chatting amiably with Kaiser Bill, with whom he feels much in common.

When the Psammead arrives back in Nesbit's Kentish gravel pit in October 1914, just as Cyril, the oldest boy, is leaving for the war, he's been stripped of his powers. He's confused, vulnerable and furious “A stiff little boulder of crossness” as Saunders memorably describes him. He has been sent down to repent and it's lucky for him that Saunders has added a sixth child, nine-year-old Edie, to the original five. She's the only one who has time to stroke and care for him as her older brothers and sisters cope with the army, university, school and (for the older girls) their first attempts to challenge their parents' pre-war expectations. They are busy and are occasionally exasperated with Sammy's obdurate selfishness and his refusal to acknowledge his past crimes. Edie, however, sees “bewilderment in his eyes and lurking terror”. Her love is constant and undemanding and gives him his best chance to learn the lessons of the universe.

The Psammead does learn and tears are the true response. I've relished all Kate Saunders's books since the day she bought her Belfry Witches series to our children's village primary school but this is The One. Five Children on the Western Front will be published by Faber in October and I want to press it on every reading household. There is an Author's Afterword which reminds us, poignantly, that constant love and premature loss are not confined to 1914-1918. Some of us will still suffer “the worst sorrow there is.”

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PLUMDOG by Emma Chichester Clark Reviewed by Adèle Geras

I first met Plumdog through the internet.  She is a dog belonging to the artist, Emma Chichester Clark who started a diary/blog which she posted on  Twitter. Lots of people fall in love virtually these days and I fell in love with Plum.

She lives with Emma and her partner conveniently near the river in London.  A good thing for her, because one of the things she likes doing most is jumping in water. She loves rivers, streams, the sea, puddles...any water will do.

She has lots of friends, both canine and human and she lives a life which seems to me to be completely blissful. It's full of croissants, walks, trips to the seaside and lots and lots of relatives who all adore Plum.

You'd think from this description that Plum would be spoiled, but no! She's delightful in every way: amusing, charming, slightly waspish when called upon to be so and flirtatious at times too. There are moments of sadness (like the terrible time Plum spent a Channel Crossing in a car situated in the dark hold of the ferry.)  She is also very not keen on  being left. She knows about Packing and what it might mean...

Samuel Johnson had Boswell and Plum is just as lucky to have the wonderful Emma Chichester Clark as her scribe and illustrator. We all know Chichester Clark's work in the Blue Kangaroo books and very many others. She's one of the most sought-after and acclaimed illustrators in the world of children's books and her style, which is at the same time both impressionistic and detailed, is perfect for bringing to life Plum's voice. The pages are edged with what looks like a doggy  fabric pattern and there's huge variety in the layout. Some pictures spread over the whole page, some are laid out in a cartoon style. Some are the perfect background for Plum's  philosophical musings,  such as this one. If you can't read the text, I'll add it here. Plum says: "The tide comes in. The tide goes out. The tide comes in. The tide goes out. This is my place. Forever."

If you have any friends who are dog mad, then this is the book for them. I am a devoted cat lover but have recently acquired a grand- dog who is as charming in his way as Plum. I wish I had the talent and the skill to write a diary for him half as interesting and exciting as this one is. It's not every dog, though, who has her own book, and as I realized  when I first met her, Plum is a total star!

PLUMDOG is published by Jonathan Cape most beautifully in hardback. The book costs £16.99 and is worth every penny. If ever there was an example of a book that needs to be on paper, this is it.

 Turning the book  over to check on the ISBN (9780224098403) I see it's described as a GRAPHIC NOVEL.  That's right, I think and I can't wait for more from the musings and reflections of  Plumdog. 

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TRIBUTE – by Ellen Renner

Reviewed by Jackie Marchant

This is heart in your mouth, gripping stuff.  From the first page, you know that its herione Zara faces impossible odds and, even worse, her deadly enemy is her own father, Benedict.  But, rather that the ever popular feisty gung-ho heroine,  Zara is a girl beset by fear rather than confidence.  She doesn’t appreciated her own abilities, and is all the more likeable for it.  She is in a terrible situation – her mother died  because she didn’t agree with Benedict, her beloved Tribute child was ruthlessly killed by him and the only thing that stops him from killing her is the fact that he thinks he can mould her into the daughter he’d like. 

But Zara has been spying for the Knowledge Seekers, who oppose her father.  If he finds out, the consequences will be terrible, yet she has no choice, if she is to free the world from his tyranny.  At the same time, she is his daughter, a mage like him and therefore hated by those she wants to help. 

And then along comes one of her father’s enemies, a Maker from beyond the Wall – a young lad who holds an immediate attraction for her.

This is set in a complex world, beautifully drawn.  The characters are real, their situation desperate.  it is a world where mages give themselves a godlike superiority, where everyone else is considered ‘Kine’ and treated like cattle.  The firstborn of all kine are snatched away to become slaves, or Tributes.  It’s in this harsh world that  Zara battles her own self-doubts, plus the doubts of those who despise her because she’s a mage.  She also has to keep one step ahead of her forbidding father, because he absolutely must not find out that she is spying on him.  He’s one of the nastiest villains I’ve come across.

All this leads to a great page-turner, beautifully written.  And the good news is that there will be a sequel – Outcaste.  

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‘What Passing Bells For These Who Die as Cattle?’ ‘Ellen’s People’ by Dennis Hamley, reviewed by Pauline Chandler

‘Ellen’s People’ by Dennis Hamley

Reviewed by Pauline Chandler

Most stories inspired by the First World War focus on the suffering and horror of trench warfare, the sheer number of men killed like animals sent to slaughter, the injustice and futility of it all. I’m thinking about Pat Barker’s peerless trilogy, ‘Regeneration’ and Sebastian Faulks’ ‘Birdsong’, or for young readers, Michael Morpurgo’s ‘War Horse’ and ‘Private Peaceful’. There’s something riveting about the horrors so graphically described and I’m sure, if you were to conduct a poll, most people would say that their first thought when considering that dreadful conflict, is the unimagineable carnage.

But that’s only half of the picture. A whole generation of young men was lost. What effect did that have on those who were left behind?  It’s a rare writer who can go there, to make us feel, with the utmost compassion, a common bond with people who lived in times when manners and attitudes were so different. Dennis Hamley does just this, in this outstanding novel.   

In ‘Ellen’s People’, we see the war through the eyes of a teenage girl, not someone called up to fight, but, poignantly, someone called to deal with the consequences of the fighting.

Millions died, and millions lived for the rest of their lives, with the pain of loss, bereavement and grief. Ellen represents not the courage of the soldiers, but the courage of those who lived on, with an aching burden of memories. When I started reading ‘Ellen’s People’, Wilfred Owen’s wonderful sonnet: ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’, came into my mind, especially the last few lines, which express this so beautifully.

As Owen does in his poetry, Dennis Hamley writes with a wider understanding of the war, not only revulsion at what amounted to mass murder, but also the confusion and grief of those left behind, as their world is irrevocably changed.

And not only that. Owen, a soldier at the front, could yet see the effect of the ‘cess of war’ on both allied and enemy forces. Dennis Hamley also approaches his subject with the same humane tolerance, offering us a deeper awareness of the effect on soldiers on both sides.

Ellen Wilkins is sixteen when the recruitment officer signs up her brother, Jack, along with the other young men in the village to go off to the war. Tempers flare and the village is divided, when the local landowner, Colonel Cripps, seems to defend the Germans, but Ellen understands what he’s trying to say, that there are good and bad on both sides, and it would be wrong to go to war in a spirit of anger, seeking revenge, like butchers rather than soldiers.

These differences are highlighted in Ellen’s own home, when her father will not hear of her working for Colonel Cripps, in his eyes a ‘toff’, one of those who prey on the working classes and enslave them in domestic service. Ellen sees things differently. At the heart of the novel is her journey of self-discovery, in a male- and class- dominated world, a world at war. To be true to herself, Ellen has to defy her father and break open all prejudices. In this she has help from one of the hated ‘toffs’, Colonel Cripps’ daughter, Daphne, who takes her to nurse in France, fulfilling her highest ambition, and opening yet another unexpected chapter in her life.

‘Ellen’s People’ is a thoroughly satisfying read. The detail of everyday life in 1914 is fascinating and creates an authentic setting for Ellen’s story. Each of the characters is well delineated, with their own back stories and motives, but especially Ellen herself, who is an appealing and ageless heroine.

‘Ellen’s People’ is out now in an ebook edition (Kindle) , soon to be followed by a paperback edition, from Blank Page Press. The book was previously published in the USA, under the title ‘Without Warning’. 

Read more about Ellen, in the sequel, ‘Divided Loyalties’, a story set in WWII, out on September 3^rd.

   

Wilfred Owen -  Anthem for Doomed Youth

Written between September and October 1917, when Owen was a patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh, recovering from shell shock. The poem was edited by his friend, Siegfried Sassoon.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
    Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
    Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
    Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
    And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
    Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
    Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
    Their flowers the tenderness of silent maids,
    And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Pauline Chandler 

www.paulinechandler.com

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CUCKOO SONG by Frances Hardinge, reviewed by Cecilia Busby

Her head hurt. There was a sound grating against her mind, a music-less rasp like the rustling of paper. Somebody had taken a laugh, crumpled it into a great, crackly ball, and stuffed her skull with it. Seven days, it laughed. Seven days.

When I opened Frances Hardinge's new book, Cuckoo Song and read those words, I knew I was going to enjoy it. After a few more pages, I found myself closing the book, and hugging it close to my chest. I wanted to hold on to that moment - the fizz and delight of knowing this story was going to  get under my skin and make me live it, and for as long as I stopped, and refused to read any more, it would all still be there, waiting for me, stretching out ahead. It's the best feeling - and Cuckoo Song didn't disappoint. It's a glorious, imaginative, delicately spooky book, with characters that stay with you afterwards, and some fine twists and turns of plot.

One of the plot twists is quite a big one, and it's hard to review the book without giving it away, but I'll do my best. In fact, anyone even vaguely familiar with fairy tales will probably guess it quite early on (I did) but it doesn't spoil the story. There's still plenty of tension in working out exactly how this twist will play out and what will happen when it's discovered. And tension is one of the things that Hardinge does incredibly well in this book - from the first page, and that ominous 'seven days', the reader knows this is a story that has a ticking clock in the background. 

The book opens with the main protagonist, Triss, waking in bed and learning that she has been rescued from nearly drowning. Her memories of the event are elusive - and in fact, there's something very odd about all her memories. She's not sure who she is, or how she got there, and even when details of her life come back, they still feel odd, not quite real. It's as if she's acting the part of being herself. Something happened to Triss in the Grimmer - the lake where she nearly drowned - and she needs to find out what it is. She is ravenously hungry; leaves and bits of earth appear in her bedroom without any explanation; every night she has strange dreams, and each night the countdown is one less: six days left... five days...

Triss also has to contend with a fiercely antagonistic younger sister, Pen, jealous of the special attention the invalid Triss gets from their parents, and also apparently terrified of her older sister. But it's Pen who holds the key to what has happened, and it's only when the two sisters join forces that they begin to have a glimmer of a chance against the mysterious Architect who's behind it all. The bond between the two sisters is at the heart of the story, and Hardinge skilfully shows the mix of jealousy, rivalry, loyalty, love and exasperation that animates their relationship.

The book is set in the 1920s, in an imaginary industrial town in, at a guess, the midlands, and the fairy-tale elements gain some of their power from the contrast with this very down-to-earth setting of trams, telephones and motorcars. It's the beginning of the modern era, but lurking in the shadows of the remaining gas-lamps, and in the cracks and wastelands of industrial development, are the Besiders, Hardinge's version of the fairies. The Architect is the most powerful but there are others, too - the Shrike, with his strange bird-like face, and others, whose shadows flit across the corner of your vision - and they want something from the humans, something they are prepared to kill for.

But it's not just the story that makes this book so brilliant - although that's superbly realised - it's also the language. Hardinge's images and descriptions are pure delight, and on almost any page you can find a sentence that will make you want to copy it out and put it on the wall to remind you of what amazing writing looks like. Here she is on jazz:

All the instruments plunged in at once, as if they'd been holding a party and somebody had opened a door on them. Where was the tune? It was in there somewhere, but the instruments fought over it, tossed it between them, dropped it and trod on it, did something else, then picked it up again and flung it in the air just when you were least expecting it.

Later, Triss watches a party of young men and women dancing to some of this untamed music in an old warehouse down near the river. The windows, looking out over the water, make her feel as if she's on a boat.

Nobody was steering the boat, everybody was dancing, and nobody danced more wildly than Violet. There was something desperate about it, as if dancing would stop the boat sinking. There was something fierce about it, as if she wanted to drive her foot through the hull and sink the boat faster.

Violet, the ex-fiancee of Triss and Pen's dead brother Sebastian, is a motorbike-riding, cigarette-smoking, thoroughly fast young woman. In her acknowledgements, Hardinge suggests that the inspiration for Violet was her own grandmother, who 'threw her home village into confusion when she returned from London on a motorbike'. Wherever she came from, she's another treat in a book full of them.

In a recent blog post on ABBA, I tried to come up with a set of criteria that got at the heart of what a really good children's book should be. Cuckoo Song, for me, fulfils all those criteria with gusto, humour, wit and pure panache. 

C.J. Busby writes funny fantasy adventures for  age 7-11. Her latest book, DEEP AMBER,  was published in March 2014 by Templar and has been shortlisted for the Stockton Book Award.

@ceciliabusby

www.cjbusby.co.uk

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THE ROMAN BEANFEAST by Gillian Cross. Reviewed by Ann Turnbull.

Davey has problems. His dad is in the Far East and the phone lines are crackly. His mum has her hands full - literally - with the toddler twins. And next door lives Molly, who is clean, organised and good at everything. Molly is in Davey's class at school, and she enjoys making him feel stupid.

The class is studying the Romans, and everyone has been asked to make something for the Roman Prize at the end of term. Davey tries hard, but every time he makes something Molly copies his idea and makes a better one. Davey tosses all his failed projects into his wardrobe - and then he has a brilliant idea! But can he keep it a secret from Molly?

This is a delightful story for children aged around seven to ten - a reissue of a book first published in 1996. The plot is satisfyingly clever, but it's the characters and the mayhem of everyday life that makes the story so entertaining. There's Davey's harassed mum doing up the baby buggy straps with one hand while holding a wriggling twin in her other arm. There's the constant messiness and zest for life of the twins (including a hilarious scene in the library). And there's Davey himself, not stupid at all, but inventive, determined - and kind-hearted. Ros Asquith's witty illustrations add to the fun.

And the reader learns a new word: onager. (Well, it was new to this reader, anyway.)

Published by Frances Lincoln, 2013.

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THE RIVER AT GREEN KNOWE, by Lucy M. Boston. Reviewed by Saviour Pirotta

Title: THE RIVER AT GREEN KNOWE

Author: Lucy M. Boston

Publisher: Faber & Faber, 1959

Although I am a huge fan of low fantasy, the Green Knowe franchise had somehow passed me by. I was aware that the author, Lucy M Boston had won the carnegie medal  in the early sixties and that one of the books had been made into a film.

A few weeks ago I chanced upon a 1980 edition of THE RIVER AT GREEN KNOWE in a charity shop.  A few pages into it I was completely hooked.  It is the best of fantasy, written in a languid, poetic style that weaves a powerful spell on the reader.

The plot is very loose. Two women rent the house at Green Knowe for the summer and invite three children to share it with them: a niece, a vaguely Eastern European boy and a Chinese refugee.  Left to their own devices, the children explore the local river in a canoe, mapping the islands they encounter.

During their explorations, the most magical of which happen by moonlight, the children encounter a modern-day Robinson Crusoe, a giant who is scared of laughter and a flock of winged horses.  On a windy night, they eavesdrop on a Bronze Age initiation ceremony full of dancing, ululating men.

The underlying theme is one of displacement.  Everyone and everything is on a journey – the river, the

people, the boats, the magical creatures.  And the final message – that the greatest journey of all ends with an inevitable loss of faith and imagination is truly resonant.

Ida said, "I'm sorry, Ping. One can't do anything for grownups. They're hopeless."

Ping sighed. "I can't understand, when it's the thing they most want in the world, and it's there before their eyes, why they won't see it."

"They are often like that," said Oskar wisely. "They don't like NOW. If it's really interesting, it has to be THEN."

Hasty research on google tells me that a lot of readers where disappointed when this book was first published. It doesn’t feature the usual cast from the other books.  For me, not being familiar with those other children, this was not a hurdle. I adored the fearless Ida, the philosophical Oskar and the irrascable Ping.  I only wish Lucy M. Boston had written more adventures about them.  I would have gone along for the ride anytime.

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