MISTER CLEGHORN'S SEAL by JUDITH KERR, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

Last year Judith Kerr, now in her nineties, had a very special new book published.  Mister Cleghorn's Seal is a delight.  Handsomely produced on thick cream paper, with gold lettering on the cover, this book is a classy one, and a fun and a moving and a beautiful one.  It isn't a picture book.  It's a story book.  But every spread has wonderful soft pencil drawings to accompany the text.  The stubby nice people who live in this story world along with the big-eyed seal pup are very appealing, and the whole book has the most comfortable feel of a story one smiles one's way through reading.

The hero of this story isn't a child.  He's a recently retired old bachelor who isn't sure what to do with his time now that he has no work.  But, never mind that, Mr Cleghorn wants exactly what a child would want, and does exactly what a child would want to do.  When faced with an orphaned seal pub that's starving, Mr Cleghorn simply takes that seal pup home with him on the train.  He feeds it with a baby bottle, and waters it on his balcony with a watering can, and puts it into his bath.  

But there's a problem with keeping a seal in a flat where there's a janitor who is keen on the rules, and those rules state that no pets are allowed.  What is Mr C to do?  He considers the nearby zoo, but it isn't good enough.  Then a lady neighbour proves sympathetic ... and I'm sure you can guess how this story manages to end happily after all.  In saving the seal pup, Mr Cleghorn has saved himself.  

A post script from author/illustrator Kerr tells how this story actually puts right a sadder true story that has haunted her over for years.  'More than a hundred years ago' her father, as a young man, had saved a real life seal pup, taking it home to his flat in Berlin, feeding it with a baby bottle and watering it with a watering can on his balcony, and putting it into his bath, but that pup died.  The post script doesn't add that the man himself was then hounded from his home by the Nazis.  There's a lot of restrained emotion in this story, and that, along with the beauty of the pictures and the production, makes it moving and memorable whilst also fun.  This one really is and story and book for any age from about four up to anything you like!  

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

The Great Chocoplot by Chris Callaghan. Review by Tamsin Cooke

When I read the blurb for The Great Chocoplot by Chris Callaghan – I thought what a great idea for a children’s book. I raced out to buy it, read it in one sitting, and YES – the story more than lives up to its blurb.

Jelly and her family live in Chompton-on-de-Lyte, where everyone loves a Chocablocka bar or two. So when the end of chocolate is announced, she can't believe it. Determined to investigate, Jelly and her gran follow a trail of clues to a posh chocolate shop and its owner, the pompous Garibaldi Chocolati. Gari's suspiciously smug, despite his failing business and yucky chocolate. Is it really the chocopocalypse, or is there a chocoplot afoot?

Jelly is a fabulous heroine – she’s smart, feisty and intrepid. And each member of her family is quirky and funny with their own role to play. Their witty dialogue made me laugh out loud.

This fun adventure is well paced and very clever. Chris manages to weave in science and history making the story sound so plausible, I actually might start stockpiling chocolate myself.

Jam-packed with jokes, it is aimed at 8+ , but I think it is just as entertaining for adults as it is children. In particular, I adore the witty news bulletins on the 'Chocopocal App', spread throughout the story. Plus there are great black and white illustrations by Lalalimola that really add to the humour and bring the book even more to life.

This is a truly fantastic read. And in my mind, any book that includes the word 'chocolpocalypse' deserves to be read!

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE by KATE DI CAMILLO. Review by Penny Dolan

Kate Di Camillo’s “BECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE” which won the Newbery Prize in 2000, has long been one of my favourite children's books, so I was very glad to hear about the publication of her newest novel, RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE.

RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE is not a Di Camillo fantasy but a story set in Florida during the summer of 1975. The tale is peopled with a variety of eccentric and alarming characters and yet, despite some dark themes, filled with a slightly dazed optimism. 

The story opens as Raymie Clarke, the central character begins baton-twirling lessons with the alarming Ida Nee:  
“Stop that nonsense immediately,” said Ida Nee.

Even though she was old – fifty at least – her hair was an extremely bright yellow, She wore white boots that came all the way up to her knees.

“I’m not kidding,” said Ida Nee.

Raymie believed her. Ida Nee didn’t seem much like a kidder.

Raymie isn't in love with baton-twirling. She's there because, two days earlier, her father ran off to New York City without leaving any contact address. Raymie wants to enter the Little Miss Central Florida Tire Competition, hoping that when her father sees her photograph in the newspaper, he’ll feel so proud he will call her and come home again. 

She is standing in Ida Nee’s back yard with two unknown girls who both intend to enter the Competition too. The dainty Louisiana Elefante - given to fantasy, bunny-clips in her hair and fainting –  needs the prize money for herself and her Granny while the brooding, knife-wielding, lock-picking Beverley Tapinski merely wants to sabotage the whole event.  Louisiana enthusiastically names the odd trio the “Three Rancheros” and that summer's adventures make the three unlikely girls into firm friends.

Not content with just baton-twirling, Raymie decides to do a Good Deed for her competition interview. She visits the Golden Glen Nursing Home taking A Bright And Shining Path: The Life of Florence Nightingale, a library book - and hence the title of this novel. However, good-deed Raymie finds reading to the elderly is so alarming that she escapes, leaving the library book behind. 

Once Louisiana and Beverley hear about the lost book, they escort Raymie back to Golden Glen and succeed in getting the book back, mostly. From there, Di Camillo develops the story into a strong and heartfelt experience with an inspired ending and a host of eccentric adult characters. Slowly, during their escapades, Raymie understands more about Louisiana and Beverley’s lives as well as her own.

Lightly based on her own childhood, Di Camillo’s RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE deals with longing, friendship, death, determination and bravery in a wonderfully unique and remarkable way – and unlike Di Camillo’s earlier “Winn-Dixie” novel - no dogs are involved in this story. There is, however, a search for Archie the cat, last left in the care of the Very Friendly Animal Centre as well as an incident with a caretaker’s canary and some devious driving by a tiny Granny. A remarkable book with a clear sense of time and place that feels enjoyable, gently humourous and often poignant.

Meanwhile, I will be lending my copy of RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE to a certain twelve-year-old girl when we meet. I wonder what she'll think of it?

nb. I was alerted to RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE’s arrival by a recent review on the Bookwitch blog. Thank you for the recommendation, Bookwitch!

Penny Dolan

RAYMIE NIGHTINGALE,

published by Walker Books (2016) £9.99 hbk.

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

THE STORY OF ALISON HUBBLE by Allan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman. Reviewed by Penny Dolan

Once a teacher always a teacher, I admit, even when enjoying new picture book titles.  

 Some picture books immediately suggest use within an educational context, partly because the story can be interpreted through interesting topic work, often with a classroom “play-corner” alongside. These titles become popular within Early Years, Foundation and Year One classrooms because they fit in with aspects of the curriculum and are not any the worse for that.

(For example, an Early Years classroom I visited recently was working on THE BOG BABY, written by Jeanne Willis and illustrated by Gwen Millard. The internet offered instructions on how to make a Bog Baby collage, a gallery of blue-painted bog-babies created in classrooms and a downloadable record sheet where children can record their bog-baby observations. Well done, Puffin, for spotting that possibility!)

Occasionally, however, a particular book brings the reader the sense of a close family moment or a privately shared armchair story-time. This book is one of those. I imagined Alison Hubble being read by grandparents or parents, each reading-aloud taking place within the bonds of love and quiet fun. The plot feels as if it sprang from a family joke or teasing comment, and then developed into a delightful fantasy. The full title explains the whole dilemma:

This is the story of ALISON HUBBLE

 who went to bed single and woke up double.

The writer of this rhyming story is the much-beloved author Allan Ahlberg whilst the talented Bruce Ingman – possibly the only artist who has brought a poignant conflict between pencils and erasers so vividly to life – forms the illustrating hand in the team.

The plot echoes a familiar complaint, gently sighed from adult to child at the end of a long day: “Whatever would I do if there was another one of you?” and this is exactly what the Hubble parents discover, because Alison herself does what the title says. 

The Hubble's one little girl becomes two Alisons then four and eight and more, doubling on and on and causing much consternation at home, at school and beyond. 

 
The troubles are pursued with gentle humour: when eight Alisons become sixteen:

“Oh no,” said her mum

“What a tragedy!

It’ll take us four hours

To cook her tea.”

“You’re right,” said her dad.

“What rotten luck!

We’ll have to do the shopping

In a three ton-truck.”

As in all cumulative plots, everyone tries to help. The local council does send an enormous tent for the increasing family but the excitement of camping is spoiled when thirty-two little girls now find themselves squashed into just sixteen sleeping bags.

Ingman’s illustrations offer enjoyable tiny "subplots": the harassed teacher, registering the many Alison Hubbles, does not see a boy in the background answering as Alison and the newspaper photograph of a batch of identical Alisons contains one Alison gazing off to the side, like real-life child who won't do the helpful thing for the camera. 

You can have a peek at some of the spreads here. 

Eventually, the many Alison Hubbles need a whole town of their own - but I won’t say which or where - and the end-paper suggests that even further choices might be needed, raising a few more issues that might need discussion. 

However, for now, ALISON HUBBLE (please add the full title yourself!) makes an enjoyably eccentric picture book. Promoted as a tale of Mathematical Mayhem, the book is full of fun, wit and would be lovely to share.  

ALISON HUBBLE will be in bookshops from today, 4^th May, and I'm sure the well-established writer-and-illustrator team means that libraries will stock copies sometime soon. The picture book is recommended for children between 3 - 5years.

Penny Dolan

Ps. I’m just checking the publicity sheet here, as this was a picture book I received for review, and spot that the picture-book publisher is the ever-cunning Puffin! So I’m now wondering if I’ll find Alison Hubble "Times-table" games on screens when I next visit early-years classrooms? Or rows of identically Hubbley-paper-dolls on display? Perhaps you should take my review as an early “Alison Alert”?

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby: reviewed by Sarah Hammond

Laura Ruby’s teen novel is set in Bone Gap in rural Illinois, a place that everyone knows "had gaps just wide enough for people to slip through, or slip away, leaving only their stories behind."  Brothers Finn and Sean are only too aware of people slipping away: their father died, their mother ran away to Oregon with an orthodontist leaving them to fend for themselves, and the story begins just after Roza, Sean’s beautiful girlfriend, is kidnapped by a mysterious man at a local fair. 

Finn is the only witness to the disappearance of Roza, but his description of the alleged kidnapper as moving "like a cornstalk in the wind" is frustratingly inadequate. The searches reveal nothing. Roza becomes another person who is lost through the gaps, leaving a rift between the two brothers behind her. 

Yet just as we gradually learn that neither Finn’s strange vagueness, nor the odd disappearances in Bone Gap are quite what they seem, neither is the novel itself. Although we follow the vivid, realistic, well-drawn lives of the people of small-town America —  the local eccentrics, the sassy beekeeper, the bullies —  another story begins too. This story reveals Roza, trapped in an increasingly fairy-tale-like world by her strange captor and desperate to find her way home. 

And this magical world begins to spill into Bone Gap. A black racehorse appears at Finn’s house without explanation, taking him on rides through unrecognisable landscapes, over strange cliffs in the middle of cornfields. We begin to notice subtle sprinklings of Greek mythology. Roza’s garden wilts and dies in her absence. When Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, was dragged by Hades to the underworld against her will, didn’t Demeter let the world go barren in her absence? Didn’t Demeter also take the form of a black-winged mare? 

Other questions emerge, too. How important is beauty? Petey, Finn’s new girlfriend, is seen as conventionally ugly yet Finn does not notice. Some of my favourite scenes show the pair falling in love, making up increasingly ridiculous college essays “Describe someone who has had the biggest impact on your life using only adverbs”, “Tell us how you feel about Thursday - is it better or worse than Tuesday?” Roza is kidnapped for her beauty, yet this is not how Finn ultimately recognises her, and Sean’s first drawing of his girlfriend was of her hands. 

And what of abandonment? Who is at fault when someone leaves? Alongside the mysterious story of Roza's abduction, many characters are alone or have missing family members. In learning to heal and move forwards, who rescues whom? 

Bone Gap won the 2016 Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature in the U.S. and was published in the U.K. in April 2016. It is a well-written, thought-provoking novel that encompasses realism and myth, changes in worldview, abandonment and rescue, and, ultimately, questions how we see those we love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Laura Ruby writes fiction for adults, teens and children. She is the author of the newly-released YA novel Bone Gap as well as the Edgar-nominated children's mystery Lily's Ghosts, the ALA Quick Pick for teens Good Girls (2006), a collection of interconnected short stories about blended families for adults, I'm not Julia Roberts (2007), and the forthcoming middle-grade trilogy York. She is on the faculty of Hamline University's Masters in Writing for Children Program. She makes her home in the Chicago area. 

You can find her online at:

web: www.lauraruby.com
twitter: @thatlauraruby

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Sarah Hammond is a writer for young people. She has published a picture book, Mine!, and a teen novel, The Night Sky in my Head, which was short-listed for four awards in the UK. She is a Brit abroad, now living happily in Chicago, with strong ties to the UK which regularly pull her back across the Pond.

You can find her online at:

web: www.sarahhammond.org

facebook: SarahHammondAuthorPage

twitter: @SarahHammond9

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

The Lie Tree, by Frances Hardinge: reviewed by Sue Purkiss

The Lie Tree, by Frances Hardinge, recently made headlines by winning the Costa Book of the Year Prize - the first children's book to have done so since Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials. This is a richly complex Gothic horror story, with language and concepts as challenging as Pullman's. It is the story of Faith, a girl whose father is a vicar but also an archaeologist and natural scientist living at the beginning of the nineteenth century - a time when people (mostly, but not entirely, men) could be all these things at the same time; when the worlds of art and science were much closer than they are now; and when new wonders were constantly being discovered - and old certainties anxiously challenged.

Faith's father is strict and distant, and dismissive of his daughter, even though she is clearly much cleverer than her younger brother, Howard. No-one tells her why the family must suddenly move to the island of Vane, but Faith is a curious girl who refuses to be limited by what is expected of her, and she makes it her business to find out what is going on. 

She soon discovers that her father is fleeing from rumours that he is a fraud; that many of his most famous fossil finds are not genuine. She decides to investigate further - and she finds that at the centre of his obsessions is a mysterious tree which he has hidden in a sea cave. This tree, she eventually discovers, literally feeds on lies - and produces fruit which, when eaten, reveals hidden truths...

Meanwhile, the rumours about her father have reached Vane. Gossip spreads, and the atmosphere becomes as menacing and brooding as the swiftly growing tree. Faith decides she will harness the tree's power to find out the truth - but of course, when we go searching for the truth, we don't always like what we find.

The tree itself - well. Very sinister. There's something about this element of the story that reminds me of The Monkey's Paw, by WW Jacobs, which also features an object with mysterious powers found abroad, whose appropriation by westerners leads to unexpected and terrible consequences - as does Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. Perhaps there's something to do with colonialism going on here - the downside of the urge to explore which led to so many adventures and discoveries from the end of the eighteenth century on.

I found this a compulsive, richly textured read, and you have to admire Faith's determination to confound expectations about what, in Victorian times, would have been appropriate for a girl in terms of life chances and behaviour. There are other interesting female characters too; her mother, Myrtle, seems fairly dreadful at first, but I very much warmed to her as she gradually revealed  unexpected depths of deviousness and determination.

For more reviews and other stuff, please see my blog, A fool on a hill.

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

BROKEN SKY by Lee Weatherly: reviewed by Gillian Philip

"Everyone has to believe in something," says Amity Vancour's little brother, Hal. He means, of course, that people need to believe; but as it turns out, an awful lot of people love to believe in something. What Hal has not yet seen, at the quarter-point in this chilling novel, is a population persuaded with alarming ease to believe willingly, gladly, joyfully in something entirely irrational. 

I say 'chilling', but L.A. Weatherly's Broken Sky is more of a spine-freeze. Following the Cataclysm – a nuclear conflagration a couple of thousand years ago – the world has essentially been rebooted. Amity Vancour lives in an era that is more or less the 1940s, but second-time-around. And this time, humanity seems to have learned its lesson. 

Wars have happened in this universe – it's what people do – but Amity's own grandmother Louise, who lived through an appalling one, was instrumental in putting an end to them forever. The world is now overseen by the World for Peace, an international organisation that prioritises and ranks inter-state conflicts, then resolves them. The instruments of this admirable policy are the Peacefighters, a noble force who fight for their countries' rights against one another, at great personal risk but with none to civilians or large armies. For this service, Peacefighters are idolised by a grateful population – and fully trusted. Their thrilling Firedove [Spitfire] duels take place in the skies above the WfP complex, neutral territory in the Western Seaboard where the pilots of all nations socialise (when they're not engaged in aerial combat with one another). This world is not utopia, but it feels like the best version of humanity, and the Peacefighters are at its heart.

Enter John Gunnison, the demagogue who rules the neighbouring Central States – and who eyes the Western Seaboard with avarice. The Peacefights have been going his way lately, so Amity is thrilled and proud when her win in a duel retains the Western Seaboard's oil rights for five years. When that result is overturned for reasons she doesn't understand, the first doubts creep in – and when pilots begin to die in straightforward fights, things quickly get a lot more sinister.

Gunnison is a tremendous and shockingly believable villain. When we finally meet him, through Weatherly's secondary character Kay, his charisma shines, and it's clear how he has reached the pinnacle of power. His genius has been to manipulate the population with astrology; his strength comes from his genuine, fanatical belief. Astrological charts are cast for every citizen of the Central States; a Discordant outcome results in correction camps, torture and death. And while Gunnison's belief is sincere, those around him survive by knowing just how to manipulate a chart to make him happy. Kay prides herself on knowing how to read people; resourceful and ruthless, she is determined to reach his inner circle and stay alive.

Broken Sky begins with Amity on the run, alone and desperate and terrified for the life of her lover and childhood friend, Collie. From this heart-in-mouth flash-forward, Weatherly takes us back to Amity's previous golden existence as a respected Peacefighter, and the great mystery begins: how did she get from there to here? The story rarely lets up the tension, and when it does it's only for touching interludes of love and family life. Amity is a splendid protagonist, courageous, compassionate and able; and we fall in love with Collie almost as thoroughly as she does. But don't let me give the impression there's sentimentality in the romance; Peacefighters can't afford it. These are tough, passionate, honest warriors and their relationship feels real. 

What also feels very real is the world they live in. I felt sorriest for a character we never meet: President Lopez of the Western Seaboard, a politician doing his best for a nation that is increasingly unhappy and deprived as the Peacefights go against them. The people of the WS gaze with envy at the prosperous Central States and its strong, charismatic leader, and they begin to wonder if astrology can do the same wonders for them. They don't know – or don't want to know – about the Discordants and their fate. 

One of the creepiest aspects of the novel is the Astrology shops that begin to pop up with increasing frequency in the Western Seaboard; everyone has to believe in something. Astrology might seem like a stretch as a way to hypnotise a population; but Weatherly makes it an entirely believable phenomenon. And why not? These are not the first nations to fall wholesale for the joyfully bombastic rallies of a demagogue. Soon everyone's wearing their star sign on their lapel; after all, it's just a brooch, just a bit of fun. It's not as if it'll ever be obligatory... but what if Gunnison's right? What if the Discordants are somehow responsible for everyone's problems? Harmony is a benevolent ideal, isn't it? Perhaps a truly perfect world is within reach if Discordant elements can be neutralised.  

Lee Weatherly does a magnificent job of examining the good intentions of humanity, and the fragility of those ideals when put into practice. Good people succumb to temptation; good people begin to think about ends, and the means they are willing to tolerate in their pursuit. Good people decide to believe in bad people, and it's never going to end well.

Action, romance, heartbreak, betrayal, agonising guilt and heart-stopping tension: Broken Sky has it all. Oh, and fascinatingly detailed Spitfire dogfights. And delightful future-historical period detail. And TWISTS; dear Lord, the twists. And by the way, it's more than suitable for fully-grown adults as well as young ones. 

I should stop before I gush any more about this tremendous book (the first in a trilogy), but I'll leave you with a link to Lee Weatherly's Broken Sky Pinterest board (I was going to steal some illustrations from it, but the choice is too difficult). And besides, I found this shot of Ms Weatherly in a Spitfire: 

BROKEN SKY by Lee Weatherly; Usborne, £8.99

Broken Sky on Pinterest

www.gillianphilip.com 

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE