A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby Reviewed by Chitra Soundar

 When I was growing up, I was among the first generation of Indians learning about computers. I loved playing computer games and trying to get hold of gameboys and other gadgets which we couldn't afford. Often borrowed or just watching others do it, it was one of those things that I've always been in the peripherals are. I'm also a child of comic books - India is big on comics and most of the epics I learnt about - more than the stories told at home, I was reading them as comics. 

As a writer visiting schools, I often create workshops around games and stories - where characters can enter the realm of games or into the world of their favourite TV programmes to enthuse those kids who are more into gaming than into reading. 

So when I picked up Aisha Bushby's A Pocketful of Stars, I was so happy to read about the contemporary setup of games and animation stories and the friendship (and rivalries) of girls. But this story took me by surprise - the layers of emotions added into it. From a divorce of parents, to blended heritages, to theatre and drama, the story threads through difficult subjects in realistic and yet magical ways.

Then the magic - the way the game and the reality blends, and how the analogy of the relationship plays out in this game and in real life - this was beautifully done, no doubt, painstakingly crafted. 

The book's emotional punches are never pulled right until the end and when I was reading the last few chapters on a train, I found myself crying on the tube perhaps adding to the myth of "emotional immigrant".  I was so gutted by the end and yet so happy to have read the story and gone on this journey. 

The book is great to read as a class or by children on their own - but beyond the magic and games, the story will offer discussions, perhaps will open pathways of dialogue between friends, between parents and children - about relationships, guilts and our identities. 

If you have not read this book yet, what are you waiting for? 

Listen to Aisha Bushby read a little from this book here. 

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Chitra Soundar is an internationally published, award-winning author of over 40 books for children. She is also an oral storyteller and writer of theatre and TV for children. Her stories are inspired by folktales from India, Hindu mythology and her travels around the world. Find out more at www.chitrasoundar.com. Follow her on Twitter @csoundar. 

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CHLOE'S SECRET PRINCESS CLUB by EMMA BARNES. Review by Penny Dolan

Chloe’s Secret Princess Club may be about three girls who want to become princesses, but at heart, this book is really about the fun of imaginative play and friendship.

With plenty of fantasy books about, one can only be glad to find a story set so clearly within the real world of everyday family situations, and where the young characters have ordinary hopes and childish aspirations.

Also - and a personal response here – I was rather pleased to discover the book was not in a diary format, but presented in fourteen chapters with a few essential lists. The book very much reminded of Beverley Cleary’s Ramona stories, where the focus is all about the central character learning to cope with the smaller bumps of everyday life.

At first, dreamyhead Chloe Higgins keeps her Princess plans to herself. Then, when she sees that the school store-cupboard door is unlocked, she can’t help peeping inside, just in case it is a Portal to Another World and so ends up sticking her bewigged head out of the window, asking for help. Chloe is teased as “Rapunzel” but the incident leads to Chloe and two other girls forming a very Secret Club as they all have a secret wish to become princesses: princesses of the kind and graceful variety, not of the obnoxious, fame-seeking sort. Having had a daughter who loved dressing up, I felt this girlish longing was very well and positively handled within the writing.

After all,it's not an unreasonable wish because Chloe’s mum has definitely told her that “you can be anything you want to be if you believe in it and work hard” - although Mum was talking about Chloe concentrating on Mental Maths at the time!

The author Emma Barnes has created an attractive trio of characters: introducing impulsive, freckle-faced Chloe, shy Aisha, her long-time best friend, and over-achieving Eliza. She demonstrates the complexity of the modern child’s life too. Meeting up after school is not a simple task: during the week, Chloe has after-school swimming and baking, Aisha goes to classes at the mosque, and Eliza has lessons in trumpet, tap-dancing and karate as well as her Friday family supper. The easy culture mix familiar to an urban child of today is a particular strength of Emma Barnes' storytelling.

The three girls do manage to get together for their “Secret Princess Club” after-school meetings and activities in each others houses, where they enjoy creating special rules and secret handshakes as well as writing everything down in their official unicorn notebook, which eventually leads to a serious misunderstanding.

As the chapters progress, the girls try to learn the skills of being princesses, within their available context. Their dance tuition comes via a DVD of ballroom lessons, their beautiful outfits are clothes and scarves from Chloe’s mother’s wardrobe, and their rescuing of lost kittens involves taking a rather elderly cat back up the street to its neighbour. Plans rarely go quite as the girls imagine but although the adults who are around in the background of the story are sometimes upset they are usually kindly, in a busy working way. The Secret Club’s biggest worry is that Chloe’s twin brother, snooping Arthur and his best friend Mikhail will spread their secret back at school.

Although the “Princesses”-  also know as Clorinda, Araminta and Elisabetta - are playing their roles and living their challenges seriously, one senses they know the limits of their game. The book is not about big time riches or fame and most of the dressing-up involved is creative rather than hugely materialistic. The big argument, when it arrives, grows from a visit by Egyptian history experts to the school, and the three girls learning about the “Princess” Cleopatra. Despite the following arguments and anguish (and a lonely bath in asses milk) the three princesses learn more about each others real-life hopes and dreams and the need to be kinder to each other. 

“Most of all we have stuck together and had fun!”

It’s worth noting that the back of this book contains a character-linked personality quiz, a jam tart recipe and suggestions for creating you own clubs, as well as a welcome stress on the fact that a club can be about whatever a child is interested in and not necessarily princesses: a well-made point! I'm wondering if there will be another kind of Chloe Club or a return of the Princesses Club in a further book.

The Secret Princess Club has an appealing real-life charm and offers an amusing and comforting story, whether as a bedtime book for a young reader or shared on the sofa with a grown-up, possibly stirring tales of their own childhood games.

As Chloe’s mother says: “A bit of imagination is a wonderful thing.”

And there is a hamster.

And a frog. 

Penny Dolan.

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THE ICARUS SHOW by Sally Christie Reviewed by Adèle Geras

We know what happened to Icarus. He put on  a pair of wings made by his father, flew too near the sun and fell to his death. The  striking cover of Sally Christie's new novel  has chosen to emphasise the myth and at first sight, this doesn't look like a book set in the present day and in a world we recognise. There's a mythic quality to the image.

The story is about a boy, Alex, and his problems and the way he deals with them but it's also about much more than that.  It shows that even the most ordinary lives can be transformed: by unexpected events and people with whom on the face of it you have little in common. 

Alex has adopted a strategy to avoid being bullied  and picked on at school. He lies low and does not react - not to anything. This is presented  to us matter-of-factly:  it's what you have to do to get by each day, but when the reader pauses to think, it's a heartbreaking way for a young boy to spend his entire school day. His 'trust no one' policy means, of course, that he has no friends. He used to have a friend, who's  moved to another part of the country.  A boy called Dave Marsh, known as Bogsy, lives in the house next door, but Alex misses his old neighbours, Maisie and Don, an elderly couple.  When Don died, Maisie, who was like a granny to Alex,  went to live in a care home called The Laurels. Their son, also called Don, lives in Australia.

Then one day Alex finds a feather in his schoolbag and a note saying "A boy is going to fly. Will you be there?" At first, he thinks he's the only one to get such a message but he later discovers that others have had it too, and he sets out to find out who wrote it and even more importantly to wonder: will it happen? Were such things possible?  Would a boy fly? And what would be the consequences if he did?

Alex visits Maisie every Saturday.  She has Parkinson's and  is sometimes confused but he enjoys talking to her and she still has decided opinions about everything.

Then he discovers that Bogsy is making a pair of wings in the shed next door.  Alex recognises the feathers he's using and the two boys form a relationship as they work on the wings together, and and it's this strange  friendship  that colours the second half of the book. 

I'm not going to spoil the story by telling you any more. You will have to read it to find out about the flying:  about how the wings will  be used, and especially about how Alex's whole outlook on life  is changed by the Icarus Show.

The book is brilliantly written.  Alex tells the story  and he's a sympathetic narrator, and uses simple language very effectively to take us into the classroom, the care home, and especially Bogsy's shed, which becomes a kind of workshop for a modern day Daedalus. 

The Icarus Show tells us, subtly and without  raising its voice,  about the way depression works,  the things that bullies do and perhaps something of why they do them, how quite troubled children can react to their circumstances and the extent to which unhappiness can be hidden or twisted into many different shapes. It also emphasises the importance of communication: between friends, between members of a family and especially between one generation and another.

Full disclosure:  Sally Christie is a friend,  but you will have to believe me when I say, (I've said this in almost every review I've written for this website) that I wouldn't recommend something I didn't love.  I loved this book, and I'm sure that many, many readers are going to agree with me. 

Published in hardback by David Fickling Books £10.99
ISBN: 9781910200483

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Last Chance Angel, by Alex Gutteridge, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

 

 

Alex Gutteridge’s ‘Last Chance Angel’ is a truly exceptional novel for children (particularly girls) of about ten to fifteen.

The premise of this novel is one which doesn’t feel as if it will make for a comfortable or a positive read, and yet the book emphatically manages to be both of those things.  Fourteen year old Jess is knocked off her bike, then lies in a hospital bed, in a coma, dying.  But a disorganised Angel of Death, Darren, gets the date of her death wrong, with the result that Jess is granted an extra few days in which to invisibly visit, and effectively, haunt her friends and family before her proper death day arrives. 

Those days of visiting friends and family could be morbid.  They could be sentimental.   They could be trite.  But they aren’t because of the sheer skill of plotting and character creation and writing employed.  A large cast of characters are wonderfully, movingly and humorously brought to life on the page.  Darren himself is a camp and rather spiteful jobs-worth of an angel, but even he becomes sympathetic by the end!  Jess gets insights into her group of friends, who, like her, are fallible.  She can help some, gain insights into others.  And the same is true of her imperfect, but very likeable, family.  The result is surprisingly profound, making for a compelling read as we come towards the end, and Jess is given a choice that makes us reel. 

Jess is given the ultimate moral personal dilemma.  Darren tells her that she can avoid death now, but only if she will sacrifice the once best friend who has since betrayed her.  Will Jess choose for Sarah to die so that she can live?  This is edge of the seat stuff, really exciting, but also moving and thought-provoking.   Brilliantly, the ending does surprise.

Alex Gutteridge has a rare gift for observing families and friendship, but also places, with a sure and kind eye that translates into beautiful writing.  Grounding the story with details of homes and cookery and gardening that bring it life on the page make the story all the more poignant.  This is also a love story of the very best kind.  Yes, there is a gentle boy/girl love theme, but love in so many other forms too … even love for wonderfully bracing Mrs Baxter the dreaded maths teacher! 

This is a story about understanding and forgiving, yourself as well as others.  It is, ultimately, a wonderfully hopeful story that leaves the reader a little different from the person they were when they began reading the book.  It is fresh and original, and would bear many re-readings.  Highly recommended.

 

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THURSDAY'S CHILDREN by Rumer Godden. Reviewed by Adèle Geras

Rumer Godden is a writer who, it seems to me, deserves to be rediscovered. Imagine my delight, therefore, when I learned that Virago were reissuing some of her children's books in the Virago Modern Classics series. THURSDAY'S CHILDREN and LISTEN TO THE NIGHTINGALE are due out in April this year and DARK HORSE and AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS in 2014. Godden's books which I reimember best are IN THIS HOUSE OF BREDE, THE GREENGAGE SUMMER (which is a perfect YA book) and for children, MISS HAPPINESS AND MISS FLOWER and the wonderful THE DOLLS' HOUSE, which has in it Marchpane, one of the most fascinating of all fictional dolls. A quick check on the internet reveals that Pan will be publishing THE GREENGAGE SUMMER this month, but the children's books mentioned above are only available as Kindle editions or expensive second hand copies. So hats off to Virago for striving to bring this writer back into the limelight she ought never really to have left.

When I was young, this kind of book was what I really wanted to read: a family story, with lots of siblings living under one roof. I wanted a tale about ambition, preferably theatrical or balletic and I wanted lashings of detail and emotion. I wanted to be able to believe in the characters, and if I could identify with the main protagonist, so much the better. I wanted conflict. I wanted drama. In fact, I was looking for what I think a lot of children look for in books: something that's both aspirational and also exciting and moving. A book that was a mixture of the familiar and the exotic was always going to be a winner. In every one of these respects, Rumer Godden has fulfilled my dearest wishes and I enjoyed reading this book enormously. It took me right back to being ten or so, without at any point upsetting my adult self.

A word of warning: this is an old-fashioned book. It was first published in 1984 but even with the mention of television and supermarkets and what Godden calls 'ballpens', you get the feeling reading it that you are going back into the past. Which is fair enough. The 80s is the past and the speed of change in the last decade has been greater somehow than in the thirty years from 1970 to the end of the century. So young readers will be deprived of mobiles, texting, Ipods and all the accoutrements of a 'connected' childhood. They will not find the ubiquitous first person present tense but rather a straightforward, third person narrative which still manages to convey well the point of view of Doone, the young boy at the heart of the story.

The Pennys run a grocery shop. Ma Penny used to have ambitions of appearing on the stage herself but then she married Pa and proceeded to have lots of children, mostly boys.Crystal, the only girl, was a nice surprise and when Doone arrived the family were truly expecting another girl. They had the name 'Lorna' all lined up from one of their favourite novels, so when a boy appeared, 'Doone' was the only option. Beppo, an ex-circus performer who works in the shop, takes Doone under his wing as childcare is a bit hard to come by with so many children, but he's sent packing when Ma discovers that he's been teaching Doone circus tricks, such as tightrope walking. Doone is very upset at Beppo's dismissal. Ma Penny has ambitions for her only daughter and sends her to ballet lessons. Doone has to go with her...there's no one else to look after him. So from an early age he's exposed to music, and dancing and he falls in love with that whole world.

The novel tells the story of Doone's transformation into a ballet dancer and musician. It takes in conflicts with his sister, who is jealous of him and sometimes very unpleasant to him; a gravitation towards adults who understand him better than his parents, his progress through a school clearly based on White Lodge in Richmond, (the school for young ballet dancers who want to join the Royal Ballet,) and his eventual triumph over all the odds that life has thrown in his way. It's a constant roller coaster of events, people, highs and lows, successes and disappointments and there's a great deal of detail about dance, music, and the customs of this wonderful school. I've done events there as a writer and I recognized it at once. I do recommend this novel to anyone who's interested in dancing, of course, but also for every child who's wanted to be appreciated for him/herself and not pushed into some pre-ordained role in the family. It celebrates independence, hard work, discipline and cooperation. It encourages those who regard themselves as not quite the same as everyone else. It's hugely enjoyable and I hope that lots of aspiring ballet dancers will buy it. I suppose with all those ballet shoes on the cover, it's not going to be immediately picked up by boys, but if you have a possible 'proper little Nooryev'* in the family, they would love it too.

My review of LISTEN TO THE NIGHTINGALE will appear on this site on March 14th, 2013.

*For anyone who doesn't know it, A PROPER LITTLE NOOREYEV' by Jean Ure is a wonderful book about a boy who wants to be a dancer. Also highly recommended if you can find it. Publisher: VIRAGO MODERN CLASSICS Price: £6.99 Format: Paperback. ISBN: 978 1844088485

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