"Succession" by Livi Michael reviewed by Pauline Chandler

Set during the tumultuous Wars of the Roses, “Succession” combines the stories of two Tudor women, royal wives and mothers, two Margarets, both used

as pawns by powerful marriage brokers, in the intricate game of politics around the English throne.

The prologue of the novel prefaces much of what is to come, touching on several of its themes. Margaret Beaufort is remembering a time, when as a four-year old child, she wandered, lost and terrified, down the long corridors of the strange house she has been brought to, the home of her new guardian, the Duke of Suffolk, and meets him by chance for the first time.  She already knows it is shameful to cry, except in penitence, and that she is female and therefore subject to a man’s control, but what she also remembers is that the Duke spoke to her about the courage and determination of a woman, the warrior Joan of Arc, whom he greatly admired.  She remembers too how the Duke met a terrible end, condemned as a traitor and savagely beheaded.  She herself is a rich heiress and mother to the future king, Henry VII.

We next meet Margaret of Anjou, the French king’s niece, who has been brought to England to marry Henry VI, in a union that should ensure closer links with France, but, as Suffolk knows, the bride brings no dowry and the match has cost England valuable French territories.  Henry himself has insisted on the match. He is weak and malleable, and as Margaret soon discovers, he is not inclined to consummate the marriage. To the earls and power brokers of the English court, a secure and stable succession is paramount. If Henry has no children, who will succeed him?  The stage is set for fascinating but terrible power games, in violent times, where torture and death are commonplace.     

This is a complex period in history, handled expertly and with conviction by Livi Michael who creates an intensely engaging narrative. The author deals with her subject in an unusual way, by interspersing her fictional scenes with material from contemporary primary sources: eye witness accounts and the testimony of medieval chroniclers. Underpinned by meticulous research, the stories of the two Margarets are vividly brought to life in beautifully described settings. I should like to thank the author for guiding me kindly through this complex period of our history.

Pauline Chandler

www.paulinechandler@virgin.net

Pauline’s latest book, "Warrior Girl", historical fiction for young adults, tells the story of Joan of Arc, alongside that of her cousin, Mariane, who has her own battle to fight. A new edition of “Warrior Girl” is pubished by Cybermouse Books.

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‘When It Snows’ by Richard Collingridge reviewed by Pauline Chandler

Browsing in our local book shop (yes, we still have one !) for Christmas picture books for my grandson, my eyes were drawn to the beautiful cover of ‘When It Snows’. Its sombre night time colours really stood out from the rest. There’s that huge reindeer too, towering over a very small child. It looked unusual, if not slightly threatening, but I was attracted to it and intrigued, so I opened this beautiful book. I’m so glad I did. It’s a gem.

The images of giants continue throughout the story.

We have a giant train, enormous snowman, gigantic trees and the towering Queen of the Poles, and there's that reindeer, hung all over with sacks and boxes of presents, its antlers rearing up like huge leafless trees. As I followed the story I realised that the unusual proportions could reflect a small child's point of view, as well as what we might expect from the world of myth. There are small characters too, fairies and elves, and Santa is reassuringly human size. 

These illustrations are all beautifully depicted in the same sombre colours as the cover, dark blues and greys, the shades of a winter’s night in a magical landscape. No Disney glitz here!

Richard Collingridge writes and illustrates his own stories, a skill I’ve always admired, and both aspects of ‘When It Snows’ are outstanding.  It's true that the story follows a traditional pattern, with the boy narrator setting out on a journey, to exciting destinations: ‘the place where the snowmen live’, ‘the gloomy forest, Where I meet the Queen of the Poles’ and finally ‘a secret place’ where he finds Santa Claus. What makes this is story different is the twist the writer puts on these traditional elements. I especially love the idea of Santa having just one giant reindeer! 

There’s a delightful ending too, where the child narrator tells us that he can find these places again, at any time, by opening his favourite book.

This is a story about imagination, fairy tale, myth and magic, just a step away from a child's real world. Recently, there was the case of a vicar who baldly told children that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. How short sighted of him!  How wrong to limit a child’s dreams and imagination!  This lovely book says ‘There might be,’ ‘There could be’, ’Wouldn’t it be wonderful if-‘.  I prefer that approach. It was the one I took with my own children, adding ‘no one’s ever seen him, so we just don’t know.’ I wish I’d been able to share 'When It Snows’ with them. I’m sure it would have become a Christmas favourite.

Highly recommended for age 5+

'When It Snows' by Richard Collingridge, publ. David Fickling Books

Pauline Chandler

www.paulinechandler.com   

     

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A Breath of Fresh Air! Three Picture Books about Playing Outside reviewed by Pauline Chandler

Choosing bedtime stories for my grandson recently, I was struck by how many picture books are full of rampaging dinosaurs, wild-eyed dragons, monsters and superheroes, all in dazzling primary colours. Very exciting, but not quite conducive to a calm ‘time for bed’!  I’ve noticed, too, that young mums and dads are now thinking that it’s best not to overstimulate little ones, with every bright toy or storybook that comes along.     

May I suggest play in the great outdoors? Soft nature colours, wonderful weather, textures, scents, sounds, fresh air freedom! What could be better for the kids than time free from the adult’s all seeing-eye (or when they think they’re free!), freedom to learn by making their own decisions and solve their own problems. Are there any stories to encourage this? Yes there are!

I had to search hard for them, those outside books, with the kind of soothing ambience that says what a wonderful world it is, stories that celebrate simple pleasures, such playing in a field of dandelions, or collecting eggs from the hens, or messing about in the garden.  

Sandra Horn’s book ‘The Dandelion Wish’ tells just such a gentle story, beautifully illustrated by Louise Warwick.  Out in the fields, Jo and Sam watch the wind blow the dandelion seeds high into the air and when Sam suggests blowing seeds to make a wish, Jo joins him, with magical results. Yes, there’s a dinosaur, pirates and fireworks, but they’re all part of the Dandelion Fair, which arrives and departs like a dream. In the end, ‘Only the night heard a home-going rabbit whistle a rock-a-bye tune.’

This is a lovely story that celebrates outdoor play and the power of a child’s wishing and dreaming.

Kim Lewis’s picture books about country life on the farm, are some of the best.

In ‘Friends’, Sam and Alice go off, on their own, to collect a new-laid egg, but on the way back home, they quarrel and the egg is broken. Both children are deeply upset and think they can’t be friends any more, but when the hen lays another egg, they make up, finding a way to do this by themselves, with children’s innate awareness of what’s fair. Then they find the fresh egg and take it home together.  What lovely pictures illustrate this charming story! Kim Lewis treats us to detailed and realistic images of life on the farm. 

My final choice is ‘The King of Tiny Things’ by Jeanne Willis, illustrated by Gwen Millward.

This delightful tale, with more enchanting pictures of the countryside at night, takes us with Chrissy and the narrator on a summer time visit to their grandparent’s house. When the girls camp out in a tent in the garden, they meet all sorts of little creatures on a night-time adventure. There’s so much to enjoy in this story of magic in the dark, with friendly bugs and caterpillars, and the king of tiny things. Children on their own, free, outside and doing stuff! Wonderful!

All three picture books are highly recommended for children aged 5-7.

Pauline Chandler 2014

www.paulinechandler.com

              

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recommended for able readers aged 10+

Pauline Chandler  

www.paulinechandler.com 

 

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"The Dragonfly Pool" by Eva Ibbotson - Reviewed by Pauline Chandler

An exciting adventure story for 8-12 year olds, from Eva Ibbotson, whose ‘Journey To the River Sea’ was a Carnegie medal winner.

When, at the beginning of World War Two, Tally is evacuated from London to a ‘progressive’ boarding school in Devon, her father is concerned that she won’t be happy. He’s quickly proved wrong. Tally loves life at Delderton Hall, where she’s free to choose what to learn and which classes to join. There’s plenty to enjoy, with interesting characters among staff and pupils, all with their own stories. Then there’s the pet’s hut ‘for small animals that can stay in cages’, such as Barney’s axolotl, nature walks at dawn, and drama, where you have to pretend to be a fork or a pillow or a teapot.

What Tally really enjoys is the freedom to express her opinions at school council meetings. Shocked by news of Nazi tyranny in Europe, Tally suggests supporting a small country striving to stay neutral. The king of Bergania has invited schools to join in a folk dancing festival and Tally wants her school to go, but it takes all her determination to persuade her friends to help bring this about. 

In Bergania, the story deals with some stark issues, when the festival is threatened by Nazi bullies. It’s there that Tally meets Prince Karil, whose own education is the opposite of hers. Karil longs to speak and act freely, and to make his own choices about his future, instead of submitting to the strict life mapped out for him as the next king. The dragonfly pool of the title is the place where Karil feels most free, a private place, which he shares with his new friend, Tally.     

‘The Dragonfly Pool’ will appeal to any fans of CS Lewis, Elizabeth Goudge, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Lucy Boston and J K Rowling, all writers who take children on perilous journeys, where, with ingenuity and courage, they take risks, foil bullies and criminals, and break silly adult rules to do what is right and just.   

‘The Dragonfly Pool’ also fits nicely with stories set during World War Two, when children faced evacuation and the real possibility of their parents being killed or of never finding them again.

Eva Ibbotson handles this difficult material with her customary light touch, so that the book is thoroughly entertaining with plenty of humour.     

Pauline Chandler

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'Heartstone' by C.J.Sansom, reviewed by Pauline Chandler

Every so often, as an adult, you come across a series of books which you relish like cream cakes! CJ Sansom’s Shardlake novels, set during the turbulent reign of Henry VIII, are exceptional treats for any grown-up history fan. 

The main character, Matthew Shardlake, is a lawyer with court connections, who sets out to solve mysteries and murders, at great personal risk.  He's a wonderfully sympathetic character, and relentless in pursuit of truth and justice. He’s a good man, too, a friend to the poor, some of whom he employs in his household. He's also a hunchback, in an age when physical flaws were seen as the mark of the Devil, but Matthew stoically bears all insults - mostly: he's quite capable with sword and fists, if the need arises. Matthew’s close friends and companions, Jack Barak and Guy of Malton, are also engaging characters, with their own stories to enjoy.  

One of most impressive aspects of these novels is the depiction of Tudor life. This it total immersion:  every word, gesture, detail of place, clothing, food, weapons training, life at home and on the street, on board ship, or in the countryside, is used naturally and, I’m sure, accurately.

In ‘Heartstone’, Matthew accepts a commission from Queen Catherine Parr, to investigate a mystery for one of the Queen’s favourite ladies-in-waiting. Bess Calfhill grieves for the supposed ‘suicide’ of her son, Michael, tutor to David, son of the wealthy Hobbey family, and Hugh and Emma Curteys, orphans and wards of David’s father, landowner, Nicholas Hobbey.   


Hugh and Emma stand to inherit a valuable parcel of woodland, adjoining Hobbey land.  When Emma dies from smallpox, Michael is dismissed. 

 
Later, he tells his mother that he has discovered ‘something frightful’ about the Hobbey family and that he has applied to the Court of Wards for Hugh to be removed from their care. Before the case can be heard, Michael is found hanged. 

Matthew’s quest takes him to Southampton where King Henry is assembling a fleet to counter a threatened French invasion.  As well as his investigations for the Queen, Matthew embarks on a private mission, to find out what happened to Ellen Fettiplace, an inmate of Bedlam. Ellen intrigues him, as someone sane and capable, who works as a member of staff in the asylum, yet is kept prisoner, within its walls, by traumatic events in her past. 

The final part of the story tells of a sea battle with the French, in Southampton water, ending with the spectacular loss of the king’s great warship, the Mary Rose, with Matthew on board, fighting for his life, against vicious enemies. 

Highly recommended.

Pauline Chandler 2013

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MY WISHES FOR YOU - A Picture Book by Adele Geras, illustrated by Cliff Wright. Review by Pauline Chandler

Do you have secret treats?  The odd bar of chocolate or bag of sweeties, to scoff when no one is looking?  A cream cake?  A dab of expensive scent?  A designer scarf or haircut?  Or a listen of a tune that’s really hooked you?  Something you treat yourself to that makes you smile and feel wonderful?  Well, one of my secret treats is picture books!

In spite of there being no young children in the house these days, I still hang my nose over the picture book section in my local book shop. I pretend I’m buying for a young friend or relation, but usually I’m not. I’m buying a picture book for myself, as a secret treat! There are so many to choose from: funny ones, sad ones, spooky ones,  ones about pirates, mysteries, histories, fairy tales, family tales and lots about animals: horses, dogs, cats and, my favourites, hares.

‘My Wishes for You’ is one of those picture books which should be in any collection. The words are a treasure, written by Adele Geras, a poem of wishes from a hare parent to its child, for everything good and lovely in life:

‘Light from behind the hill, spilling into the sky,’ or A path that goes from here to   everywhere’ or ‘A dancing stream to follow with your dance.’

On every page are the most beautiful illustrations, by Cliff Wright, of hares in a landscape reflecting the changing seasons.

This is a book full of love…. and I love it! I’ve given copies as Christening gifts and to new mums and dads. But, of course, I have one myself, on my very own picture book shelf!

‘Wishes For You’ – Adele Geras and Cliff Wright 

Dedicated to: PTES - The People’s Trust for Endangered Species (Hares)

Review by Pauline Chandler

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A BRACELET OF BONES; Kevin Crossley Holland. Review by Pauline Chandler:

In this beautiful and complex book, it's impossible not to fall in love with Kevin Crossley-Holland's heroine, Solveig, an adorable young Viking woman, brave, sometimes foolhardy perhaps, but not afraid to speak her mind and stand up to her enemies. 

We first see her with her father, Halfdan, on the site of a great battle, in which Halfdan, though severely injured, saved King Harald's life. It's clear that Solveig loves her father very much and wants to do all she can to ease his suffering. Halfdan too loves his daughter. 'You all right, girl?' he asks, sensing her horror as they survey the blackened site. He calls her Solva, meaning 'Sun Strong' and tells her, and only her, about the priceless golden brooch given to him by the king, as Solveig shares his memories, trying to forestall the bad ones to focus on the good. Halfdan trembles when he embraces her knowing that he is about to tell her that he is leaving Norway, perhaps forever.  

In a subtle weaving of narrative threads, Kevin Crossley-Holland shows us all we need to know to engage with Solveig's story: her empty life at home with her stepmother, her love of carving, her golden hair, her strength and her courage. All these things have a part to play in what follows. 

In 'Bracelet of Bones, we go with Solveig on a journey of thousands of miles, on a secret quest to follow her father, south, from Norway to the Black Sea, where Halfdan has gone to fulfil his promise to join the king, in the service of the Byzantine Emperor. In a series of breathtaking plot twists and turns, Solveig meets friends and enemies among the alien traders, crafts-people and farmers of lands, very different from her own. She faces up to death, heartache and treachery, as well as sickness and wounding. All she has to help her is a hopeful trust in friendly strangers and her own strength.

 

I loved Solveig and her tale and I'm looking forward very much to reading the next part of this saga. Kevin Crossley-Holland is a wonderful writer and poet, who gifts us an added layer of magic, with the sheer depth of his knowledge about the Viking world: its stories, its humour, its rites and passage enmeshed with that of the seasons and the watery cold landscape it inhabits. His poet's language is a joy: 'When winter closes its fist, when the ice-age cracks your bones and the wolf -age moans..' shows a Viking's knowledge of winter's cold in its essence. If you want to read an amazing, enthralling story about Vikings, and discover authentic detail about their lives, told with a Viking voice, look no further.      

Pauline Chandler 2012 www.paulinechandler.com  

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