The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon by David Almond, Polly Dunbar reviewed by Chitra Soundar

I love magic realism – from Gabriel Garcia Marquez to The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon which is deceptive yet magical.

I know it’s not a recent book of David Almond, but it’s one of my favourites. Walker Books had done an illustrated version of it with Polly Dunbar’s wonderful illustrations and I got it signed by David Almond a few years ago.

It’s a story of a boy who believes something different and with the help of like-minded friends explores his belief. He then meets Fortuna, a human cannon ball who introduces him to the world up there.

The people in this story are so surreal and so are the incidents. It constantly reminded me of one of my favourite stories as a child – The Magic Faraway Tree (by Enid Blyton) where different world appeared on top of the tree everyday.

This story has now been adapted for stage and is on stage this week (Apr 7/8 2018) on the Northern Stage and earlier it was put on by Polka Theatre too.

And if you missed the show like I did, then here is a short trailer. Maybe it’ll be back on tour again.

The Boy Who Climbed Into the Moon - Trailer from Theatre Alibi on Vimeo.

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Chitra Soundar is the author of many picture books including Pattan's Pumpkin and her next book is You're Safe With Me (illustrated by Poonam Mistry) by Lantana Publishing. Find out more at www.chitrasoundar.com and follow on Twitter @csoundar

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THE GOOSE ROAD by Rowena House. A review by Adèle Geras

I'm a very dutiful reader. I feel that if the writer of a novel wanted me to know something BEFORE I read her book, she'd have put it in a note at the front. Rowena House has put her historical note at the back of the book, with the result that it came as a wonderful surprise to find out about the things that led her to write this story, which is published in April. The image above is from the bound proof which I  read.

This year marks a century since the Armistice after the  War to End All Wars. It hasn't turned out to be a peaceful century, of course, but this book takes a part of the world (Northern France)  and a very well-documented and written-about conflict and  tells the kind of story we haven't often seen in this context. 

It's mainly a story about a family and about a way of life. The Lacroix family have a farm called La Mordue and Angélique finds herself, right at the beginning, facing the death of her father in the War. This, because of the kind of man he was, she regards as something of a blessing. He was cruel and abusive to her, to her mother and to her brother, Pascal, who is also away at the war.

Because of what emerges about her father after his death, and because the bailiffs are about repossess the farm, Angelique takes her beloved flock of geese, (including her special favourite, Amandine and the formidable gander, Napoleon Bonaparte) and begins a journey through the war-scarred countryside to sell them to Marshall Foch in order to get enough money to save the family farm. Things, naturally, do not go according to plan and her adventures form the  greater part of the story. 

The book takes the form of a quest. Angélique is looking for money but finds many other things along the way. Most importantly, she meets Uncle Gustav and he takes her to his own home, to meet again a person she'd previously misjudged, her Aunt Mathilde.

Angélique, like all heroines of novels involving a journey, learns much along the way. She loves a  young man called René and is convinced that both he and her dear brother Pascal are safe and sound, in spite of all the carnage. She learns about what war can do to a man, even one who doesn't have half his face shot away. And she learns that cruelty and abuse is something that gets handed down through the generations.  I won't spoil anyone's pleasure by detailing her adventures, but there are many incidental pleasures to point out.

One of the things I enjoyed most was the description of the geese. It's an irony, I suppose, that Angelique is fully intending these geese to be eaten even though she loves them so much, but she's practical as well as a dreamer and that's how things are. Geese are for food. Still, the reader gets to love the creatures too and we're sad as readers when any of them dies.

There's also a good description of the way war carves out horrors on a quiet town and its inhabitants. Descriptions of wounded and damaged men abound. The war is not only  on the battlefields, not only in the sounds of mortar and shell but also in the howls of sorrow and pain coming from the civilian population and those who've escaped from the fray into a lifetime of being haunted by what they witnessed as they fought.

The story is simply told, in the present tense for the most part and one of the good things about it  is the young female perspective of our heroine. Who really does turn out to be a heroine....

I hope that everyone who reads it enjoys it as much as I did. I think it would make a very good addition to the library of any class studying this period in our history. 

And when you do get to the end, you'll be as interested as I was to read about the inspiration behind this thoughtful and intelligent novel. 

Published in paperback by Walker Books on April 4th 2018. £7.99

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The Glass Mountain, by Jan Pienkowski and David Walser: reviewed by Sue Purkiss

I'm not sure where I came across this book - browsing somewhere or other on the internet, I suppose. I noticed it partly because of the bright colours and unusual style of the cover art, and partly because I have two grandsons who are half Polish - so this seemed like a good fit.

Folk tales are often pretty brutal. Think of Hansel and Gretel, abandoned orphans who save themselves by bundling a witch into an oven and lighting it - or all the suffering Gerda has to go through to save her friend, Kai, from the cruel Snow Queen. Many have been softened around the edges to suit sensibilities more delicate than those of their original audiences, but these stories have not: they're strong and fierce and told crisply and with gusto by David Walser. The first one, for instance, called The Fern Flower, is about a young man who enters the forest on Midsummer's Night to find a magical flower which will confer on him huge riches - provided he doesn't attempt to share them, and provided he finds it before dawn.

The first two times he tries to find it - in the process missing out on all the fun everyone else is having on Midsummer's Eve - he fails. The third time he succeeds, and becomes rich beyond his wildest dreams. But, like Midas, untold wealth results in loneliness. Eventually, he goes to visit his mother - ironically, she was the one who told him about the flower - and finds her in poverty. He is about to go in and give her some money, but stops when he realises that this would negate the terms of the deal. He goes back again a few weeks later: now she is ill - but he weighs things up and makes the same decision. He returns a third time - and she is dead. Bogdan turned away. He cursed himself with a bitter oath. As he did so, the earth opened in front of him and swallowed both him and the fern flower which he still kept in his tunic next to his heart.

Jolly stuff, eh? But I guess that when these stories were first told, the world the storytellers lived in was a harsh one. Some years ago, we were in the Carpathians, in southern Poland. We walked through a forest where there were signs warning travellers to beware of bears and wolves. At one point I had fallen behind - I usually do on a walk - and looking round at the trees which stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, I felt disorientated. Suddenly, the world of 'fairy' stories, where the forest is a place of danger, absolutely made sense; the dangers perceived, the warnings given, reflected everyday life. Children needed to be warned - and in the long dark evenings, everyone needed dramatic stories which would keep them entertained and make them gasp in delicious fear as the candle light flickered and made huge shadows on the wall.

These stories still do that. But there's one at the beginning - a true one - which I found more fascinating than all the rest. It's a glimpse into the childhood of Jan Pienkowski, the artist. The pictures, with their solid blocks of bold colour and sometimes slightly ragged outlines, are collages made of torn paper, and Pienkowski explains that paper cut-outs are a form of Polish folk-art, which he learned as a small child during the war - first from a countrywoman who would come and make 'curtains' out of white paper cut-outs which she would then glue to the windows - and later from a soldier during the Warsaw Rising, who cut out paper animals to amuse the children as they sheltered in cellars from German bombs.

I don't know if Pienkowski has written a longer memoir, but if he hasn't, I wish he would!

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Vivian French deftly uses elements of fairy-tale and myth to create the setting of The Snarling of Wolves; so, for instance, we find a (Less) Enchanted Forest, three Ancient Crones (who, like the Greek Fates, weave a magical web), more princes and princesses than you can shake a broomstick at, werewolves, zombies, a faithful troll - and an intelligence network of bats, whose leader, Marlon, wisecracks away like a character from Raymond Chandler.

The heroine, Gracie Gillypot, is a Trueheart, someone who brings out the good in people. The hero is Prince Marcus, who, unlike most of the other Royals in the Five Kingdoms, is brave, bright and adventurous. Gracie lives outside the Five Kingdoms (which are quite small, as Marcus realises when he looks down on them from the top of a tower), in the Less Enchanted Forest with the afore-mentioned Ancient Crones. The Crones are also responsible for keeping Foyce Undershaft safely away from the public. Foyce is half girl, half werewolf - and all bad. She hates Gracie, whom she blames for her captivity, and concocts a cunning plan to get her own back on the other girl and her beloved Marcus. Her hatred is the engine that sets the plot in motion.

The story moves at a swift pace and is liberally sprinkled with funny dialogue and great characters, as well as a generous scattering of fairy dust. I particularly liked the Ancient Crones (like calling to like, no doubt...) and the less ancient but still pretty elderly Queen Bluebell - but was also strangely drawn to the splendidly wicked Foyce and the conflicted but ultimately principled werewolves. All these are brought visually to life by Ross Collins' splendid illustrations. I wish I could show you some; you can get the idea from the cover with its magnificent werewolf, but you really need to see the full-page line drawings too. The artist clearly had a lot of fun, and he adds greatly to the reader's enjoyment of the book and understanding of the characters and their environment.

All these elements are very fine, but the absolute tour-de-force is the ending. All the characters, and all the different strands of the story, are brought together (by means of exceptionally skillful plotting) in a stunning set piece, where the good triumph, the wicked are overthrown, the fairly average change for the better, the misunderstood receive a sympathetic hearing, and the onlookers - and - readers can only cheer in admiration and delight. I can't tell you any more about it because it would spoil it - but no word of a lie, I haven't admired an ending as much since I read John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany.

This is the sixth in the Tales from the Five Kingdoms series, which began with The Robe of Skulls. You could read it as a standalone, but why would you? Better by far to read the whole series. And if anyone from Dreamworks or Disney is reading this (and why wouldn't they be?) - please note that this series would make an amazing animation. Oh, what you couldn't do with the path-with-a-mind-of-its-own, the troll who regularly loses his head, the silly princesses and the sinister Foyce!

I'd say the core audience would be 9-12 year olds. But as with so many children's books, you really don't have to be a child to enjoy it.

(This review first appeared on my own review site, A fool on a hill.)





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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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Buffalo Soldier, by Tanya Landman: review by Sue Purkiss

Buffalo Soldier begins in Gone With The Wind territory – on a cotton plantation in the deep south, just before the beginning of the American Civil War. But this story is not told from the point of view of the owners, but by one of the slaves.

So far, so interesting. However, this is not about the Civil War itself. It’s about the aftermath. Charlotte, a slave, and her surrogate parents, Cookie and Amos, expect that when the Yankees march in, a new world of freedom and happiness will be theirs. They soon find out their mistake. Forced to follow the Yankee column after the soldiers have razed the great house and destroyed everything which might have been used for food, they eventually escape; but they have no means of providing for themselves. Worse, hostility and prejudice are apparent on every side. In an almost post-apocalyptic landscape, everyone turns with a will to persecuting the former slaves, and when Charlotte does the simplest thing – staying on a pavement instead of stepping off to give way to approaching white people – she, and more especially, Cookie and Amos, pay for her temerity dearly.

Alone now, Charley decides that safety dictates she must pass for a boy. And then a passing stranger suggests she should join the army. She finds herself in a black regiment – the Buffalo Soldiers. Their captain is a kind, enlightened man, and she makes good friends; she has found a kind of home. But eventually, after the training, the real work begins, and it involves the persecution of the Indians. Charley’s innocence is gradually lost as she begins to see clearly just what they’re doing: but what choice has she but to carry on – not only witnessing, but also eventually perpetrating horrors? What can she do but follow orders – where else can she go, how can she survive?

This is a difficult read: Tanya Landman doesn’t spare us the grim details of what the Indians and the Army did to each other, or of the compromises necessary to stay alive. There is a redemption of sorts, but it’s partial – how could it be anything else, when we all know how long it was before the black people of America really gained their freedom, and what the fate of the native Americans was to be?

But we’re carried through by the voice of Charley, who is courageous and caring and just keeps going. It’s an astonishingly consistent voice; it never slips, from the first few lines: ‘I guess Ma died. Or she was sold. I don’t know which… All I got from her was a name. Charlotte. Darned fool fancy thing for a slave girl. Didn’t no-one never call me that.’ We’re inside her head, and with her, we journey through a tragic landscape because there’s nothing else we can do.

It’s a remarkable book, and I’ll be very surprised if it doesn’t win prizes - and lots of readers.

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THE PROMISE by Nicola Davies. Illustrated by Laura Carlin.

Published by Walker Books, 2013. Reviewed by Dawn McNiff

This is a beautiful picture book for young children. Tender and touching, and delivering a vital message for our time.

Nicola Davies - a well-known author, nature-writer, zoologist, and past TV presenter on The Really Wild Show - writes an impassioned plea in a perfectly measured, graceful text. This is complemented by debut illustrator Laura Carlin's softly-drawn images. The effect is magical. Quiet but powerful.

The premise of the book is simple - an ugly, soulless city full of dead-inside, miserable people. Bleak futility, drawn in grey, harsh lines.

A young-girl-turned-thief moves through this hopeless dystopia. She has no connection to anything or anyone...until she steals a bag of acorns from an old lady. She makes a promise to the lady, and keeps it.

And as the girl sows her seeds of change, her life and her city become gradually transformed. Contact with nature brings out the best in people. Little by little, nature returns, and the colour seeps back into the pictures, bringing vitality, hope and smiles to faces.

The book delivers a pass-it-on message: hard-heartedness is catching, but so is kindness and care.

I love this book. It reminds me of the old Greek proverb - 'A society grows great when people plant trees in whose shade they will never sit.'

I think it truly deserves to become a classic.

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Seeking Eden by Ann Turnbull review by Lynda Waterhouse

This is the third book in Ann’s Quaker trilogy of which No Shame No fear and Forged in the Fire precede it but like all good stories it can stand alone.

This novel focuses on Josiah, the rebellious teenage son of Will and Susanna. It begins in London in 1685. Jos has turned his back on the family business of bookselling and printing preferring to work as a butcher in the Shambles. He is conflicted about his religious beliefs and has an uncomfortable relationship with his father.

 The family are planning on leaving for the new world, they receive a letter from a family friend: ‘This new colony of Pennsylvania will be a haven for many people. We have come seeking Eden, and believe we will find it here.’ They are excited to take part in William Penn’s holy experiment

Josiah is relieved to go as it will free his family from persecution and he would not have to ‘feign indifference’ about his Quaker faith.

As the family sail towards freedom another ship follows in their wake and on it is Jokpa, an African boy who along with three hundred others has just lost his freedom. His name is changed to Anthony and he is sold to a Quaker family in Barbados.

Jos finds himself apprenticed to a Quaker merchant, George Bainbrigg. He finds the work stimulating and finds himself falling for Bainbrigg’s daughter, Katharine.

Jokpa too finds love with Miata.

When Anthony and Jos’s paths collide in Barbados the story really catches fire. I was genuinely shocked to discover that in the seventeenth century Quakers were involved in the slave trade. Their insistence of taking their slaves with them to the meeting house was reckless and dangerous. Only Jos’ quick thinking saves Anthony from being arrested.

The story is written with clarity and a pace that slowly builds and captivates. You have to read on to find out what happens to the characters. There is a strong sense of time and place. The beautiful prose coils around your heart and the themes of justice and conscience linger long after you have finished reading.

Seeking Eden is published by Walker Books

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