The Wind Singer by William Nicholson - reviewed by Cecilia Busby

"I hate school! I hate ratings! I won't strive harder! I won't reach higher! I won't make tomorrow better than today!"

So shouts Kestrel Hath, bellowing her rage and frustration from the very top of the highest tower in the exam-obsessed city of Aramanth, near the beginning of William Nicholson's classic fantasy, The Wind Singer. In Aramanth, your family status is judged by the grades each member gets in annual exams, from the age of two upwards - and a strict hierarchy results, with demarcations maintained in the type of housing, clothing and employment granted them by the city administration. Kestrel has finally had enough - of the endless tests, of the fear they produce, of the unfairness of it all. But her defiance will seal the family's fate - they will be sent down to the lowest tier of all, Grey District, and the only way she can hope to change anything is if she sets out with her twin brother Bowman into the wilderness to find the 'voice' of the mysterious Wind Singer, the contraption left in Aramanth by the legendary Singer people, long ago.

This book was a favourite of my eldest daughter, now off at university, and I revisited it recently because my youngest (12) seemed about the right age for it. We listened to the audiobook on a long journey from Devon to East Sussex, and I was struck by the sad fact that the book is even more relevant to children today than it was in 2000, when it was published.

Near the beginning, Kestrel's brother Bowman hugs his other, baby, sister, Pinpin, with a sadness that comes from knowing today is the day of her first test. "She was only two years old, too little to mind how well or badly she did, but from now till the day she died she would have a rating." We are told that in Aramanth "life was measured out in tests. Each test brought with it the possibility of failure, and every test successfully passed led to the next, with its renewed possibility of failure. There was no escape from it, no end." Every day at school, the pupils are ranked in order of their points, and exhorted to "strive harder, and reach higher, to make tomorrow better than today".

Of course, this is a fantasy. Aramanth isn't real. But it's heart-breakingly close to the mark for so many children today, who are (according to OFSTED guidelines) expected to know their national curriculum levels for each subject, whether they are achieving above, below or on 'target' and exactly what must be done to achieve the great leap to the next minor sub-division. Even the motto they chant reminds me of the constant exhortation to strive and do better every day that we see in our current education system - my son's school's (newly coined) motto is "Dream, Believe, Achieve".

Nicholson does a great job of showing us the folly, cruelty and unfairness of such an exam and achievement-based system and the ways it sees only a certain sort of value. Later in the book, Kestrel's father subverts residential retraining classes for those adults who regularly perform badly in the exams by persuading them to write about not what they are asked but about what they know - and they all know some fascinating and valuable things that the rigid exam structure doesn't allow for.

My daughter certainly enjoyed the parallels, and appreciated the efforts of Kestrel, Bowman and their family to revolt against the Examiners, who ruled the city. But the book is about more than just that ratings system. It's about love, loyalty, the power of the imagination, empathy and keeping true to a moral centre. Kestrel and Bowman are helped in their epic journey to find the wind singer's voice by the dunce of their class, Mumpo, a lumpy, inarticulate, dribbling failure, who falls in love with Kestrel because she once sat next to him in class as part of an act of defiance. Kestrel isn't too pleased by his adoration to start with, and Nicholson doesn't spare his readers from just how annoyingly whiny, smelly and greedy the boy can be, but there are hidden depths to Mumpo, and over the course of the book the siblings learn to appreciate and love the apparently unloveable.

My daughter loved it, and I was really taken with it over again. Above all, the book is a great, imaginative and warm-hearted adventure story, which asks you to really think about what is or isn't valuable in life. As such it will live on in the minds of its readers for a long time.







Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

THE SALT STAINED BOOK by Julia Jones, read by Anna Bentink. Review by Penny Dolan.

As a definite land-lubber, I am starting to mess about in books on boats and sailing, ready for next year’s work in progress. So it was a pleasure to be sent an audio-book of Julia Jones’ THE SALT STAINED BOOK recently. 

 

As the current owner of the real “Peter Duck”, Julia is a woman who knows her sailing stuff.  So it was no great surprise to discover this novel draws heavily on the world of Arthur Ransome, “Swallows and Amazons” and sailing on the River Orwell in Suffolk. There are references to Hiawatha and Treasure Island within the mix as well.

 

Although the book is intended for older middle grade and young teens, it seemed perfect “escapist” listening for a winter afternoon when you have some mind-numbing tasks to do.

THE SALT STAINED BOOK is definitely a ripping-yarn type of adventure but one brought into modern times: it has a contemporary setting and modern believable child characters, facing current problems. The likeable main character, Donny is almost fourteen, is used to helping his reclusive Granny care for his beloved mother Sky, who is deaf, dyslexic and scared of strangers.

When Granny dies, Sky and Donny leave Leeds in Granny’s old holiday campervan. They drive south to the Suffolk coast, ready to meet Great Aunt Ellen, their unknown yet only living relative, as directed by a mysterious telegram.

Donny and Sky fulfill Granny’s last wish - to buy him a copy of “Swallows and Amazons” - but after they leave the bookshop, Sky wedges the van in a car-park exit and gets in a panic. Suddenly, life gets much worse.  A nasty version of Social Services intervenes, rule-bound and unwilling to listen to what Donny is trying to tell them. Sky ends up in a secure hospital and Donny, not knowing where she is, is in a foster home.

I must say that the reader, Anna Bentink, really does enjoy voicing her baddies: the sweetly two-faced social worker Denise “Toxic” Tune, the bullying, racist policeman Jake Flint and the worryingly awful foster team: unctuous Vicar Wendy and Gregory, her weak, veg-peeling husband.  The double-tongued “languages” of care, health and safety, social systems, school and more made me squirm with a sort of  recognition. Julia Jones was, I felt, clearly making pointed observations here. I rather wondered if any young listeners should know that at least two of these nasty characters are revealed as “real” villains later on?

However, the quartet of young characters really makes this story. Donny - slow and lacking in confidence - falls in love with sailing from the moment he sees dinghies bobbing on the reservoir near his new school.  He is still determined to meet Great Aunt Ellen at Shotley.

Then at the Vicarage, Donny makes friends with Anna, a cunning looked-after child who knows how to work the system to her own advantage. 

(The scene where Anna makes sure she and Donny are allowed out is a comic delight.  She may be small but she has such wit!)

On the school bus, Donny and Anna meet the privileged Ribiero sisters:, admirable loud-mouthed Xanthe and her kind, observant little sis, Maggie. Daughters of a black magistrate and a doctor, these new “Amazons” have learned to stand up for what they believe in. So, when they eventually hear about Donny’s love of the water and his need to meet up with his lost relative – as well as being attacked by a bully in a boat - what can they do but help him?

The long and complex plot of the “SALT STAINED BOOK” offered me plenty of exciting moments (and an enigmatic back-story), moments of sadness and joy on Donny’s behalf, and a rather wonderful meeting near the end. Perfect for a grey day, I felt.  The paper version of this book is the first in Julia's "Strong Winds" trilogy which seems, for keen readers, a good thing. How can an old Chinese junk be otherwise?

Although, amazingly, Donny starts learns to sail by studying his battered copy of “Swallows and Amazons”, Ransome’s inspirational stories never quite made me into a sailor. But, for a while, I certainly longed to be one and  -  though a duffer* - did enjoy re-living those young sea-dreams through Julia Jones Salt Stained Book adventure.

Have you listened to any good audio-books lately?

Review by Penny Dolan

Ps At another level entirely, I found the chapters being read didn’t correspond to the chapters indicated on my Ipod display, but that is a technical niggle, and may well be at Apple’s audio end rather than a Golden Egg production problem.

*“Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won’t drown” is the permission given for the children to sail to the island in Swallows and Amazons.

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

The Last Of The Spirits by Chris Priestley - Review by Dawn Finch

First the blurb....

London is in the icy grip of winter. Sam is freezing and hungry. When he asks a wealthy man, Ebeneezer Scrooge, for money he is rudely refused. Sam is filled with violent rage and vows to kills this selfish man. Later, huddled in a graveyard for warmth, Sam sees the wraithlike figure of a man approaching. The man warns Sam about the terrible future which awaits him if he chooses the path of murder...

Chris Priestley has enviable talent as a writer of Gothic tales and, in November 2014, adds The Last of the Spirits to his growing bookshelf of titles. 'Tis the season of ghosts and icy nights, and so this is a fitting time to bring out this companion to Dickens' Christmas Carol. Companion is exactly what this book is, those expecting a simple retelling will be in for a pleasant surprise as this tale stands solidly beside Christmas Carol, but this is no retelling.

Last of the Spirits follows the misfortune of two homeless children on the icy streets of 19th Century London. The two children, siblings Sam and Lizzie, are caught up in the spectral visitations that plague Scrooge through his tormented Christmas Eve. They are not part of Ebeneezer's story yet, they have their own tale to tell first.

Many writers have tried to snack at the groaning table of Dickens' remarkable works, but Priestley brings something new and satisfying to the feast. In a time of over-long tomes filled with wasted words, this book is refreshingly bright and to the point. No wasted words here. Priestley writes with blade-sharp clarity and this story is completely new, whilst also having a reassuringly familiar quality. It is rather like finding out something new and fascinating about an old family member. Priestley has turned the camera-eye around on the classic tale, thus allowing us to see what else might have been happening at the same time. The story has lots of chilling moments, plenty of ghosts, and you can really feel the deep icy cold of the season as you read it. I recommend a nice cosy room when you read this!

One thing that really jumped out at me (including the startling spirits!) was how well this book reads aloud. Even the best of books sometimes fall down when it comes to reading them aloud, but Last of the Spirits would make an excellent book to share aloud with others. Dickens regularly read Christmas Carol out loud and did so for decades after publication. Some books are written to be heard as well as read, and I can see this taking its place as one of those books brought out every year to share again.

Review by Dawn Finch (author of Brotherhood of Shades. www.dawnfinch.com)

Last of the Spirits by Chris Priestley

Suggested reading age - 9-11

Pub - Bloomsbury

06 November 2014

ISBN - 9781408854136

Cover price - £10.99

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

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

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

WILD WOOD by Jan Needle. Reviewed by Dennis Hamley.

The reissue of this marvellous novel must rank as a Literary Event. First published in 1981 by Andre Deutsch with unforgettably brilliant illustrations by Wiiliam Rushton, Wild Wood should have been widely recognised for the classic book it undoubtedly is instead of going out of print early.

Well, to some of us, it always has been a classic and its reissue, revised and even improved, after nearly forty-five years, is an occasion to celebrate.

It’s not a sequel to The Wind in the Willows. It’s not a retelling in any but the vaguest sense. It’s a complete re-imagining, a companion piece, almost a concordance to the original, as Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is to Hamlet. 

Oh, in Wind in the Willows, how disturbed Ratty, Mole and even Mr Badger are by the Wild Wood. It’s a place of evil, fear, intimidation and danger which we as readers, feel tangibly with Mole as he nervously traverses it. Stoats and weasels are threatening, nightmare creatures who disturb dreams. They are, if you’ll excuse the word, oiks. The privileged upper class Riverbankers never think that the wild Wood may contain a viable, relatively comfortable and unthreatening society – unthreatening unless they themselves feel threatened. Well, they do feel threatened. We’re seeing Wind in the Willows from the Wildwooders’ point of view and it’s not hard to realise that this is a novel about class and revolution and a valuable social document about Edwardian society.

The tale is told by Baxter Ferret, an unassuming animal, a sort of wide-eyed Everyman who stands slightly apart from the main action with an engagingly critical semi-detachment. He loves his cars, his machinery, his family and his beer. Old cars and home brewing are among the novel’s main preoccupations and part of the warm, protective, though often cold and hungry world of the Wood. 

Concealed beer jokes abound. For example, the professional agitator who arrives to spark the Wildwooders into revolution is Boddington Stoat, who is ‘peculiarly yellow, a little lacking in body, extremely bitter but one of the best.’ Anyone who has spent time in a Manchester pub will know exactly what Jan Needle is talking about. Baxter’s first ‘gaffer’ on the farm has a petrol wagon, a Throckmorton Squeezer ‘with …six cylinders each big enough to boil Cider in.” Cedric Willoughby, the ancient journalist, drives an ‘Armstrong Hardcastle Mouton Special Eight. 1907 with the whirling poppets…’ Such madly exaggerated machines populate the story. Yes, it’s full of loving detail of a tightly-knit working class society. Yet the Riverbankers are not entirely excoriated. Baxter may dismiss Ratty as a poetic sort of dreamer but there’s a measure of affection there. 

 

However, it’s much more than that. As a satire, Wild Wood is on a par with Animal Farm. Both recount flawed revolutions. Yes, the Wildwooders do take over Toad Hall, rename it Brotherhood Hall, and the egregious Toad - a creation as gross as the Toad Grahame creates, still funny but also a symbol of repression - is driven out. But, unlike Orwell’s revolution, this is one is not entirely successful. Grahame’s narrative cannot be tampered with. The revolutionaries settle for less than domination. Boddington’s fanaticism is tempered as he marries Baxter’s sister Dolly. We know that Mr Toad will return. The revolution peters out rather good-naturedly with a sort of rapprochement between Riverbankers and the Wildwooders, the upper class and the working class. We can look round us nowadays and say ‘If only it had lasted!’ 

 

Funny, profound, superbly written, deeply satisfying: Wild Wood has so many qualities. Perhaps the book didn’t make the impact it should in 1981 because staunch Grahame supporters thought it disrespectful. Far from it. As with all good satires, there is a strong element of homage to the original. The Wind in the Willows is a quintessentially British book. 

Even though it springs from a radically different social and political perspective, so is Wild Wood. Read it, cry with laughter and close it knowing that the two books together have provided you with a conspectus of a whole society in a particular age but still relevant for all of time.

Wild Wood by Jan Needle. Published by Golden Duck 2014. ISBN 978 189926221 2 £9.99

Thanks to Authors Electric for this portrait of Jan Needle. Another excellent blog to visit!

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

THE SILK SISTERS: PINK CHAMELEON by Fiona Dunbar; reviewed by Gillian Philip

There's something especially exciting about diving into a book when you really don't have a clue what awaits. I knew that Fiona Dunbar's Silk Sisters trilogy had a fashion element and that it was futuristic, but that was pretty much it. I was expecting quite a 'girly' story, what with the pink cover and the fashion theme, but what I got was something else entirely. The running girls are more of a clue, because this is a fast-paced adventure that never entirely lets up.

Rorie is a wonderful heroine. She and her little sister Elsie (who is something of a loose cannon, but a very entertaining one) have a near-ideal life until one day, their inventor parents vanish on the way to a business meeting. Taken in by their foul uncle and aunt – who make the Dursleys of Privet Drive look like models of foster parenting – they have to survive the boarding school rigours of the horribly named Poker Bute Hall, escape their relatives' dastardly clutches (for Uncle Harris and Aunt Irmine have Ulterior Motives), and discover the truth about their mother and father. And since it's a trilogy, that's never all going to happen in the first book.

What I love about the futuristic aspect of this story is the assumption that the reader is in on the details. This isn't a story full of spaceships and aliens - it's a future world you can imagine happening tomorrow, with digitalised clothing, intelligent SatNavs, 'shels' (the new cellphones) and 'slants' - the new and better version of jeans that were developed for use in mines on Mars. It all seems so very close and next-week-real, and if anything it makes the story seem more contemporary than sci-fi. That leaves the reader free to enjoy the ride as Rorie and Elsie make their escape attempts, and to wonder and fret about the awful hidden secrets of Poker Bute Hall. Because it seems there is something very, very dark going on, something that's even worse than the strict regimen of housework, cataloguing classes and hammerball...

The good news is, the Silk sisters have allies, too, very appealing characters in their own right. And the good guys' chances look up when there's an accident involving a chameleon and a lightning bolt....

There are two more books in the trilogy, Blue Gene Baby and Tiger Lily Gold, and I really am waiting with bated breath to read them. Pink Chameleon has everything a 9-12 year old reader could want – adventure, danger, technology and super powers – and please, if you know a boy who likes any of those, just wrap the book in blue paper and persuade him to read it. This is not a book the girls should be allowed to keep for themselves.


PINK CHAMELEON (The Silk Sisters Trilogy) by Fiona Dunbar (Orchard Books 2007)

www.gillianphilip.com





Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

"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

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE

'The Bother in Burmeon' by S.P. Moss - reviewed by Rosalie Warren

 

The Bother in Burmeon is, in my opinion, an excellent children's book. But it's one that you may not otherwise have come across, and I think it deserves wider attention - so here goes!

S.P. Moss's debut novel is aimed at 9-12s. And what a tale it is! Young Billy, staying with his gran, finds a kaleidoscope in a box of toys in what used to be his mother's bedroom. Rather an interesting kaleidoscope as it happens, since, when Billy turns it, he is whisked back to 1962. There he meets a dashing young RAF pilot who turns out to be Billy's granddad and who, in the present day, has been dead for the past twelve years.

In spite of the shock, it doesn' t take Billy long to find his feet (and his wings, as it were) in 1962, and soon he's on the way with Grandpop to the depths of South East Asia, where he pilots a flying boat, rescues a captive tiger, comes face to face with an Indian cobra and pits his wits against a mad dictator...

It's all very real - certainly not a dream - and very convincing to read. S. P. Moss knows her stuff about the RAF (I know - I'm an RAF crewman's daughter) and she has the language of 1962 and the sights and smells of that long-lost age off pat (again, I know... my memory just about goes back that far!)

But in spite of the retro feel there is nothing old-fashioned about this tale - certainly nothing slow and ponderous. Billy's adventures unfold at (at least) Mach 3 - and whatever your age, you'll be chewing your knuckles with the excitement of it all long before the thrilling (and rather moving) end.

Climb aboard, hold tight, prepare for take-off... whoosh! away we go....

With Billy and Grandpop for company, flying out over enemy territory to battle with beasts, baddies and bombs, you'll have tons of fun with no need for screens, apps and computer games.

(And I should add that this adventure is great for girls as well as boys - yet another of those books I wish had been around when I was young!)

The Bother in Burmeon has its own wonderful website, too.

Well done to S. P. Moss and here's wishing her lots of success. Let's hope she has some sequels in the pipeline...


Title: The Bother in Burmeon
Author: S. P. Moss
Age-range: 9-12 approx
Publication date: 2012
Publisher: Circaidy Gregory Press
Price: £7.49 (paperback version); £4.11 (Amazon Kindle version). EPub edition
is available from Foyles, Blackwells and all the Hive Network stores - see publisher's website for detail.

 The Bother in Burmeon is also available direct from the publisher, Circaidy Gregory Press

This review first appeared on my own blogsite, Rosalie Reviews, a few weeks ago.

Happy reading
Best wishes
Ros

Follow me on Twitter @Ros_Warren

Facebook page
Blogging regularly, with reviews for young and old, at Rosalie Reviews
Website

Return to REVIEWS HOMEPAGE