RABBITYNESS  by Jo Empson. Published by Child's Play, 2012.

 Reviewed by Dawn  McNiff

A bright splash of a picture book by author-illustrator, Jo Empson. A quirky book that grapples with bereavement and loss, whilst remaining fun and hopeful.

Now, I imagine you've guessed that the star of the show is Rabbit...Well, our Rabbit is a bit of a nutter - bouncy, wild and eccentric. He likes doing rabbity things as well as loads of un-rabbity stuff. And he is a bit of a leader too, so all his rabbit friends join in his mad antics.

First off, I reckon that a rabbit is a great choice of animal for a picture book. So many young children I know either have a rabbit, or really, really want one. Rabbits just WIN - and this big rabbity fest feels spot-on for infant-classers...

Copying seems a good theme for this age-group too. They're great little mimics themselves, and appear to be obsessed with either playing 'copying'; or arguing about who's copying who, and then 'telling'. It's a hot topic when you're 4.

And Rabbit is a guy well worth copying. Off he goes, boinging through the pages doing cool stuff, and spreading his rabbityness and joy. Splurgy paints in the pictures represent the colour and fun he brings into the woods.

Until one day he's just not there any more....

And he leaves behind a dark hole in everyone's lives, and on the page. This is shocking moment, but not so chilling that it would scare a more sensitive child under his bed for a week. The book deals with this loss and death with a light touch, but without trivialising it.

We see how the other rabbits learn to deal with their grief by doing all the happy, unrabbity things that Rabbit taught them to do - and in this way he is remembered, honoured, and not entirely lost to them.

I just wish I'd had this book 15 years ago. I will always remember a holiday to Yorkshire with my now-grown-up, 3 year old daughter. We did loads of fun things, but the highlight for her was the squashed, dead mouse we came across on a path near our holiday cottage. Every morning we had to take a detour to visit it. She'd hold my hand, and we'd stand and gaze at it solemnly. She'd ask what had happened to the mouse and why. Where had the mouse's life gone? Was it sad that it'd died, and why was it sad? Was the mouse's mummy sad? And its friends? All achingly sweet, poignant and funny from an adult's point of view - but she really was wrestling with some proper existential angst.

I'm not at all sure that I provided adequate replies to her questions. A book like Rabbityness would've been a very welcome prop.....

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SALVAGE by Keren David; reviewed by Gillian Philip

Salvage comes with an alarming tagline: Not everything that’s broken can be mended. Maybe that’s what gave me a mounting sense of dread as the paths of Cass and Aidan and their bewilderingly extended families converged. Not that the tagline is the only arresting thing on the very striking cover: there’s the tattoo on the back of Aidan’s neck, the single word Hope. It’s an ineradicable symbol that begins, at one point in the story, to look like a terrible joke.

Cass and Aidan are sister and brother, separated not at birth but when they were four and six respectively. She has no memory of her birth family; he remembers too much. They’ve had upbringings as different from one another as it’s possible to imagine: she’s now the high-achieving, Oxford-bound daughter of an MP, he’s the product of a care system that has failed him – and a product is what he seems to feel like, as much as the damaged goods on sale at the salvage shop where he works. By a chance of fate and Facebook the siblings find one another, twelve years after they were separated, and arrange a meeting that will have desperately frightening consequences for them and everyone around them.

Two voices tell the story, and they’re masterfully done. Aidan is one of those characters who could so easily lose the reader’s sympathy, but Keren David has previous when it comes to damaged young men (see When I Was Joe and its sequels) and she unfolds Aidan’s complex, terrible story with subtlety and grace. She has said in this interview that she found Cass harder to write, because the girl has so little self-awareness. Is there anything more frustrating than a character so pathologically self-contained she won’t even talk to her author? (I speak from some experience, *cough*.) Well, however David managed it in the end, it works beautifully. Cass might do her damnedest to alienate the reader, but in the end she’s too human to succeed. By the halfway point I wanted the best of everything for them both, and there are no guarantees they’ll get it.

It’s not unknown for nuanced main characters to be let down by a touch of cardboard in the supporting cast. No worries here. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book where I can picture the characters so clearly, and hear their voices. For me that doesn’t come with physical description, but by that mystical process where they’re just there, suddenly, in the movie in your head. I’d single out Will and Ben as particular delights; Will’s relationship with Cass is lovely. (Cass’s father, by the way, looks like Rupert Graves. Take my word for it.) I confess, I had a tremor of doubt in the opening pages, which bring us a situation that’s almost a cliche of our times. Uh-oh, I thought: plot thread, please don’t play out like I fear you will … Oh, silly me. I shouldn’t have worried. Of course Keren David doesn’t develop a cliched situation in a cliched way.

Not everything that’s broken can be mended. True. But I’m not going to give the slightest spoilers about what does and doesn’t get fixed in this story. If you want to know – and you will – go on, read it. 

SALVAGE by Keren David: published by Atom Books

www.gillianphilip.com

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Star Girl by Karin Littlewood reviewed by Lynda Waterhouse

Gracie has a special star. It shines and sparkles in the night-sky just for her. Each morning she says, “I wish you were here with me all the time.” So one evening she takes the star and brings it home.

Out of context the star is grey and dull and lifeless and no amount of effort on Gracie’s part can renew its sparkle. She tries dressing up in her starry dress and dancing. She thinks the star needs some friends so she places it in a rock pool amongst the starfish. No matter how hard she tries to please the star she cannot make it shine. Gracie comes to realise that it would never shine for her again…until she learns to let the star go.

Karin’s beautiful illustrations, rich poetic text and affecting theme make this picture book sparkle.  I can’t wait to read this story aloud to a group of children.

Star Girls is published by Frances Lincoln Picture books ISBN 978-1-84780-146-3

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THE MEMORY BOOK by Rowan Coleman - reviewed by Tamsyn Murray

By complete coincidence, I've also chosen an adult book to review this time around as well. My choice is The Memory Book by Rowan Coleman, published by Ebury Press and out on 30th January 2014.

The Memory Book opens with Claire and Greg. On the surface, they seem like a perfect couple but it soon becomes apparent that there’s a shadow hanging over them – Claire has been diagnosed with an illness, one that she’s all too familiar with – Early Onset Alzheimer’s. Claire’s mother knows the disease too - it took the life of Claire's father years earlier. So both women are dreadfully aware of what the future holds – bit by bit, Claire’s memory will be stolen away, until she can no longer remember her name, her husband or even her own children.

The story is split between Claire and her teenage daughter, Caitlin. Interspersed between these two narratives, there are extracts from the memory book, a record of stories and events involving Claire over the years. Some of them are by Claire herself, written while she can still access her memories. These provide a poignant counterpoint to the unfolding story and give great insight into each of the characters, especially Greg and Claire’s mother.

As Claire’s condition worsens, her family struggle to keep her safe and tensions increase, especially as Caitlin is facing demons of her own. When Claire blurts out a long-held secret about Caitlin’s father, the family begins to disintegrate. Can Claire hold onto herself long enough to pull everyone back together? Or will her illness tear all of them apart?

I suspected from the very first chapter that The Memory Book would make me cry and I wasn’t wrong. It's a moving, compassionate, heart-rending account of an illness that must be desperately hard to live with - I defy anyone to read it without sobbing in places. But it’s also a compelling read that is uplifting in so many ways. As the mother of a toddler who hasn’t got the hang of sleep yet, I rarely allow myself the luxury of reading into the early hours these days but with this book, I couldn't help myself; the urge to find out what happened next was overwhelming and I couldn't put it down. And even though you know there can be no happy ending for Claire, The Memory Book still manages to end on a high, which is a major tribute to the skill of its author, Rowan Coleman. Once I’d finished reading, I immediately wanted to go back to the start and begin again to pick up all the subtle clues that lead eventually to that beautiful, clever ending.

Look, I know it's only January, and I never usually say things like this, but seriously, you can call off the search already – I’ve found my book of the year.

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LIFE AFTER LIFE by Kate Atkinson, reviewed by Penny Dolan

I’ve chosen a grown-up book - Kate Atkinson’s latest novel LIFE AFTER LIFE - for this January review. The novel is currently in hardback (or as a kindle edition) but the paperback is due out soon.

First of all, for all Jackson Brodie enthusiasts, LIFE AFTER LIFE is not another in the Atkinson crime series. The novel spans the first half of 20^th century, so it could possibly be described as historical fiction. Certainly, I felt,  it is the popular “historical” knowledge of the World Wars and surrounding decades that helps to hold this unusual book together.

In the very first chapter, Atkinson introduces the idea that this is a differently constructed novel: in 1930, a young English girl enters a café in Germany and attempts to shoot Hitler. Then, in the next wintry chapters, each dated 11^th February 1910, we find three alternative versions of the birth of a baby girl, Ursula, including as a stillbirth. So the book continues.

 

All through this novel, Atkinson offers alternative versions of the Ursula who survived. We see her through family childhood, during girlhood, as a young woman and wife and aunt, as an early professional career woman, as a firewatcher in the 1940’s - and on into her eventual retirement in the 60’s. 

The “plot” of the novel loops back time and again, retelling and revising incidents, revealing different versions of Ursula’s life and the altered relationships between the characters. Often her stories end badly, with the refrain "Darkness fell".

I admit that, at the beginning, I noted down the dates and years used like chapter headings to get some hold on when we were, as well as where. The places and the people are strongly and clearly written. Atkinson writes some harsh and shocking scenes but never wallows in the awfulness. 

The book has moments of quiet humour. I enjoyed the way that Maurice, the older brother, is continually an unpleasant character, and the times when already known characters such as Renee, reappear as  strangers.  Death is sometimes a surprise but rarely a dreadful experience for Ursula. There's a feeling of relief when, after another story “goes wrong”, the novel shifts and a younger Ursula appearing, with another chance of happiness.

The poignant sadness of one tale is balanced by hopeful moments in another. For example, Ursula's vindictive husband is not married on her second trip through time. Several themes re-appear, structuring the book: Atkinson writes of loneliness and deprivation; of innocence, ignorance and deceit; of childhood abuse, domestic violence and the brutality of war.

In all her alternative selves, Ursula remains a constant, brave and likeable character for the reader. The book gains pace through the reader’s curiosity. How will this current loop work out? What the next story will be? LIFE AFTER LIFE is a hard style of book to conclude: Atkinson offers variations of the ending, suggesting the differences between what happens and what you would want to happen - which is, I suppose, what fiction is all about.

You might be thinking, as I once did, that this book sounds a bit too bothersome to read among so many other things to do. All I can say is that LIFE AFTER LIFE works. The book is "believable" and, possibly against the odds, some of the moments stay with you.  There should be hardback copies in your local library, if you don’t want to wait for the paperback - and it is available as a kindle e-book too.

Penny Dolan

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BELLMAN AND BLACK by DIANE SETTERFIELD, reviewed by Adele Geras.

Happy New Year, and welcome back to the Awfully Big Blog Adventure Review page.


We're welcoming in 2014 with another review by Adele Geras. This time the book is BELLMAN AND BLACK by Diane Setterfield, a historical novel for adults. 

The review first appeared in THE VIRTUAL VICTORIAN, author Essie Fox's fascinating history blog, which is well worth a visit .


 A dramatised version of Diane Setterfield's first novel, THE THIRTEENTH TALE, was shown on tv over the Christmas period, and might be ideal catch-up-tv for grown-up viewing on a lazy grey day like today, the first of January. 

Adele Geras writes:

This novel, the second from the writer of the thrilling and very popular THE THIRTEENTH TALE is shorter, less thrilling but oh, how much more haunting and moving and altogether more memorable than its predecessor.

 I have been haunted by it since I read it for the first time some weeks ago.  I don't often reread books. There are too many new and exciting things being published all the time for me to want to go back to something I already know.

I made an exception for this book, because I was reviewing it. I must try and convey what it is about B&B that has so got under my skin without giving away too much of the plot. Although it's fair to say that the twists of the plot, on the face of it, are not Setterfield's main concern. 

This is  the story of a man, William Bellman, who succeeds in all his does in life, and who even though he loses much, is also a provider of work for his fellow man, a devoted father, a very diligent and obsessive worker who stops at nothing to perfect whatever enterprise he is engaged in. He also becomes extremely rich. There are tragedies in his life. There are shimmering triumphs. And there is also something that infects his every thought and deed.

In a short first chapter, which is easily the match of Ian McEwan's famous ballooning scene at the beginning of ENDURING LOVE, William kills a rook with a catapult. He is ten years old. This murder...because that's how he feels it and so how we do too...threads its way through the whole narrative. The dead rook is like  black ink dropped into clear water. It colours every page.

On a plot level, the dead rook haunts Will as first as a figure dressed in black on the edge of any funeral he attends. Later,  a man dressed in black makes a kind of Faustian pact with him and Will recognises this person from glimpses he's had of him before. He calls him Black and agrees to open a Mourning Emporium at his suggestion. This is a second business enterprise for Will. He'd already turned a  mill where he worked into a real success, creating colours that sang, and fabrics that were greatly in demand. Now, to save the life of his beloved daughter Dora, he goes to London and a shop called Bellman &Black is born.

Detail. That's what marks this novel out as unusual. We learn everything about both the mill and the shop. We have Will's life itemised and inventoried.  Will lives and dies. Dora lives.  The rooks go on and on forever and the last few pages of the book are simply beautiful: a description of the birds gathering and swirling through the sky and then settling on branches, seen by Dora, the artist, who will then, we know, always see them and always try to convey the beauty and terror of that moment. The book ends with a monologue from the rook-voice which has accompanied us through the story. I haven't mentioned that before now, fearing that a novel in which  one of the points of view is that of a rook, might not be everyone's cup of tea. Please don't be put off. You will be enchanted by the rook-lore and feel yourself initiated into a secret world that other people don't know about.

This isn't, in spite of what it says on the very beautiful cover, a Ghost Story.  You will find no revenants, or at least, none of the kind you might expect. No rattling chains. No headless horsemen. It's much more about psychology; about what goes on in Will's mind, and yet of course in many ways, the Mourning Emporium is by definition a haunted house

The prose feels Victorian. It's plain, elegant and pared down.  The accumulation of detail about processes, fabrics, landscape and buildings is very powerful and creates a world that stays with you long after you've finished the book. There are people, characters, interactions between them (the relationship between Will and his wife is particularly tenderly drawn as is the parallel relationship between Will and one of the seamstresses in the shop) but this isn't a novel about people's feelings and romances and disappointments. It's about the soaring parabola of a very simple story: the consequences of the single, dreadful act we witness  in the first few pages. That slingshot starts Will on a journey through life that he can neither avoid nor alter. We follow him. We listen to the rook.  It's a stunning novel and  perfect for this time of year. It's one that I am sure will haunt you as it haunts me. And you won't look at rooks again without a shiver going up your spine.

 
http://www.adelegeras.com/

I blog at History Girls (http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com) , a joint blog written by authors of historical fiction and fantasy history for Junior (middle Grade), YA and adult readers.
 

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HAPPY CHRISTMAS and THE COMPANY OF GHOSTS by Berlie Doherty, reviewed by Adele Geras.

With this review of a wonderfully seasonal book, Awfully Big Review pauses for a while. Thank you for reading our 2013 reviews - and we will be back with more on the First of January 2014. A happy holiday to you all! 


Meanwhile, from Adele Geras . . . 

THE COMPANY OF GHOSTS by Berlie Doherty
 

A new novel from Berlie Doherty is always something to look forward to and yet again I have to offer a disclaimer. This writer, like so many of those I review on this website, is a friend of mine and I’m sorry about that, but if I had to avoid books by people I know, I’d be very hamstrung in the matter of reviewing and would scarcely ever be able to do it. As it is, showing good new books to readers who might otherwise miss them is something I regard as one of my main functions as a critic.

This is a ghost story and I love ghost stories, so I seized on it when it came through my door. Doherty has opted for a particular kind of tale. There are no big old houses here with creaking doors; no graveyards, no rattling chains and indeed most of the accoutrements of the traditional story are absent and instead we have an idyllic (in many ways) island off the Scottish coast and a teenager marooned there all by herself.

Ellie is running away from an unpleasant situation at home when she accepts an invitation from Morag, whom she scarcely knows, to spend some time on the island. This place is deserted. Morag’s family spend holidays there in a very basic dwelling and there’s a disused lighthouse but apart from that, nothing. It’s reached by boat, and that is an erratic sort of service, down to the availability of a local fisherman.  Circumstances combine to leave Ellie alone there for what she thinks will be only a short time but which, terrifiyingly, extends and extends until we realize, gradually, that through various accidents, no one is going to come and rescue her. She is on her own, having to cope, desperately scared at times and trying to be sensible and brave in really scary circumstances.

 
This would be bad enough, but of course, we know from the title that Ellie is not alone…..there is the ghost. The way Doherty introduces this spectre, the way the supernatural is interwoven with the natural is both spine chilling and lyrical. She specializes in wonderful descriptions of nature and in this case, because our heroine is an artistic child, of her paintings as well. Ellie writes letters to her father, who, in her opinion, has deserted her family to go off to Cornwall on his own leaving her mother to marry someone else and these letters, interspersed with what’s happening on the mainland to George, Morag’s brother, who, through no fault of his own, has failed to arrange Ellie’s rescue, both ease the tension on the island and also rachet it up a few notches as the novel progresses.

The story of the ghost turns out to be a love story, and towards the end, we sense that Ellie’s narrative, too may be moving in that direction….

This is a book full of  moments of really creepy suspense and I’d recommend it to anyone who wants something both unusual and romantic and set in a landscape which is at the same time threatening and very beautiful. It’s a well-written, intriguing and often genuinely scary story, just right for Christmas.

Publisher: Andersen Press  

Price: £6.99 (pbk)

ISBN: 9781849397292

Reviewer:       Adèle Geras

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THE MIDNIGHT PALACE by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Reviewed by Jackie Marchant

I’m a big fan of this author’s adult books and, as a fan of YA as well, I thought this would be just the book for me.  It didn’t disappoint.  It’s fast paced, with a cast of intriguing and likeable characters – apart from the villain of course, who is as evil as they come.  Instead of Barcelona, we are treated to Ruis Zafon’s 1930’s Calcutta, which he paints with his usual skills, bringing alive the perfect atmosphere for the mystery that unfolds.   This centres around newborn orphan twins who must be saved at all costs from a terrible fate.  But they grow up unaware of their past, as well as of each other.  Then, as they turn sixteen, the past rears its ugly head and they are both thrown into danger.  As the secrets unfold, so does the sheer horror of what they have to face – a malevolent spirit who can move ghostly trains and bring up raging fire at will. 

But the twins are not alone.  One of them, Ben, has been brought up in an orphanage, where he is part of a secret society consisting of the children who will turn sixteen and be compelled to leave at the same time as him.  They meet in a rundown old house they call the Midnight Palace and swear that they will always help each other, no matter what.  But they haven’t bargained for what is going to happen to Ben when he turns sixteen.

This book is shorter than his adult books, but no less mysterious compelling and atmospheric.  In fact I would say that the only difference, apart from the length, is the fact that the main characters are sixteen year olds rather than adults. 

A compelling read, full of atmosphere and mystery.

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Oliver And The Seawigs, by Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

This is a bonkers delight of a book for children of about six to ten.  It’s a chubby, silken-covered, hardback of the size that used to be the reserve of hymn and poetry books, so sits very nicely in the hand.  That dramatic cover shows just the sort of fun and adventure and beautiful design that you are going to find inside the book, with most pages alive with illustration as well as text. 

Oliver And The Seawigs is written by Philip Reeve, more famously known for equally wildly imaginative but more serious works such as the Mortal Engines series and Here Lies Arthur.  Here he’s clearly enjoying himself immensely, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t get a good story.  The bonkers plot involves islands that get up and walk to a place where they will compete for island leadership based on the best ‘wig’ of shipwrecks or fish or rubbish they can concoct, a sinister army of greasy green-furred and web-footed monkeys, an odd one out mermaid with bad eyesight, a teenager made angry by reactions to his girly name, and of course our hero, Oliver, and his unreliable explorer parents.  But the action is all pleasingly logical within the mad world created, and the plight of the characters surprisingly compelling and moving.  Why?  Because they have hopes and fears and problems of kinds that we can identify with.  There are bullies to be tackled by the children, and a monstrous human-eating island to be faced up to by timid bald little island Cliff.  And at the end Oliver is faced with his own double-longing; to be settled at home, but also to not leave Cliff and his mermaid and albatross friend.  Can the two be achieved at the same time?  Read the story and see!

Sarah McIntyre has done the very stylish and truly beautiful pictures.  She manages to combine a lucid depiction of story action with great humour, but it’s that quality of beauty that is a rarity in illustrations for novels for this sort of age.  More of this, please, publishers!  When Iris the Mermaid finally gets the glasses that enable her to see her world clearly for the first time, those glasses could have been pinched from Sarah McIntyre!  I suspect a lot of in-jokes in these pictures.  The enjoyment in creating this book was clearly mutual, by an exceptionally talented pair who are both both writers and illustrators. 

So this story is about as far as you can get from an ‘issues book’, and yet it would bring comfort and strength to children suffering bullying or needing glasses, and give pause for thought to those who do the bullying or are the parents who maybe don’t give enough attention to their child.  It’s a book that will, I think, be one of those books that stay with its readers, internally and externally, for life.

“Eeep!”  (Those blessed monkeys get everywhere!)

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DARK LORD: THE TEENAGE YEARS, by Jamie Thomson. Reviewed by C.J. Busby

Dark Lord: The Teenage Years won the 2012 Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and it doesn't disappoint. The premise is brilliant - the Dark Lord, Incarnation of Evil, World Burner, master of the Iron Tower of Despair, has been sent to another plane by an incredibly powerful spell cast by the White Wizard, Hasdruban. In fact, he has been sent to our world, in the body of a puny teenage boy. No Gauntlets of Ineluctable Destruction on his hands, no tusks, no fangs, no spell of Agonizing Obedience.

The Dark Lord appears in a supermarket car park ("Saveco - was he the local overlord perhaps? Lord Saveco, Smiter of Foes, the Pitiless One?"). He is picked up by the police, who mistake his name for Dirk Lloyd, and who treat him as a lost boy with a mental disturbance that takes the form of fantasising that he's the Evil One ("These computer games. It's an obsession at their age"). He's packed off to be fostered by the Purejoies, who have a teenage son of their own, Chris.

There is lots of fun to be had with this notion - imagine Darth Vader/Sauron combined in the body of a teenage boy, with their threats of revenge and terrible destruction eliciting no more than: "There, there, dear, you'll feel better soon." But it could potentially be a bit of a one-joke book, and there's only so much you can have your character rage about the loss of their powers or threaten those they come into contact with ("puny humans") with all manner of terrible torture that they can't actually carry out (though these things are very funny, and done well).  That it's a book that satisfies on other levels as well as making you laugh is down to the way Thomson handles the Dark Lord's growing relationships with the humans he encounters: particularly his foster-brother, Chris, and Suze, the Goth girl who's Chris's friend at school. They play along with Dirk's fantasies about being the Dark Lord, and enjoy the sense of being part of something out of the ordinary, without really quite believing him; he, in turn, starts to experience feelings he'd never allowed himself as the Dark Lord - friendship, affection, guilt at hurting people or letting them down.

I really enjoyed seeing the way Dirk gradually comes to terms with the requirements of the modern world and learns to get by without losing too much of what makes him funny as a character. Dirk, for example, becomes vital to the success of the school cricket team, because of his excellent strategic battle skills, and thus earns the friendship of Sal Malik, cricket team captain. Sal becomes another of the little group dedicated to finding a way to send Dirk back to his own dimension.

Finding a way to send Dirk home becomes the driving force of much of the plot, and has some unexpected consequences. The ending is great, and sets us up nicely for the sequel, Dark Lord: A Friend in Need. Which is what I'll be reading next.


C.J. Busby is the author of a fantasy series for age 7-9, Frogspell and sequels (see www.frogspell.co.uk)
The first book in her new series, Deep Amber, will be published by Templar in March 2014.
Twitter: @ceciliabusby




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A GAME OF THRONES by George R. R. Martin. Reviewed by Ann Turnbull.

I don't watch much TV, but even I have become aware of a popular TV series called Game of Thrones, though I have never seen it.  This review relates only to the book by George R. R. Martin, which I was very surprised to receive for my birthday, in a beautiful hardback edition.

The book is huge.  You need to rest it on a table or a pile of cushions.  It has several pages of maps with place names reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings.  There is also an Appendix with nineteen pages of characters.  All this daunted me somewhat.  But once I got started I was hooked.  The writing is excellent; the numerous characters are interesting and their connections to each other soon become clear; and the action unfolds at just the right pace.  Although there is a fantasy element, it's not at the forefront, and when it does occur it is all the more terrifying.

This is a saga about the struggle for domination between several great houses, set in an incredibly detailed medieval-type society.  Martin's characters, both male and female, burn strong and clear in the imagination, and their actions drive the story.  Outcomes are uncertain.  Good people may be betrayed, injured, exiled or murdered.  The story is full of shocks and surprises, and the conclusion builds to an amazing scene of power and transformation.

Martin presents us with an entire world imagined down to the last detail, including language, heraldry and history.  For those with time, there are six more books and plenty of characters and threads to pick up and follow.  I can imagine it could well become addictive.  Although it's written for adults, I think it would appeal greatly to many older teenagers. 



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PUSS JEKYLL, CAT HYDE by Joyce Dunbar and Jill Barton. Reviewed by Saviour Pirotta

Title:  Puss Jekyll, Cat Hyde
Written by Joyce Dunbar
Illustrated by Jill Barton
Published by Frances Lincoln
Publication date: 3rd October 2013
ISBN-10: 1847804926
ISBN-13: 978-1847804921

When asked why he'd settled on T.S. Elliot's 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats' as the source material for his new musical, Andrew Lloyd Webber famously answered something akin to, 'I read somewhere that 90% of people love cats, which gives the musical a big chance of becoming a hit.'

He was right, of course.  Cats have always figured prominently in art, from the funerary moggies carved by the Ancient Egyptians to the arrogant, wise-cracking Siamese twins in Disney's The Lady and the Tramp, Dr Seuss's Cat in the Hat and Lewis Carroll's grinning Cheshire feline.

No wonder, then, that cats feature largely in picture books too.   They are instantly recognisable, even to very young children.  We are all familiar with the cat's character, mores and foibles, which makes it the perfect protagonist for stories that can be understood and appreciated by readers all over the world.

Joyce Dunbar's Puss Jeykll and Cat Hyde is an exciting addition to the feline canon. Here is a book that explores the dual nature of the cat - the playful ball of fur we love to cuddle up to on the sofa and the amoral hunter that stalks vulnerable creatures by the light of the moon.

The rhythmic text, a beautifully written free-flow poem, takes us through a day and night in a cat's life.  We see the cat enjoying the housebound pursuits of a loving pet, interspersed with the exploits of a jungle wild-beast.   Dunbar uses quite challenging language, always a plus-point in my opinion.

Jill Barton's luminous coloured pencil and water colour drawings stick to a restricted palette, of mostly blues, beiges and blacks.  They compliment the text perfectly, making this a must-have book that will be enjoyed time and time again.

Reviewed by Saviour Pirotta

http://www.spirotta.com

https://www.facebook.com/spirotta

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That Burning Summer, by Lydia Syson: reviewed by Sue Purkiss

Set during the Battle of Britain, this book deals not with the undoubted heroism of the Few - the pilots and crew of the RAF - but with those who, for one reason or another, came to to the decision that they could not take an active part in fighting the war.

Sixteen year old Peggy's father, a conscientious objector, is one of these. he has been interned, and Peggy, her younger brother Ernest and her mother have come to live with Aunt Myra in an isolated farmhouse in Romney Marsh.

Ernest, a serious, thoughtful boy, is desperately anxious about what will happen if the Germans invade. Peggy is determinedly keeping her spirits up, in the face of the obvious disapproval of people in the village of her father's principled but unpopular stance, and despite Ernest's constant anxiety and need for reassurance.

Then a plane crashes into the marsh. Its pilot is Henryk, a young Polish airman who has joined the RAF after fleeing Poland after the German invasion in order to continue to fight. (Many Polish aircrew escaped, first to France and then to England. They were noted for their daring and bravery - but at the end of the war, Poland was shamefully betrayed, and the Polish aircrew were not acknowledged in the victory celebrations for fear of antagonising Stalin.) Henryk has been through a harrowing time: traumatised, he decides he can no longer continue to fight, and he goes into hiding. But when he approaches the farm one for food, he runs into Peggy. Drawn to him, she finds herself helping him. Should she be aiding a deserter? And should she be pressuring Ernest to do the same? There are difficult decisions to be made for all of them.

The novel explores unusual territory for a book about the Second World War. Pilots who could no longer cope with what they were required to do could be accused of LMF - lack of moral fibre -and ignominiously treated - or if they deserted, they would be court-martialled. And yet they were under almost unbearable pressure; that summer, they pretty much alone stood between Britain and defeat. (A few years later, my uncle, a boy of 19, had agreed to do a sortie for a friend - he had done his required number of flights and should have been on leave. He confided to my mother the night he left home to go back to base that he was afraid; he didn't want to go, he had a bad feeling about this trip. He went, and was killed - lost over Germany.)

And there's Ernest: From this end of the war, we know the outcome - we know that Hitler never did invade. It's so easy to forget that at the time, invasion was a real and terrifying threat.  

But as well as all this, That Burning Summer is a tender coming of age and love story. It's excellent - do read it!

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Little Witches Bewitched, by Rhiannon Lassiter. Reviewed by Cathy Butler

Ever since Mildred Hubble first entered the portals of Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches in Jill Murphy’s The Worst Witch (1974), and no doubt for some centuries before that, the idea of being a witch has had a strong appeal for young girls. In a world where, both as children and as females, they might seem to have been dealt a particularly powerless hand, witchcraft offers a way to leapfrog their elders and brothers into a position of wielding secret power over people and things. With female superheroes still a rarity, the witch remains one of the few figures through which such desires can be played out. No wonder it remains the costume of choice for Trick-or-Treaters. 

To indulge the fantasy of power without responsibility is however a dubious prospect for those who wish children’s books to educate, or at any rate not deprave, their readers. It’s also a poor formula for fiction in general, which thrives on difficulty and conflict. Witches must encounter problems that are hard to solve, even with the aid of magic, and the best writers in this tradition are careful in defining the rules of the game. 

The latest contribution to this genre is Rhiannon Lassiter’s clever and engaging book, Little Witches Bewitched. Lassiter knows this territory well, and she is ingenious in her navigation of it in the five stories that make up this volume about two young girls, Dulcie and Verity, whose Halloween encounter with a witch leaves them with magical powers of their own. The two are very different characters: Dulcie, a privileged only child whose indulgent grandfather owns a castle, might not have encountered Verity, a far less confident girl used being dominated by her older sisters, had it not been for their accidental meeting during a Trick-or-Treating session, but they become allies and best friends with a speed of which only young girls are capable. During their first adventure they attempt to undo the spell that has turned them into witches, but manage only to reverse the spells that tranformed Verity’s sisters and Dulcie’s nanny into an Arabian prince, a fairy and a Snow Queen respectively at the same time. While the supporting cast forget their metamorphoses, Verity and Dulcie look forward to new adventure – with a confidence fully justified by events.

Along the way, the girls pick up male companions in the form of a ghost (borrowed from Dulcie’s grandfather) and a witch’s cat, and even indulge in a little time travel to the Elizabethan age. Perhaps my favourite joke is Shakespeare’s complaint that he is always being bothered by travellers from the future, but while such throwaway lines are there to be appreciated by adult readers the book is aimed squarely at Dulcie and Verity’s contemporaries. The girls are fascinated and excited by magic, but they know that it is only one element of their lives, to be balanced against the demands of family and friendship. Enchantment is likely to elude books that are in a perpetual state of fluster about magic, but it flees too from those that are too blasé. Little Witches Bewitched strikes a happy middle course, and I look forward to reading about Dulcie and Verity’s future adventures in practical magic.

Little Witches Bewitched by Rhiannon Lassiter
Published by Babel Library: £5.97 
ISBN: 1493661140
ISBN-13: 978-1493661145
Also available on Kindle: £4.99

Cathy Butler's latest book is Twisted Winter (A&C Black, 2013) - "A chilling collection of terrifying winter tales for the darkest nights."

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The Brides of Rollrock Island – Margo Lanagan

Reviewed by Pauline Chandler

  In this breathtaking story of the selkies, the seal women conjured from the sea, Margo Lanagan creates places and characters that stay in the mind long after you’ve finished reading. Rollrock and Cordlin represent two different ways of life: the one an island where men struggle to make a living from the capricious sea, fighting harsh weather and poor soil to keep body and soul together, the other a mainland town with all the so-called advantages of modern life and progress, painted by Lanagan in period colours, with an Edwardian feel.

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 As different characters step forward to tell the story, we are taken on a amazing, heart-wrenching journey, when the witch of Rollrock, shunned and despised by the others from birth, wreaks a cruel revenge.

On Rollrock Island, lonely, bullied Miskaella discovers her power to draw the seals from the sea. In a tender love scene, beautifully written, she couples with a sealman and becomes his wife. Her powers grow until she can bring forth lovely young girls from the seals, girls whom the men of Rollrock will pay a lifetime’s wages to take as wives.

The story flows forward, over several seemingly peaceful years, where the life of the men on Rollrock, spellbound by the witch, live in families with their seal wives and half-seal children, a way of life that is also  accepted, from afar, by those on the mainland. But nobody from Cordlin visits Rollrock. Children are forbidden to speak of it. Change comes from Rollrock itself, when one of the island boys starts to ask questions and the truth emerges, with terrifying   consequences. .  

This is an outstanding novel, told in language that sparkles with fresh images on every page.  Extraordinary and highly recommended.

For competent readers aged 12+

Pauline Chandler

www.paulinechandler.com

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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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