BROKEN SKY by Lee Weatherly: reviewed by Gillian Philip

"Everyone has to believe in something," says Amity Vancour's little brother, Hal. He means, of course, that people need to believe; but as it turns out, an awful lot of people love to believe in something. What Hal has not yet seen, at the quarter-point in this chilling novel, is a population persuaded with alarming ease to believe willingly, gladly, joyfully in something entirely irrational. 

I say 'chilling', but L.A. Weatherly's Broken Sky is more of a spine-freeze. Following the Cataclysm – a nuclear conflagration a couple of thousand years ago – the world has essentially been rebooted. Amity Vancour lives in an era that is more or less the 1940s, but second-time-around. And this time, humanity seems to have learned its lesson. 

Wars have happened in this universe – it's what people do – but Amity's own grandmother Louise, who lived through an appalling one, was instrumental in putting an end to them forever. The world is now overseen by the World for Peace, an international organisation that prioritises and ranks inter-state conflicts, then resolves them. The instruments of this admirable policy are the Peacefighters, a noble force who fight for their countries' rights against one another, at great personal risk but with none to civilians or large armies. For this service, Peacefighters are idolised by a grateful population – and fully trusted. Their thrilling Firedove [Spitfire] duels take place in the skies above the WfP complex, neutral territory in the Western Seaboard where the pilots of all nations socialise (when they're not engaged in aerial combat with one another). This world is not utopia, but it feels like the best version of humanity, and the Peacefighters are at its heart.

Enter John Gunnison, the demagogue who rules the neighbouring Central States – and who eyes the Western Seaboard with avarice. The Peacefights have been going his way lately, so Amity is thrilled and proud when her win in a duel retains the Western Seaboard's oil rights for five years. When that result is overturned for reasons she doesn't understand, the first doubts creep in – and when pilots begin to die in straightforward fights, things quickly get a lot more sinister.

Gunnison is a tremendous and shockingly believable villain. When we finally meet him, through Weatherly's secondary character Kay, his charisma shines, and it's clear how he has reached the pinnacle of power. His genius has been to manipulate the population with astrology; his strength comes from his genuine, fanatical belief. Astrological charts are cast for every citizen of the Central States; a Discordant outcome results in correction camps, torture and death. And while Gunnison's belief is sincere, those around him survive by knowing just how to manipulate a chart to make him happy. Kay prides herself on knowing how to read people; resourceful and ruthless, she is determined to reach his inner circle and stay alive.

Broken Sky begins with Amity on the run, alone and desperate and terrified for the life of her lover and childhood friend, Collie. From this heart-in-mouth flash-forward, Weatherly takes us back to Amity's previous golden existence as a respected Peacefighter, and the great mystery begins: how did she get from there to here? The story rarely lets up the tension, and when it does it's only for touching interludes of love and family life. Amity is a splendid protagonist, courageous, compassionate and able; and we fall in love with Collie almost as thoroughly as she does. But don't let me give the impression there's sentimentality in the romance; Peacefighters can't afford it. These are tough, passionate, honest warriors and their relationship feels real. 

What also feels very real is the world they live in. I felt sorriest for a character we never meet: President Lopez of the Western Seaboard, a politician doing his best for a nation that is increasingly unhappy and deprived as the Peacefights go against them. The people of the WS gaze with envy at the prosperous Central States and its strong, charismatic leader, and they begin to wonder if astrology can do the same wonders for them. They don't know – or don't want to know – about the Discordants and their fate. 

One of the creepiest aspects of the novel is the Astrology shops that begin to pop up with increasing frequency in the Western Seaboard; everyone has to believe in something. Astrology might seem like a stretch as a way to hypnotise a population; but Weatherly makes it an entirely believable phenomenon. And why not? These are not the first nations to fall wholesale for the joyfully bombastic rallies of a demagogue. Soon everyone's wearing their star sign on their lapel; after all, it's just a brooch, just a bit of fun. It's not as if it'll ever be obligatory... but what if Gunnison's right? What if the Discordants are somehow responsible for everyone's problems? Harmony is a benevolent ideal, isn't it? Perhaps a truly perfect world is within reach if Discordant elements can be neutralised.  

Lee Weatherly does a magnificent job of examining the good intentions of humanity, and the fragility of those ideals when put into practice. Good people succumb to temptation; good people begin to think about ends, and the means they are willing to tolerate in their pursuit. Good people decide to believe in bad people, and it's never going to end well.

Action, romance, heartbreak, betrayal, agonising guilt and heart-stopping tension: Broken Sky has it all. Oh, and fascinatingly detailed Spitfire dogfights. And delightful future-historical period detail. And TWISTS; dear Lord, the twists. And by the way, it's more than suitable for fully-grown adults as well as young ones. 

I should stop before I gush any more about this tremendous book (the first in a trilogy), but I'll leave you with a link to Lee Weatherly's Broken Sky Pinterest board (I was going to steal some illustrations from it, but the choice is too difficult). And besides, I found this shot of Ms Weatherly in a Spitfire: 

BROKEN SKY by Lee Weatherly; Usborne, £8.99

Broken Sky on Pinterest

www.gillianphilip.com 

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MY BROTHER IS A SUPERHERO bu DAVID SOLOMONS, Review by Penny Dolan

 I have to hurry with this book review, as I have promised to send the copy down to a certain nine-and-three-quarters year old boy. I'd bought the book to review, he started reading while we were staying with them - and he’d really like it back so he can continue. Which, in its way, is the best kind of review.

Eleven year old Luke Parker, comic book enthusiast and “ordinary” hero, gets down from their garden tree-house because he needs a wee – which is why Luke misses the moment when a good alien power visit Earth and bestows a blast of superpowers on his shy, studious fourteen-year-old brother Zak, as well as a row of three stars across his chest.

At first, Luke – the narrator - is outraged by the unfairness of this choice. Zak knows nothing about the world of comics! He refuses to wear anything more noticeable than a dark hoodie, spurning the star-patterned bathroom curtain Luke offers him as his superhero cape. Zak even needs Luke’s help to discover what his Superpowers might be:

The burning question was, could he fly? In my opinion, a superhero who can’t fly isn’t in the Premier League. So that evening I decided to find out.

          “Hey, did you just try to push me out of the tree house?” said Zack, teetering on the edge of the doorway.

“No,“ I said. “Well, maybe a bit. I just wanted to know. Aren’t you curious?

“Not enough to jump out of a tree fifteen feet off the ground.”

I peered out investigatively. “You’re right,” I said. “It’s not nearly high enough.” I glanced across to the house. “We should go up on the roof.”

“Are you trying to kill me?” said Zack, backing away. “I bet that’s it. You’re still jealous that I got to be a superhero and you didn’t.”

He was right, I was still jealous and always would be. How could I not be? My brother was living my fantasy.

When Zak, as STARLAD, saves a toppling bus, Luke starts to worry about how long he can keep his brother’s other identity a secret, especially when STARLAD gets involved in more and more rescues. This situation is made worse when nosy Lara Lee, the would-be-journalist from his own class, starts a quest to unmask the new Superhero. Luke, still cross and jealous, has to pretend to join in her quest for the truth. 

Luke, who knows how the superhero genre works, decided he must discover the identity of NEMESIS, the person from whom Zak is destined to save the world. A villain soon arrives: Christopher Talbot, who is the owner of the Crystal Cave comic book store chain and also a suspiciously over-ambitious robot inventor. Could Talbot be Zak's NEMESIS? Luke, Lara and his friend Serge think he must be, because Talbot certainly wishes to be the most powerful person on earth. He certainly won't want his schemes undone by STARLAD.

Just as we enter a  world of Scooby-Doo-like intrigues, mad machines and mysteriously secret settings, the true NEMESIS appears: a giant asteroid, destined to strike Earth. Will Talbot’s mighty fire-power stop the asteroid before - or as - those same weapons destroy the planet? And will STARLAD be free in time to fulfill his mission . . ?

Of course, the answer is obvious, but the title is more than a triumphant ending. One of the reasons I liked this book was because, among the jokes, the pace and the adventures, Solomons builds in a friendly, good-hearted feel to many of the "real" relationships. Luke, Zak and their parents live together as an ordinary family, getting along despite their grumbles and odd ways and annoyances. Luke and Zak do look out for each other (despite the Superpower thing) and Luke and his French friend Serge enjoy a quiet but trusting friendship, based on a sharing of each others interests and skills.

There is a boy/girl dimension: Luke and Zak are both aware and wary of girls. For example, Luke finds it simpler to explain Lara as a going-out-together girl-friend than to say the pair are working together - despite his mother's cooing reaction - while poor, love-struck geek Zak can’t even manage to speak to her big sister Cara Lee despite being STARLAD. Behind the joking and joshing, there's a kindness about the way Solomons shows all the personal conflicts, and there's a welcome thread about the building and rebuilding of relationships.

Later on, when the huge asteroid NEMESIS is about to hit Earth – which some readers might find quite scary – Solomons’ offers touching, almost reassuring descriptions of how many people behave on the Last Day, especially Luke’s family, keen to be loving to each other and to appreciate all the good things about their family life.

This book has, as well as the planets, robots and adventures, what I’d call a good soul, and that’s a fine thing for young reader to come across. there are also plenty of gentle superhero references, jokes and wordplay, such as when Luke disparagingly alters the name of “Zorbon the Decider” because he is in such a rage at his lost destiny. Of course, there's some silly toilet humour in the telling too, but it felt quite well balanced for the age of the reader: the plot was definitely more important.

Why did I opt for this particular title? I chose MY BROTHER IS A SUPERHERO because of what one could call literary osmosis. I half-heard something about a book about a boy who loves comics and was instantly alerted as its a love shared by certain young people I know. Only when I picked up the last copy in the shop that weekend did I discover the book had just won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2016.

I was even more pleased when I found out that the story was set in the London suburb of Bromley, not only because I'd once lived near there but because of my very slight grudge against sudden “bestselling books” over here that turn out to be “best selling books from over there”, i.e. America. 

I also feel fairly happy admitting this viewpoint as, towards the end of MY BROTHER IS A SUPERHERO, Solomons’ own scriptwriting background seems to feed into this view. 

There’s a section where Luke, the younger brother (and ordinary hero) explains that he is telling the reader the true story of what happened. He knows the reader could be confused because when STARLAD's adventures became a movie, the American film company set it totally in the USA. Moreover - and one can almost hear Luke’s resigned sigh - he didn’t even appear on screen: the film company replaced him as his brother's side-kick with a cute puppy dog!

Luke is definitely a much wiser boy and the brothers are much better friends at the end of this enjoyably comic “Superhero” adventure and that’s how it should be. There’s also a great twist in the final scene.

That’s it, my review done, and I’m speeding off to the Post Office now, without even slipping on my starry curtain cape.

Happy reading! 

Penny Dolan

MY BROTHER IS A SUPERHERO is illustrated by Laura Ellen Anderson. Published by Nosy Crow.Solomon’s next title, offering more adventures for Luke and friends, is MY GYM TEACHER IS AN ALIEN OVERLORD, out this July. 

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Shakespeare and his Stage by Marchette Chute review by Lynda Waterhouse

I was intending to review one of latest books about the bard ; Michael Rosen’s or Andrew Donkin’s The Weird World of William Shakespeare but my heart kept tugging me back to Marchette Chute’s Shakespeare and his Stage and so Hamlet-like  I changed my mind.

I love Horrible Histories and I know literally hundreds of children who do but my serious inner ten year old child also craved something else.

I had stumbled upon Shakespeare and his stage a few weeks ago in the Amnesty Book shop in Newcastle. My copy had once belonged to Whitley Bay South County Primary School and was the third impression from 1964.

The blurb on the cover of this slim volume sets out its stall; the aim of this lively book is to recreate for the reader the Elizabethan world of the theatre in which Shakespeare lived, and for which he wrote his plays.

The book is written in chapters and reads like a novel. There is only one illustration in the book but the power of Chute’s prose and her ability as a storyteller paints a vivid picture of the theatre and Shakespeare’s life and work.  The book also provides a description of his plays, poems and songs.

‘In that age of great singing voices, Shakespeare’s was the greatest. And even at the close of his career, with its weight of experience and knowledge of evil, he could still write like a young poet who had never known anything but spring.’

Shakespeare and his Stage by Marchette Chute was published by University of London Press 

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MIXED FEELINGS, edited by Miriam Hodgson. Reviewed by Ann Turnbull.

This collection of short stories about mothers and daughters was first published in 1992 and is still just as lively and relevant today, despite the absence of such things as mobile phones and selfies.

The themes are timeless. Ten favourite authors explore those early teenage years when girls grow up quickly, to the alarm of their mothers, and begin to form their own ideas and tug at the constraints of home.

In Anne Fine's opening story, the unnamed narrator begs her mother for a story she's heard many times before: how her mother came to be born. It's a brilliantly funny and involving story that tells much in a few pages, and it touches on the timeless themes that echo throughout the book: birth, first love, independence, finding out who you are and where you came from, and the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters.

Here we have rebellious daughters (from the first nudges of independence shown by Berlie Doherty's Jenny to the desperate struggle of Jamila Gavin's Nasreen), unconventional and embarrassing mothers, schoolfriends, boyfriends, people in the workplace. Above all there is the tension between the powerful urge to fly the nest and the pull of home.

The authors are Anne Fine, Berlie Doherty, Vivien Alcock, Jamila Gavin, Marjorie Darke, Gwen Grant, Annie Dalton, Monica Hughes, Jean Ure and Jacqueline Wilson. All great storytellers - and the book is still in print!

Mammoth, 1997.


www.annturnbull.com



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A LOTTIE LIPTON ADVENTURE: THE EGYPTIAN ENCHANTMENT by Dan Metcalf. Reviewed by Saviour Pirotta

Title: A Lottie Lipton Adventure: The Egyptian Enchantment
Author and illustrator: Dan Metcalf
Publisher: A&C Black
Publication date:  11 Feb 2016

9 year old Lottie Lipton is a plucky girl who lives in the British Museum with her Great Uncle Bert, a curator with a passion for ancient history. Lottie is an investigator extraordinaire and the exhibits in the world famous museum provide all sorts of opportunities for sleuthing and derring-do with a magic twist. The Egyptian Enchantment is the third title in a series of four.

When Lottie accidentally reads a spell, she makes a gang of newly delivered ancient Egyptian shabtis come alive. Shabtis were little figures of baked clay that people in ancient Egypt buried with their loved ones to act as servants and slaves in the afterlife. The lot in this story are over the moon at being set free from their bondage and proceed to wreak havoc all over the British Museum. Lottie must use all her skills and ingenuity to capture them and get the situation under control before a delegation of important people arrive for a conference. Will she do it? And will the bumbling Uncle Bert and the hapless janitor Reg help or hinder her?

The 7 year old kids I read this too absolutely loved it, especially the bits about the sniggering shabtis going berserk all over the museum.  Dan Metcalf keeps the language simple, making the story easy to follow and a pleasure to read. There are wonderful characters, some nice plot twists, lots of humour, great line drawings and puzzles to solve too. The last was especially popular with my testers. They had not read any of the other Lottie Lipton adventures before but that didn't hinder the enjoyment of the story. Each book in the series works as a standalone. And they were eager to get their hands on the other three books, which we are going to get from the library.

A winner all round!

www.spirotta.com
@spirotta

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The Art of being Normal by Lisa Williamson

Reviewed by Jackie Marchant

This is a well-written, entertaining read, deserving of its shortlisting/award success.  

It’s about David, who has always known he’s a girl, but has told no one but his two best friends, who are now going out with each other.  He has understanding parents, yet he still can’t bring himself to tell them, let alone the rest of the world.  And, following a cringingly brilliant bullying scene, it’s easy to see why.  Now enter Leo, the new ‘hard’ kid who is rumoured to have been expelled from his tough school for assaulting a teacher.  He is the last person you’d expect to befriend David, let alone be sympathetic  to his plight, but he has a secret of his own that causes the relationship to develop in an unexpected way.

The story is told in alternative points of view and, although the fonts differ accordingly, I did find myself following the wrong character at times.  That’s really the only tiny complaint I’d have in an otherwise extremely engaging book with characters I can believe in and sympathise with.  The plot paces along nicely, leading up to a fitting climax, after which David settles into realising that, despite the title of this book, it’s OK to be normal – in fact, it’s preferable.

There is no doubt that, all these years after I left school, there is still this culture of ‘normal’ and trying to fit in.   But, if this is a true reflection on what it’s like to be a teen in school today, then I can only be encouraged by the scene where the head teacher informs the whole school during assembly one of their pupils has transitioned and there is to be absolutely no bullying in the matter.  That would never have happened in my day and I can only imagine what it must have been like to keep something like this a secret.  So, I was happy to leave this book knowing that, although she has a tough road ahead, Kate (nee David) will be able to be exactly who she is.

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THE GIRL IN THE BLUE COAT by MONICA HESSE, reviewed by Pauline Francis

It was the prologue that made me decide to review this recently published novel. 

It begins: “A long time before Bas died, we had a pretend argument about whose fault it was that he’d fallen in love with me.”

 

The story opens in occupied Holland in 1943, in Amsterdam. Clever, because I immediately think of Anne Frank and that steep, claustrophobic climb to her hidden attic. So I fear for Hanneke, the protagonist, Hanneke is a finder. She used to find coffee and chocolate. Now she finds and sells extra potatoes and meat to the wealthy people of Amsterdam. One day, she’s asked to find a person.

‘‘The missing girl is Jewish,’ Mrs Janssen says. ‘ I want you to find her before the Nazis do.’

Hanneke can’t refuse because of her own grief about Bas, who died as the Germans invaded.  

Now I’m ready to read non-stop. ‘Why and how did Bas die? Who is this Jewish girl called Mirjam, who was wearing a blue coat when last seen? And how on earth will Hanneke find her in an occupied city, before she can be transported to a concentration camp - even if she wants to? The tension is heightened by the fact that that almost three quarters of the Jewish population of Holland died during the war, so I know that Mirjam’s chances of survival are slim.

There are ghosts everywhere in Hanneke’s quest: Bas’s ghost as his older, serious and less engaging brother, Ollie, helps Hanneke; the ghosts of the already transported Jews; the ghost of a once happy city. The rare flashbacks with Bas are sensitive and tense – the first time I saw Bas; the last time I saw Bas etc.

Then just as I’m settling into the quest (which is condensed into a few days), Hesse presents me with another one. Half-way through the novel, Hanneke says: ‘I’m to blame for Bas’s death. I only got him killed.’ I’m on full alert as I race to the end.

There are so many layers to this book: history, mystery, war, duty, danger, pretending in order to stay safe, morality in war. Ollie is a member of the resistance, but when he questions helping Mirjam. Hanneke quickly asks: ‘Ollie, if the good you’re working so hard for is one that won’t work to rescue a fifteen-year old girl, then is it worth it anyway?’

There are as many twists and turns as the old city centre, but Hesse never leaves her reader behind. The Girl in the Blue Coat a sensitive and tender book that leaves nothing untold about what it’s like to be on the run in an occupied city. Hesse herself calls it “ the story of small betrayals in the middle of a big war.”

The best advice I can give you before you read this book is Hanneke’s own thought on page 299: “Nothing in this war is what it seems.”

Pauline Francis www.paulinefrancis.co.uk

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