I was trying to explain why Guantanamo Voices worked so potently for me to somebody and I think it centres on the inescapability of the image. If I weI was trying to explain why Guantanamo Voices worked so potently for me to somebody and I think it centres on the inescapability of the image. If I were to say to you, for example, the word "cat", it might mean a thousand things. A tabby, a grey, white, ginger; stood, walking, sleeping, whatever. Your idea of that word is yours and I can't ever quite know what that is. We'll have some commonality, sure (I'll say "cat" and you'll know I mean a "cat thing" as opposed to, say, a "hammer") but your image of the word is yours and yours alone.
But when it comes to graphic novels, we have to see what's there; the image becomes this dominant lens of interpretation; it is what we see and we both see the same thing and we can't escape that. And that's where Guantanamo Voices does something remarkable: it presents these awful, hideous, challenging, 'don't look away' stories, and it makes you see them. It makes you not look away.
And there's a lot here to not look away from. Guantanamo Voices is a collection of interviews with key players; the journalist, the prisoner, the social worker and more. Each interview is put together by a different artist, whilst Mirk's experience as a visiting journalist functions as something of a bookend. There's some savvy editing work at play here; the art throughout adopts a similar, cohesive palette, whilst the individual artist is still able to inject their own style and dynamism to the text.
An unflinching piece of work with some wise, transparent curation....more
I was intensely grateful when somebody mentioned this book to me because it covers a lot of areas I'm interested in. I collect a series of books set aI was intensely grateful when somebody mentioned this book to me because it covers a lot of areas I'm interested in. I collect a series of books set around Innsbruck and during many of the periods that The Lost Café Schindler covers, and I also write books with a lot of cake and food references in them. The story of an Austrian café and the lives that had wrapped about it was all very much up my street - and indeed it was. There's something rather moving and unusual here, and I'd recommend it in a heartbeat.
What also interested me here was the way in which this is written. Schindler hovers somewhere between family history and personal memoir, literary non-fiction and present day travel guide. It's an intriguing, intoxicating mix of form and style and sometimes it hits rather deeply. There is a lot here to read and reread in the hope that you read it wrong first time round and then, when you realise that you haven't, you read it again because you still can't quite believe it's true. Schindler's research is meticulous and rich, giving as much of herself to the story as she does with the information that she founds out, and you can almost feel her reactions in the archives or the reading rooms as she comes across something new. It's as much a journey into the present as it is into the past and that rather works for me.
My thanks to the publisher for access to the early copy via Netgalley. ...more
Bessie Marchant always surprises me. You can often predict what happens with many of the books of this type from the early twentieth century because tBessie Marchant always surprises me. You can often predict what happens with many of the books of this type from the early twentieth century because there's a pattern, lord love them. Here's the pattern for a typical Angela Brazil, for example: somebody misplaces a will, somebody finds the will, everything's okay, we're all still posh. A generalisation, yes, but nobody loves a probate-themed plot quite like Angie. Bessie Marchant's version of this is a revolution. Big, small, bloody, political, in the middle of it, or on the edges, she properly loves them. Of course this is just a big metaphor for the benefits of the British Empire, and even if you're in Patagonia or Russia or somewhere that there's never been any vestiges of British colonies, there will always be some Hot And Noble (potentially impoverished due to the foul deeds of others) English Chap to help out our heroines.
Delightfully, The Most Popular Girl In The School is right up there with the rest of her work. It's not what I'd call particular readable (were I to be frank I'd call it a 'right state') but that sort of quality judgement is a bit sweeping on my part, because it totally denies the spectacular power of these books. The Most Popular Girl In The School seems to be a boarding school story but in fact, it's a story about revolutionaries in Brazil. Trunks full of cartridges end up at the school! The sentence 'To 50 cases of T.N.T sent as best Heather Honey, and carefully forwarded through usual channels' actually exists!! Mary helps "unmask the secret of her father's birth" which is 1920s children's book speak for 'don't worry, she's been a member of the upper class all along, that's why she's so great"!
Honestly, the hysteria, I die.
So, do I suggest you start your Bessie Marchant adventures with this? I do not. I don't think it's particularly 'good' nor is it 'coherent' nor is it, in fact, what you might call 'linear' or 'particularly comprehensible'. However it does have a particular appeal in that, I think, it's tied quite specifically to real world events. I came across Tenentism and the details of a 1922 revolt - which, bearing in mind that this was published in 1924, feels about right. Tell me again how children's literature isn't political. Go on. I'll wait.
I know Penelope Lively mainly from her remarkable children's books (The Ghost of Thomas Kempe is very indicative of her thoughtful, frnnk writing) andI know Penelope Lively mainly from her remarkable children's books (The Ghost of Thomas Kempe is very indicative of her thoughtful, frnnk writing) and I've been meaning to read more of her adult work for a long while. Moon Tiger is an excellent place to begin, for as I was reading it I was thinking of how much I envied every inch of it. This is a wild, beautiful, and rather ferociously elegant book, and it is impressive. So very much.
Claudia Hampton is dying. She is of a certain type of lady, redoubtable, fabulous, vain, complex, unknown, and she has decided that it is time to tell her history. She has spent her lifetime writing and so it is a fitting thing to do now that she has so very little time left. And so she tells her story: she spirals from memory to memory, from perspective to perspective, seeing things from one person's point of view and then another. A paragraph here, a paragraph there, and Penelope Lively giving us an absolute lesson in writing in the process.
Full of wicked, sharp humour, and desperate, utter longing, this is such a remarkable book. Everything is just there, almost mercilessly so, and rading it is rather like looking through a kaleidoscope and into the heart of somebody sitting opposite you. It's spare, straightforward, and rather more devastating at points than you can imagine.
I envy books such as this, because they define the idea of craft. Every inch of this feels almost three-dimensional, as though it's cut from marble or chipped away from stone. A block of something transformed into everything. Such skill, such craft. ...more
I reread The School by The River for a lecture I attended online this week, one concerned with the role of memory and how the act of reading is in itsI reread The School by The River for a lecture I attended online this week, one concerned with the role of memory and how the act of reading is in itself situated across our lives. What does it mean to remember a book that you read as a child? What does it mean to reread it now? Fascinating stuff and one that drove me to the work of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, an author whom I have read for a long time, and to The School By The River. Interestingly enough, the last time I read this book was for an essay for the speaker of this week's lecture, and I didn't realise the connection until I sat down to listen.
I remember the first time I found The School By The River. I was a member of a fan journal at the time, and I remember receiving the little order supplement with the journal as it came through the post. A bright colour too, I think, perhaps blue or red. I went through a flurry of ordering 'additional' titles by EBD at that time, though it rapidly wore off. I couldn't keep up with the amount of reprints and fill-ins that were published, and so I think I maybe bought this, Behind the Chalet School: A Biography of Elinor M.Brent-Dyer and Visitors for the Chalet School around the same sort of time and that was about it. Collecting was a long term project, and I was in it for the duration. Besides, my pocket money didn't stretch to it.
The School By The River was a good book to pick. It was lost for many years, the circumstances of a small initial print run plus air-raid damage to the printers during WW2, and it's a standalone. Brent-Dyer was terribly fond of series (even though she approached issues like consistency and detail with an airy - and rather delightful - irreverence) and her standalone titles are, for me, not the best of her work. They sort of act as a sampler to the others - this is what you'll get, and it's quite likely I'll recycle the names as well and half the plots elsewhere.
Some of The School By The River does suffer from such a tendency towards being already seen elsewhere, but then Brent-Dyer throws in a revolution halfway through and things go full crazytown and I love it. I can't tell you how much I adore her talking about things like Bolshevism and Student Revolution because they're clearly such alien concepts to her. (Redheads at the Chalet School I'm looking at you). And so we get some rather wonderfully ambitious writing here with talk of politics, Bolsheviki agents, revolution and uprising, and it's all utterly off its noodle in a way that only Brent-Dyer can do. Singing in the cellars! Gunshots! Stale bread with honey whilst the proletariat swim through floods! I have never known an author so keenly devoted to hybridising ridiculous and wonderful in her work as this one.
Plot. I suppose we should talk plot briefly, because that's what we do in such things like this. Jennifer's talented with the piano, weirdly pretty if you do her hair right, very British, destined for great things and also an orphan (naturellement). She's got chums, gets a bit wound up when there's a storm on, there's also a bad girl who turns good, some terribly overwrought social drama, and a magnificent ruritanian Kingdom where everybody goes about by horse and carriage and wears national dress 24/7. Honestly, what is life when you have a book as delightful as this?...more
I've been making a deliberate push for a while to read more translated fiction, a reaction, I suppose, to the world we find ourselves within at the moI've been making a deliberate push for a while to read more translated fiction, a reaction, I suppose, to the world we find ourselves within at the moment and the way that even the bottom of the road seems a little unknowable and a little distant. I want to connect, I think, I want to read about the cultures and the worlds that I can't go to just yet, I want the barriers to fade away into nothing, I want to live.
And living comes through literature, specifically translated literature, the sort that takes language and gives it something new and fresh, each word paying tribute to the story it translates but also the story it wants to tell, this delicate narrative formed somewhere in between two worlds and giving me a snapshot of the world within its pages. Translation is hard, and I admire those who do it. I also want more of it, more of these books that challenge me to read outside of my experience and my worlds, and I am so grateful for those books that make me pause and realise something new, something acute and sharp and deliciously big about life.
My first such moment came in the opening chapters of Fracture, a novel I picked through nothing more than some determined searching on Netgalley, and it was a sentence that made me pause and think: so you are to be this sort of book, are you? A line, so simple, but one that shot through all of the mugginess I've been having whilst reading lately, a line that made me sit up and really see Fracture for what it was. For what it was going to be.
And it is good this book, it is good and big and full of being. It is about those things that connect being, those lines that form between us all and connect and pull and tease and fracture, those moments that echo for years and worlds to come.
Mr Yoshie Watanabe is a survivor of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And when an earthquake strikes Tokyo in 2011, triggering the Fukushima nuclear disaster, his memories of those prior disasters bring him to make a decision that will change his life. During all of this, four different women share their memories of their time with Yoshie, reflecting on a life lived and loved across the globe. And through it all, the memories of conflict, of disaster - of moments that reverberate for so long, too long, not long enough.
I liked this a lot. Neumann's writing is lyrical, artistic, and though at some points I felt it got away from him, they were few and far between. The overall impression is of a writer who knows what he wants to say about the world and how he wants to say it; these are big, moving questions and to be able to articulate them is a gift. Fracture is a big, big book that pushes the world open and lets you see it for what it is. Highly recommended.
My thanks to the publisher for approving me on Netgalley....more
(And what do we do in a a pandemic, but turn to the stalwart classics of the bookshelf?)
I do not remember the first time I read Seven Men of Gascony b(And what do we do in a a pandemic, but turn to the stalwart classics of the bookshelf?)
I do not remember the first time I read Seven Men of Gascony but I know that it was a long time ago. It was first published in the late 40s, and the work of an author whom I have never quite learnt to love anywhere else but in this book. But this book is enough, this sprawling tale of the last few years of the Napoleonic Wars, it is occasionally trite, occasionally a little manipulative, but rather utterly, endlessly good. I return to it regularly, particularly when I need stories of people being people, of nobility in the darkest of places, of emotion so thick and so painterly that it might be a sunset, and I needed it recently so I did. And I love it still, and I am so glad.
Seven Men of Gascony (those magnificent seven) is written from the French perspective, from the viewpoint of seven men bought together in the chaos of the last few years of the First Empire. It crosses battles, continents, skirmishes in the field, skirmishes in the bedroom, and it is old-fashioned but it works. It's a classic, one that lets you see into why the French did what they did, why they followed who they did, and because of Delderfield's background in the RAF, it is a classic which never lets you forget the man on the ground and the blood, sweat and tears that he poured into making the world happen.
You'll like this if you are forgiving towards boy's own adventures, or a fan of the work of Bernard Cornwell, or perhaps even in lockdown and desperate for a good old-fashioned roaring adventure. I like it. I like it a lot. And the ending, also, makes me cry. Every time.
I'm increasingly interested in books and comics that do things a little differently and take risks. Part of a comic series devoted to exploring aspectI'm increasingly interested in books and comics that do things a little differently and take risks. Part of a comic series devoted to exploring aspects of the second world war, Storming Fortress Europe certainly takes risks and, in fact, almost succeeds in them. A few tiny tweaks would turn this into something rather special. It doesn't have to be anything remarkable; a little note at the end, explaining what happens to the characters we meet would suffice, or a tiny bit more contextual grounding in the comic itself would work wonders. At present, it's a rather boy's own adventure that feels a little disconnected from the truth it wants to tell. That's not to say that it does that badly - because it doesn't. Some of it is frankly moving, and very well handled. It just needs some more rooting to make it deliver on the brilliance that this format and approach offers. A promising start, but one that needs a little more work. ...more
I recently found a copy of A Vicarage Family in a charity shop and had a 'no book left behind' moment over it. It's a book I first read a long while aI recently found a copy of A Vicarage Family in a charity shop and had a 'no book left behind' moment over it. It's a book I first read a long while ago and one that left me conscious of the necessity of giving your family a suet pudding to eat before the Sunday roast, without ever being quite conscious of what a suet pudding was nor why you had to eat one before the meal. Isn't it strange the shards that books leave within you? The Vicarage Family is suet, for me, always.
But on a more practical, and less food-orientated note, this book is about family. It is a fictionalised autobiography of Streatfeild's childhood and one that wasn't as much fun to read for me this time as it was first time round. It felt a little episodic, a little disjointed, and strangely underwhelming. I'm not sure why it didn't work for me as much as it did though, that point about the suet still made me smile. I know what suet is now! The excitement!
Despite all of this, this is still a book I'd reccommend though, particularly to those interested in childhood life at the turn of the century and the influence that this played upon Streatfeild's books. And there is an influence, you can almost trace the stroppy and madly talented Vicky - a thin veiling of Streatfeild- in the iconic books that Streatfeild would go onto produce. It's charming, interesting but not - for me, this time round - as brilliantly written as her later work. ...more
I was a little concerned at the start of Anna At War because I have a loathing of introductions. We are familiar enough with war-fiction; it's no new I was a little concerned at the start of Anna At War because I have a loathing of introductions. We are familiar enough with war-fiction; it's no new topic for children's literature, and Peters' writing is so deliciously solid and fabulously readable that it does not need this. It really doesn't.
I also need to let you know that I only get picky like this when the book is good.
Anna At War is a very good book. Admittedly, it takes a while to find its feet, but once it does we're away. The story bowls along; Anna's fabulous, the situation she's in is horrible, but she's a fighter. Strong. Powerful. Brave. Braver than I'd ever be under the circumstances. And the final few scenes of the book made me cry. Excellent. That's all I want. Peters is a treat, and this story is just really well done.
But oh, that introduction. It just holds the story back and, in a way, tells you a little bit too much about what's to happen. And I don't want you to think that it's a bad introduction, because it isn't. Peters writes with care, kindness and truth throughout her work - but this introduction is an endnote. It's context, a reminder of the truth that lies behind these horrors, and a warning to never let them happen again.
I know I've banged on about the introduction a lot, so here's the part where I reinforce how good the rest of it is. Anna is a lovely heroine, and Anna At War is reminiscent of When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and Carrie's War. It's also interesting in how it touches on some very big issues such as spy fever and the fear of imminent invasion. As a whole these are done with a gentle bigness. Does that make sense? I'm not sure it does, but Peters can do it. She can talk about these big issues, and make them relevant. Small. Accessible. The big fears of the world expressed in a school playground.
Like I said, the good books make me picky.
My thanks to the publisher for a review copy.
(EDIT: 3/6 - I've been informed that the final version of the book will have no introduction. Excellence all round!!)...more
I loved this. So much. Little Women is one of those iconic texts and retellings of iconic texts can be challenging things. Do you stick with the iconiI loved this. So much. Little Women is one of those iconic texts and retellings of iconic texts can be challenging things. Do you stick with the iconic or do you go for something new? Do you retell texture or detail, sensation or sentence? It's a balancing act and one that will never wholly reproduce the original. But it shouldn't. Books - stories - life - they evolve. Words grow, words shift, words change, and that which broke our heart at age six can turn us into warriors at age thirty-six. Everything changes. Why should our stories be any different?
And so this is no perfect adaptation, because I think no adaptation can be perfect. It simply can't. It's never that original, it's never that point in time, it's never the moment when we pick up a book for the first time. It's an echo, a memory, but in the hands of Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo, it's perfect. I accept the flaws of Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy (and Peggy!) because it's so utterly, utterly gorgeous. Yes, the chapters tend to devolve into vignettes, and plots are shifted and detail nuanced, but when it's as beautiful and rich and lovely as this, I don't care.
And it made me love Amy. So much. Amy! The actual worst becoming the actual best! Wonders will never cease. This is joyful, and I love it. We should not separate our stories from the world; we should take them and reshape them and make them parts of our lives. And we should give them such an ending as Terciero and Indigo give this book, one of heart, hope and utter, utter power. ...more
Aya is eleven, Syrian, and seeking asylum in Britain. Her mum, her, and her baby brother, escaped from the war in Syria - but her father got separatedAya is eleven, Syrian, and seeking asylum in Britain. Her mum, her, and her baby brother, escaped from the war in Syria - but her father got separated from them on the way. Her whole family is suffering from the experience (and it's handled so delicately and sensitively and well by Bruton but fyi if you're working with children who may have undergone a similar experience), and her life is not easy. One day she comes across a ballet class, and it's there that everything starts to change...
In her introduction to this, Bruton name-checks some of the best dance stories out there - the Sadlers Wells books by the wonderful Lorna Hill; Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild; and The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown. It's a small thing, but incredibly important as it means that she knows her stuff. These are totemic books, in a perenially popular genre of children's literature, and I think that No Ballet Shoes In Syria more than stands up to them. In fact, it's out in May and I'm telling you about it now because I think it's great. It made me cry, and it made me smile, and it feels like one of those quietly classic stories that British children's literature does so utterly well.
It's full of a lot of heart this, not in the least with the representation of Aya. She's a powerful, brave character and the impact of her experience is never far from her. It's no easy thing to write somebody suffering from trauma, let alone to render that in such a beautiful, under-stated and kind manner, but Bruton manages it extremely well. The narrative engages in a series of flashbacks, talking about her life in Syria and the slow erosion of this by war, and the contrast is starkly rendered at some points. I was particularly moved by the points where the relative privilege and comfort of Aya's new life in Britain triggered some painful flashbacks for her. It's also important to note that this is a book that knows its stuff; the distinction between a refugee and an asylum seeker is carefully made, and the historic parallels of Aya's journey are sensitively and movingly explored.
This is a good book. It's honest, kind, heartbreaking and really rather utterly lovely.
My thanks to the publisher for a review copy. ...more
Delightfully nutty in the way that only turn of the century children's literature can be, this starts as something quite typical and then escalates toDelightfully nutty in the way that only turn of the century children's literature can be, this starts as something quite typical and then escalates to quite the heights. Were I the sort of scholar to throw around labels in a willy-nilly sort of fashion, I'd label this as Mills and Boon meets Young Adult literature, but I'm not so I'll settle for calling this dippy and loving it for that. Any book called A Girl's Stronghold, (with six illustrations by Victor Proud no less), featuring nuns and devoted servants and brave and noble young women would never be the sort of story to mess about.
And it doesn't. It races from Belgium to England to France; skirting around several wars, one inevitable parental death (as ever, these books do not refrain from knocking everybody off left right and centre) and at the heart of it rests our girl. She's called Faith (who would have thought it!!!!!!!). She's devoted to her father, but has A PAST. Honestly, I love how melodramatic these books can be. They have absolutely no shame about them, and about halfway through A Girl's Stronghold, the plot goes absolutely off the rails. One sandwich short of a picnic. Two stops short of Dagenham. And it doesn't care one bit. We get death, war (like - about seven? just sort of there?), a couple of beseiged cities, a case of GOSH DOESN'T THIS GIRL REMIND ME OF SOMEBODY ELSE IF ONLY I COULD REMEMBER WHO, and it's great. I thoroughly recommend it. ...more
I almost put this aside. I'd been attracted by the details and the premise, but the first half of it just broke me. The pacing was strange and I was dI almost put this aside. I'd been attracted by the details and the premise, but the first half of it just broke me. The pacing was strange and I was desperate for something more to happen, then what was happening. The second half, however, started to work through into some massively interesting spaces. As a whole, however, things never quite worked for me nor reached the heights that I wanted them to reach. It's a complex book this, bubbling full of potential that never quite manages to coalesce....more
Endlessly beautiful, in that way that only Hilary McKay can be, The Skylarks War is perfect. I thought it might be on page ninety-seven, and then whenEndlessly beautiful, in that way that only Hilary McKay can be, The Skylarks War is perfect. I thought it might be on page ninety-seven, and then when I finished it and let out a great gasping sob at that ending, I knew it was. This is rich, wild and lovely storytelling, and reading it is like reading something you have known your entire life. I wonder sometimes at how McKay can do this, and then I realise that I don't need to wonder. I simply need to be glad that she can, and does, and that books like this are in the world.
It's a big book as well, this, it doesn't shy away from some hard and precise horrors in the world whether they are familial, and of individuals who do not know how to love their children or indeed, whether they can, or bigger, made of people fighting and dying in landscapes far away from home. This is World War One, and McKay does not shy away from its great and dark horrors. Some of her writing here is some of her best, I think, encompassing a curious mixture of numbness and truth and sadness and fear and honesty that makes the pages feel almost like a primary source. That they're written from that time, from that space, from that darkness.
I am concious that I've not told you much about the book itself, and in a way I'm not sorry. I want you to feel the texture of it, that great depth that gives you so much in a single sentence, and does so in a way that only McKay can do. This is deep storying, and it is done in such an unafraid and simple and matter-of-fact way that makes it something else. It is a coming of age story. It is a story of family. It is a story about growing up and figuring out who you are in the world. It is a story about figuring out what the world will let you be.
But most of all, I think this is a story about love. Love for family, love for friends, love for each other, and a love of those summers where nothing is impossible. Love that brings pain and love that brings strength, love that brings hope and understanding and heartbreak and joy. Love that is love and love that is given freely, hopefully, tenderly, painfully. Love, love, love. Always love. ...more
I loved this, even though I knew nothing about Catherine Christian before I saw it. Turns out she was a prolific author with credits spanning over fifI loved this, even though I knew nothing about Catherine Christian before I saw it. Turns out she was a prolific author with credits spanning over fifty years and topics as diverse as Arthuriana, Guides, and Egyptian history, and that's an achievement in itself. I'm ashamed I'd never heard of her before, but better late than never.
The Harriet of Harriet Takes The Field is Lady North and for some reason or another, she's been lumbered with some ungrateful Guides. Inevitably she manages to turn things around, and they soon worship her in a rather Angela Brazil-esque fashion. Yet Christian manages to shy away from simplistic narratives of hero worship, and instead delivers something complex, deeply political and rather radical. It's not often you have people discussing how women give birth in a 1940s children's book for example. Of course the detail is skirted around, but the discussion is present. It's such a radical, bold move.
These moments of radicalism persist throughout the book. As the war progresses about them, Harriet and her girls become increasingly present participants in a narrative of war and strife. Though much of it remains distant, Harriet herself suffers from the stress and is called up. Again, a lot of this happens off screen, but the effect of it is very much within the text. She's moved to tears by a child confessing that he wasn't alive during the last war; she talks to the girls about how to find security within themselves when all is lost, and the suffering of those in mainland Europe is foregrounded to a heartbreaking extent. England must survive, and everyone must do their part.
Much of this is directed towards the reader, and some of it has dated. That's a caveat you must always apply to books of this nature, but equally you have to recognise those moments when it does something rather brilliant and rather utterly wonderful. There's a lot of Harriet Takes The Field that slightly misses the moment, but every now and then it gets it. It really, really does. Take the below quote where Harriet muses on the teenagers that she knows:
"They've been fine," she thought, "Fine, all of them. It isn't for my generation to be proud of them. We've thrown our dice and lost. We had twenty years to build a wall against the floods, and we failed. Now these youngsters are fighting knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder with us to save what can be saved. It isn't for us to condescend to our peers."
Until We Win by Linda Newbery is a slender, accessible novella touching upon a key point in suffragette history. It's framed through the perspective oUntil We Win by Linda Newbery is a slender, accessible novella touching upon a key point in suffragette history. It's framed through the perspective of Lizzy, an everygirl who comes across the work of the suffragettes and becomes a passionate supporter of the cause. Believing in Deeds Not Words, she undertakes action until she - like her sisters - is imprisoned. The backdrop to all of this is the build up to World War One, and there's a little introduction and prologue delivered retrospectively by Lizzy where she looks back and talks abut the Summer that was and the years that followed.
Barrington Stoke deliver, in their words, 'super readable' texts and this is a worthy addition to their list. It's deeply accessible, both through format and style, and there's a lot to give somebody here. It's perfectly pitched for those who may feel unable or intimidate by thicker, heavier books and could work as a nice lead-in and confidence booster. I also enjoyed the note from Stewart Easton which explained his reasoning behind the cover design. This sort of thing is so important because it tells you who's 'behind' the book, as it were, but also encourages readers to question and think about the book as a whole. It's never just about the words on the page.
I was impressed at how much Newbery packs into this. I have such a lot of time for her as a writer, and love what she does. I found some of the beats she touches here a little familiar and thus not as startling as they could be, but if you're new to the topic then that may slide you by. I'm also going to take this moment to suggest that you head towards Newbery's kind of remarkable back catalogue. Here's a few I've reviewed....more
The more I read of Bessie Marchant, the more I enjoy her. She is a writer who hybridises Elinor M. Brent-Dyer at her Ruritanian best and the entirety The more I read of Bessie Marchant, the more I enjoy her. She is a writer who hybridises Elinor M. Brent-Dyer at her Ruritanian best and the entirety of the Boy's Own Genre, and makes it her own. She is rather fabulous, and her books are a joy.
Here's the Wikipedia summary for A Dangerous Mission: Tatna is a young school teacher in Petrograd, Russia. She gets caught up in a bread riot and escapes, disguised as another teacher who is bound for a school in the remote countryside, where she discovers that she has a talent for teaching the local people about responsible government. .
Amazing, right?
Published in 1918, this is naturally a story which is trying to say a particular thing in a particular point of time. There are certain elements which stick from a more contemporary reading; the notion of the uneducated masses being told what to do is just a little problematic, and the sub-plot with the Baroness (there is always a subplot of this sort of nature in this sort of book) sticks just a tad. Marchant manages to get away with all of that because she is so utterly, utterly devoted to making this readable.
A Dangerous Mission is popular fiction from one hundred years ago, and it wouldn't have won any prizes then, and it wouldn't now. This isn't the highest work by any means, but it is rather fabulous. Tatna is a spirited heroine and somewhat richly impetuous; she doesn't quite think as much as Marchant clearly wants her to, and there's something delightful about an author struggling to catch up with one of their creations.
The final movement of the book rather escapes both Marchant and Tatna; there's some shenanigans, some Fortunate Appearances At The Right Time, and some Problems Getting Resolved, but honestly, it's hard to be negative about this. This is such a richly readable, rampantly nutty, kind of fabulous story about a girl who changes the world about her, and I will always love such things. ...more
I finished this book last night, and ever since then I've been trying to figure it out. I was excited to be offered a review copy from the publisher aI finished this book last night, and ever since then I've been trying to figure it out. I was excited to be offered a review copy from the publisher as Celia Rees is one of those great and powerful voices in children's and young adult literature that you should always be excited for. She is a wild and wonderful writer and when I heard that she was writing something inspired by the early work of the Brontës I was thrilled.
And I am still thrilled in a way, but in that knotty sort of confused manner where you think you should be happy for something but aren't quite sure if you are; the sort of emotion that makes you question everything about you and do actual real life brow furrowing. Celia Rees is an outstanding writer, but I don't think this is a good book. It is furiously impenetrable at points, strangely balanced, and full of odd pacing and sudden shifts of tone. When I finished it, I stared at it and realised that I didn't know what to think of it. I wasn't sure I'd enjoyed it, even though I knew I loved the parts where Rees wrote about Haworth and the sisters; the intimacy and power of her work here and the way she explored the landscape of these writers was good, strong, wild writing. But I also knew that I'd struggled with the first half, got quite lost in the middle, and then bounded through the final third in as greedy and keen a read as I've ever done.
A contradiction, then, but a contradiction that keeps working on you after you've finished it. I am done with this book but it's a book that's not done with me. I've thought about it all morning, I've begun this review a thousand times and I've begun it a thousand times again. I suspect that Glass Town Wars is a story that's not just about the book. Does that make sense? I suspect it doesn't, but I'm going to try and explain myself. Sometimes when we experience story, we can read it and it's done. Page turned, book closed, job done. But sometimes the story lingers and we can make connections with it in the real world. We turn it over in our thoughts, we think it through and we start to realise that the book we've read was just the part of a journey. It's matured into something else.
And that's Glass Town Wars; it's not the best read, but the moments after it are sort of remarkable. When I reviewed Wuthering Heights, I talked about how this was a book that wanted to be read and to desperately hide away, all at once. Glass Town Wars has something of that quality, delivering a narrative of fantasy and of the Brontës which sometimes makes perfect sense and sometimes anything but. It's a curious contradiction, this beautiful and impenetrable and longlasting thing.
My thanks to the publisher for a review copy....more
This really didn't work for me for a variety of reasons. Though it's based on a true story, and one that Zail tells us about in an extremely poignant This really didn't work for me for a variety of reasons. Though it's based on a true story, and one that Zail tells us about in an extremely poignant afterword, Saving Midnight seemed to miss the mark in a lot of ways. The ending was very moving but felt rushed, and as a whole there was an oddly anticlimactic air to it all. Zail is better than this - as that moving afterword shows - but when the afterword is the most powerful part of the book, then something isn't right. ...more
"This was my first book..." writes Christine Pullein-Thompson in the introduction to the 1973 Collins edition, "...It is the book which made my name. "This was my first book..." writes Christine Pullein-Thompson in the introduction to the 1973 Collins edition, "...It is the book which made my name. I hope you enjoy it." And how can you not when this is Pullein-Thompson at her delicious best? We Rode To The Sea takes place just after World War Two and in the romantic backdrop of Scotland where German POWs have escaped, a pony trek is happening, and children can breakfast on lobster. Other things happen, of course, and we learn a lot about ponies and people, and everything ends up in the quite perfect space that only pony stories of a certain time can achieve.
Pullein-Thompson was remarkable as indeed all of her family were. Her mother wrote, her sisters wrote, and they all wrote stories that are imbued with this fierce sense of readablity. These aren't books about unicorns and pegasi, these are books about fraying halters and bluing manes; the Pullein-Thompson sisters, and their remarkable mother Joanna Cannan, wrote stories of practical romance. They were perfect and all of them perfect in their very own particular way.
We Rode To The Sea is a tribute to the romance of Scotland. The landscape is lovingly described, and the children recite poetry everywhere they go. There's cottars, and fishermen, and noble warm-hearted people who are bound to help the children because they share the same surname. And the lobster breakfast, dear me, the food in this book swings from the sublime to the sublime, and I rather love it. Much of this is a reaction from the world of rationing and restriction, and if the children aren't eating then they're talking about it, and everything is rather utterly fabulous.
There's a lot here for contemporary readers of pony stories to enjoy, though they may need a note or two to explain the historical detail and political situation of the time. They might also need some clarity on the pre-internet, pre-mobile phone landscape that allows the children to so easily get lost. Lost! How long's it been since I read a convincing 'getting lost' scene in children's books? ...more
I have promised to be, above all things, honest in the reviews that I write and so it's for that reason that I must confess that I wanted to dislike tI have promised to be, above all things, honest in the reviews that I write and so it's for that reason that I must confess that I wanted to dislike this a lot more than I did. These books at the moments for rebel girls and boys who dare to be different conceptually bother me; they speak to ideas of gender in children's literature, for this is what this is, really, and they speak to the state of those ideas being in a somewhat complicated and, perhaps, quite a troubled space. And, because I am somebody rooted in the classics of British children's literature, it seems to all stem from the mid-twentieth century and the notions we have of girls and of boys in the books of that second golden age that still so heavily comes to influence the state of children's literature today.
And yet, and yet -
That strapline bothered me. Boys who changed the world without killing dragons? It's so specific, so madly, utterly, wilfully specific in tone that by perpetuating said tone, that surely it perpetuates a myth of masculinity that the book itself is trying to defy -
And yet, and yet -
That title. Why stories for boys who dare to be different. Different from what? Why is it daring? The transgressive act only becomes transgressive when rendered as such; perhaps this should be a form of normalcy that we should be trying to understand as such. Surely in making something the other, we perpetuate that otherness -
And yet, this isn't a bad book. To be frank, it's actually pretty good.
But I still have questions to resolve, and I will resolve them and I will do so with the full and frank acknowledgement that this is a good, kind and thoughtfully constructed book. It is representative, inclusive and frequently moving, encompassing characters such as Nicholas Winton, Taika Waititi and Lionel Messi. There's elements of it still to challenge, and on fully legitimate circumstances and not 'grumpy scholarly' circumstances. Louis Braille is included and yet there's no acknowledgement of the fact that much of his entry cannot be read by those he sought to help. Similarly, the entry for Junot Diaz suffers from recent events, and I was concerned by some of the looser rhetoric involved in other entries such as "It's time to take their country back". That's a problematic phrase, not in the least for its implicit politicking, and it's a phrase that, really, means very little. And sure, a very young reader might not pick up on that angle, but they'll pick up on the language. The phrasing. And it's that sort of thing in this book that matters and should be fought over, fiercely.
These books are having a moment and I welcome the effort that Brooks has done towards making his contribution a pretty damn good book. I suspect much of its problems come from the hobbles of frame and circumstance, and that I'm maybe demanding a lot of it that perhaps it can't quite achieve in such a context. And yet, I'm unapologetic in doing so because these books - as evidenced by their raw and fierce popularity - are clearly needed. I just ache for them to, somehow, become something more than what they are at present. ...more
This is great. It bounces along in that determinedly vivacious sort of way that Angela Brazil does ("Girls! Girls Everywhere!") and then completely foThis is great. It bounces along in that determinedly vivacious sort of way that Angela Brazil does ("Girls! Girls Everywhere!") and then completely forgets about plot and has a natural history interlude that goes on for about three hundred pages, before plot reasserts its ugly head and everything gets resolved and sorted out in about five pages. It's a joy, really, this ridiculous and beautiful and furiously of its time book, and I devoured it.
Deirdre and Dulcie are bosom friends, in that bosomy sort of way that Brazil did so well; one is slender and one is stout, one is picturesque and one is a redhead who is "somewhat obtuse" and a new girl has been put into their bedroom for the new term. Crisis! Inevitable tensions! Moreso when the new girl has lived in Germany and can speak fluent German!
Published in 1914, this book is very much of a particular time and bent. Angela Brazil had such a lengthy and prolific career that she wrote across two world wars (how awful that is, to have experienced that sort of thing twice...) and her work changes quite dramatically in my opinion. The first world war is greeted with a sense of wild patriotism, where the girls hunt out spies and knit socks and all that sort of thing, but the second? That's a quite different story; the girls are secluded from the world in countryside mansions and asked to believe in themselves. The books look inward, I guess, as opposed to outwards. The visible acts of patriotism in WW1 shift to some sort of internal stiffening of ones resolve. And so, The School By The Sea does engage in some distinctly complex social dialogue. More complex than I think the book quite realises; Gerda is frankly bullied by some of her compatriots before the truth is revealed and the truth itself ties into some typical themes and tropes of Brazil that I won't spoil here. Suffice to say, there's a subtle challenge presented towards a blanket anti-German sentiment and that's interesting to me because I've not seen it elsewhere in her work. That nuance of understanding identity.
And, on another note, the opening to this is iconic. Forgive me for copying the first few lines below, but it's really rather something and speaks of Brazil's new blueprint for the genre:
"Girls! Girls everywhere! Girls in the passages, girls in the hall, racing upstairs and scurrying downstairs, diving into dormitories and running into classrooms, overflowing on to the landing and hustling along the corridor — everywhere, girls! There were tall and short, and fat and thin, and all degrees from pretty to plain; girls with fair hair and girls with dark hair, blue-eyed, brown-eyed, and grey-eyed girls; demure girls, romping girls, clever girls, stupid girls — but never a silent girl. No! Buzz-hum-buzz!"...more
Lyrical, poignant, powerful and ferociously unashamed of what it is and the story it has to tell, Circe by Madeline Miller is something else. As I do Lyrical, poignant, powerful and ferociously unashamed of what it is and the story it has to tell, Circe by Madeline Miller is something else. As I do with many of the 'big' books, the ones that win the awards and are talked about at length by everyone I know, I began it with fear. I stray carefully into books that are out of my specialisms, because I don't want to read bad things. I don't have time for that. Nobody does. Reading is a brief, beautiful marriage and to have one that doesn't work out? That's the worst of things, the worst of times.
Circe works out. And it is the best, the best of times.
It is the first book by Madeline Miller that I've read, but it will not be the last. Miller's eloquent and lyrical prose seeks out the roundness of Circe's story and presents it with such utter truth. It is a remarkable book, evocative of those epic poems that tell stories of long lost and distant heroes; Circe, however, is as present as the keyboard that I type this on. You feel her, you know her, and you live her every breath. There's something rather remarkable happening here; a story of a woman being told in an intimate, powerful, believable manner - the story of her survival, her loves, her losses, and her rampant, raw bravery.
A powerful, graceful and eloquent story, told with truth, honesty and love. I read this in a handful of days. I would go back to the start of those days all over....more
It hit me recently that I'd never reviewed this, this story of eloquence and love and shadows, and that was something I had to make right. The ArrivalIt hit me recently that I'd never reviewed this, this story of eloquence and love and shadows, and that was something I had to make right. The Arrival holds a difficult place in my heart in that, I think, I read it too soon. Too blindly. Too hungry for words and language and precision. Reading can be selfish, sometimes. You can ache to remake the text in your vision, to dominate it with your perspective and views, and thus deny the value of the read itself. We read for others. We read for otherness, for voice, and for echoes to map our lives against, and sometimes I don't do that. Sometimes I can get a little lost, and need to step back, and remind myself that this is not my story. I do not own this text. I am a reader. I own my reading of that, but I do not own the other.
And so I came back to Shaun Tan, drawn in part by a political and pervasive rhetoric that seems to seek division where there is none to be found, but also because of the stillness of that front cover. It made me understand what I had done to this book before, and it make me realise how I needed to approach it now. I look at a lot of books as part of my job, and stillness is not something you see that often on a front cover. Yet, as I look at it now, I can see that it's not still. That it's a moment, an encounter, and this is a split second point between it. Stillness in movement; being able to capture that precise, delicate, beauty where the two of them meet eyes and properly see each other? Beautiful. Perhaps, too, the essence of this book. The encounter where things become Things, and Known, and Named.
So, the book itself. It is wordless, split into six "chapters". I say "chapters", because honestly, imposing an idea of sequence on this poetic narrative seems difficult. It is linear, but it's also not; the story of people coming to a new land, forming connections, but also what came before and after, the stories that thread through us on a daily basis, the web of connection that is life, I suppose, just living and being and loving. Moments. Beats. The dance of your heart and the stillness that comes when you find home....more
I came across this in the darkest depths of a bookshop, and it took me a while to realise that I had read some of Sebba's work before. I'd enjoyed herI came across this in the darkest depths of a bookshop, and it took me a while to realise that I had read some of Sebba's work before. I'd enjoyed her excellent and gutwrenching Les Parisiennes: How the Women of Paris Lived, Loved, and Died Under Nazi Occupation, and come to realise that Sebba is very good at telling the stories that maybe haven't been told before. This spotlight on 'herstory' appeals to me, and once I made the connection between the author, I picked up Battling For News with distinct interest. Here, Sebba turns to the tellers of the stories themselves; women reporters, and traces the history of them within media.
It's a remarkable book though one that took me a while to get into. Once I did, however, I was hooked. This is fascinating stuff and it's Sebba's eye for detail that makes it what it is. From Kate Adie having to take curling tongs with her (in.the.middle.of.a.warzone.) because viewers complained about her hair, through to Clare Hollingworth being sent on location and having to phone Harrods in the middle of the night for a new set of luggage, this book is full of eccentric and moving notes. Perhaps the most acute of these for me, was in the chapters considering the Gulf War. One reporter packs her bags, and spends several nights sleeping on the floor of her bedroom in order to re-acclimatise herself to the demands of wartime reporting. She is ready to go.
She is also eighty.
Clare Hollingworth is never sent to report on the Gulf War because she is "too old".
What remarkable women these were - and, indeed, are. ...more
There's a lot to love about this pained, poised collection of short stories and much of that comes from its careful and classy curation. The authors, There's a lot to love about this pained, poised collection of short stories and much of that comes from its careful and classy curation. The authors, ranging from Frances Hardinge through to Sarah Crossan, and Chris Riddell, sit alongside a foreword by a human rights lawyer and an afterword, of sorts, consisting of an interview with Chelsea Manning. Most contributions to the collection have a brief afterwood explaining the context behind the piece, though one of the strongest - 'Barley Wine' by Kevin Brooks doesn't have one and I wonder if it's actually stronger without such. That brief quibble aside, this is a smart collection and one which hits home, immensely.
'Here I Stand' has the subtitle of 'Stories That Speak For Freedom', and covers a wide range of topics including genital mutilation, human trafficking, terrorism and racism. An obvious caveat applies around the element of trigger warnings here, but as I recommend with every book of this nature, read it yourself and use it sympathetically and with an eye towards being led by the relevant child's response. Books like this offer such a valuable spotlight on those issues which often don't get spotlit and when carefully and considerately mediated, that spotlight can often be revelatory.
I don't want to speak of highlights here because somehow this doesn't feel appropriate, but rather I want to look at those pieces which sang out for me. The collection is immensely powerful, but as I said previously, Kevin Brooks' contribution was something quite remarkable. Ditto 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' from Chibundo Onuzo, a story on the topic of child soldiers, which instead of taking the more expected motifs of its theme delivers something quite astounding. This is the gift of collections like this, the gift of perspective. Sight. A new eye on the familiar. Sometimes stories do become familiar and thus unseen; to deny that familiarity is a great thing. Onuzo's bare, pained eloquence here speaks volumes.
I like this volume, and I like the careful craft that lays behind it, from Chris Riddell's beautiful artwork through to the stories, poems, and especially the graphic contribution from Mary and Bryan Talbot with Kate Charlesworth. I think it's important to recognise that stories, particularly of this nature, aren't just these neat things tied up in bows and that embrace of diverse form is another point in Here I Stand. It's a tired phrase to call something important, but then again, so many of the books being published at the moment are. Here I Stand stands firmly with those, and indeed manages to carve a space of its very own. ...more
I've known about Violet Needham for a while but never really known about her, the specifics, at all. I had a vague idea that she was a contemporary ofI've known about Violet Needham for a while but never really known about her, the specifics, at all. I had a vague idea that she was a contemporary of Elinor M. Brent-Dyer and Elsie Oxenham, but then, as I never found her work either in the library, bookshops or charity shops, I sort of placed her in the background. Needham was texture; a name I knew, but didn't.
A few days ago, I homed in on that familar Girls Gone By spine in a shop, and picked up a copy of Pandora at Parrham Royal. It's a crazy title, backed up by the equally crazy blurb on the back. Let me directly quote the first three sentences: "When Pandora comes to Parrham Royal she finds many problems and a strange mystery facing her. During the war years she and her mother had lived and worked with a band of guerillas in Greece. After her mother's tragic death she comes to England to live with her father, whom she barely remembers, and her cousins, whom she does not know at all." I'll stop there because, to be frank, there's little else I can add to that remarkable opening. I've read a lot of books from the 40s - 50s, and can confidently say I've never read anything quite like this. It's a book that more than lives up to its synopsis in a sort of remarkably distinct, and stubborn manner. I can see why it wasn't reprinted, and I can see why it's relatively unknown today, but my goodness, this is such a strange and fabulous and marked book.
One of its most notable characteristics is the spectre of the war upon it; Pandora, herself, spent the war living and working in a sort of M*A*S*H unit deep in the Greek mountains where she helped nurse soldiers back to life and helped them die in peace. I'm conscious that I'm overusing the word 'remarkable' when I describe this book, but there's very little other words that will suit. I'm thinking in particular of the moment where Pandora is revealed to have an excellent throwing arm - one which is subsequently revealed to have been because the soldiers trained her to throw grenades. I mean - my goodness, this book.
Pandora's not the only one marked by the impact of the war; one of her young cousins, Mary, suffers a type of post-traumatic stress from being trapped in a bombed out house, whilst the estate of Parrham Royal has half-seceded from the present day and instead found solace in a landscape where Greek mythology can co-exist alongside wartime stress and strain. It's a fascinating, complex, challenging book. It's not an easy read; Needham's an idiosyncratic wielder of commas, delighting in sentences that start to lead one way then turn sharply into something else. And, if I'm honest, the book's ending could have done with some fierce editing and somebody going "So Violet, yes, it's kind of madly magnificent and oddly compelling, but if you could - maybe - just - clarify a few points for me?".
I don't know what to make of this book, really, because it's so fiercely singular. It's compelling, though, even when it's less than lucid, and I suspect that's what's going to stay with me. Pandora of Parrham Royal is so fiercely determined to be what it is and you can't help but love that. Even when it doesn't make sense, even when it thinks it makes sense but really doesn't, this book is remarkable. There's really no other word for it. ...more
In this increasingly complex and difficult world we live in, I've been looking for books that help to explain and support younger readers. They have oIn this increasingly complex and difficult world we live in, I've been looking for books that help to explain and support younger readers. They have often proven of immense value to myself and the dual appeal of texts like this to both adult and child cannot be ignored. Step towards children's books if you're struggling to find answers; there's something to be said for the pure poetics and the stylistic truths that can exist in this space.
I was delighted to come across My Name Is Not Refugee, a picture book which tells the story of an unnamed mother and son who need to leave their home. As we go along their journey, the text occasionally turns towards the reader and asks a direct question of them: "Can you speak more than one language?" or "What would you take?" It's a simple technique and yet an incredibly potent one. Books like this thrive not only on the story that they provide but also on the discussion they provoke. I was very pleased to discover an excellent teacher's resource kit for My Name Is Not Refugee and would direct you there as a matter of haste.
Milner's great strength comes in her restraint; the text is poised and quiet, simply rendering the events with a sort of matter of fact air. Being a refugee is scary but also "quite exciting too", yet she doesn't hold back from showing the moments beyond those words. Some of the most powerful spreads in the book show great scenes beyond the text; swathes of tents in the distant, or a host of people sleeping on mats on the floor. What makes these even more beautiful is how Milner uses white space; many of the images are wrapped in white space, and so become evocative, painful little moments. It's the detail, really, of a big journey that's almost too big to understand, and it's gracefully done.
There's a lot to love about this incredibly deft and sensitively told picture book. Bring this towards little people who are asking questions - and bring it towards those little people who aren't. My Name Is Not Refugee has this great, great range of appeal and I have a lot of time for it, I really do.
My thanks to the publisher for a review copy. ...more
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