to that which often remains voiceless and can isolate. Listlessness and lack of colour is captured by the black and white illustrations, punctuated occasionally by volatile red. There’s a looming, oppressive mood as muscular, hollow-eyed dragons – almost parasitic in nature – become metaphors for the condition. The triumph of the book is the way it uses verbal and visual language to shine a light onto the condition, enabling this to be better explained, shared and to contribute an endpoint to some of the loneliness and stigma that often accompanies it, offering some hope without losing power or falling into platitudes.


Margaret Pemberton, school library consultant


For younger readers, I’ve chosen Fergal is Fuming, about a young dragon who cannot control his fire when he gets angry. This amusing story shows how he learns to keep calm and keep his friends. Brilliantly simple illustrations with a lot of humour make this a future classic. Ban this Book by Alan Gratz is a book that reflects some of the issues surrounding political correctness and whether people should be free to read what they want to. It is very readable and yet extremely thought provoking with echoes of The Day They Came to Arrest the Book by Nat Hentoff. For teenagers I’ve chosen Being Miss Nobody, the story of Rosalind who has selective mutism and finds she is being bullied at her new school because of this. She fights back by setting up a blog, but finds that this has its own dangers. The story really does make you think and brings home some of the problems with social media.


Jon Biddle, Moorlands Primary Academy, Patron of Reading, EmpathyLab


There have been some wonderful graphic novels featuring female protagonists published over the past couple of years, including Smile and Sisters by Raina Telgemier, Nimona by Noelle Stevenson and Tamsin & The Deep by The Phoenix Comic. Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson is definitely another to add to the list. Children will be swept along by the pacy plot and empathise with 12-year-old Astrid as she signs up for her local roller derby summer camp. During her time there, she learns about how friendships can develop and evolve, and sometimes wither, in a short space of time, about the importance of accepting new challenges, and about the difficulties involved in trying to find your place within your family. Wonderfully illustrated, full of energy and highly recommended for Year 6 upwards.


Fen Coles, Letterbox Library


Coming at the end of 2016, I was delighted to see the return of a queer classic, soon followed by a new, distinctly modern, no less ‘queering’ fairy tale. Carol Ann Duffy’s 2004 Queen Munch and Queen Nibble finally arrived back on our shelves courtesy of the bright, fresh imprint, Two Hoots. With additional artwork by Lydia Monks and a new, finely finished, cover design, the 2016 edition has the weight and feel of a satisfying bedtime read, ideal for newly independent readers. And then, brother and sister team, Lynn and David Roberts, brought us a mid-century fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty (released in paperback this year). Starting out in a 1950s seeped in futuristic pop culture and ending up in a distant utopia, this is a superbly crafted retelling of an old tale. Magical, visionary and manifestly feminist storytelling imagines a world populated entirely by women in which girls are raised by their ‘aunts’ and are rescued by other girls. Sublime love stories or romantic friendships, like all great fairy tales, these texts are rich with metaphors and a playfulness which allows them to be read every which way.


Nicholas Tucker, honorary senior lecturer in Cultural and Community Studies at Sussex University.


Helen Cooper’s The Hippo at the End of the Hall is her first novel, but you would never guess that from the ease and poise of her writing. Immediately young Ben finds his way to the ageing, generally shambolic Gee Museum he finds things there that help him piece together the mystery of his missing father plus the existence


of a family he never knew he had. All this is gripping enough but the addition of the author’s numerous illustrations, many taken from actual small and remote museums visited in the past, make this truly stunning book a pleasure to look at as well as to read.


Philip Womack, author and critic


Sebastian de Castell’s Spellslinger is a roister-doistering tale of a magical world navigated by a boy who, alas, has no magic; full of memorable characters (including a red-haired lady card sharp), this is one of the year’s standouts. I’d also thoroughly recommend Jacob Sager Weinstein’s brilliantly funny The City of Secret Rivers, in which a young American must navigate the madness of London’s water systems (try it, honestly); and Scarlett Thomas’s lovely fantasy Dragon’s Green, which manages to be both unusual and traditional simultaneously, as well as entirely gripping and beautifully written; any book that can casually refer to Antigone and Beckett gets my vote.


Under Water, Under Earth, Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinska, Templar / Big Picture Press, 9781783703647 The Murderer’s Ape, Jakob Wegelius, translated by Peter Graves, Pushkin Children’s Books, 978-1-7826-9161-7, £16.99 hbk Lockwood & Co, The Empty Grave, Jonathan Stroud, Corgi Children’s Books, 978-0-5525-7579-9, £7.99 pbk Overheard in a Tower Block, Joseph Coelho, Otter-Barry Books, 978-1-9109-5958-9, £6.99 pbk Hilary McKay’s Fairy Tales, Hilary McKay, Macmillan Children’s Books, 978-1447292296, £12.99 hbk The Lost Words, by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris, Hamish Hamilton, 978-0-2412-5358-8, £20.00hbk Night Shift, Debi Gliori, Hot Key Books, 978-1471406232, £9.99 hbk Spellslinger, Sebastian de Castell, Hot Key Books, 978-1-7857- 6132-4, £7.99 pbk The City of Secret Rivers, Jacob Sager Weinstein, Walker Books, 978-1-4063-6885-7, £9.99 hbk Dragon’s Green, Scarlett Thomas, Canongate Books, 978-1-7821- 1702-5, £9.99 hbk Roller Girl, Victoria Jamieson, Puffin, 978-0-1413-7899-2, £7.99 pbk The Hippo at the End of the Hall, Helen Cooper, David Fickling Books, 978-1910989753, £10.99 hbk Queen Munch and Queen Nibble, Carol Ann Duffy, illus Lydia Monks, Two Hoots, 978-1509829262, £12.99 hbk Sleeping Beauty, Lynne Roberts and David Roberts, Pavilion Children’s Books, 978-1-8436-5339-4, £6.99 pbk Fergal is Fuming, Robert Starling, Andersen Press, 978-1-7834- 4533-2, £11.99 hbk


Ban this Book, Alan Gratz, Starscape Books, 978-0-7653-8556-7, £12.19 hbk


Being Miss Nobody, Tamsin Winter, Usborne, 978-1-4749-2727-7, £6.99 pbk


Books for Keeps No.227 November 2017 5


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