reviews 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


read Nielsen deserves thanks and plaudits for the outstanding quality of her writing. Told as if by Felix, his account of his strange life is wry, witty, compassionate and never sentimental.


Astrid remains just


about tolerable despite her damaged personality, and Felix can easily be forgiven for his refusal to face up to the reality of his situation.


No-one


would begrudge him his more or less happy ending after putting up with so much. There are upsetting moments in this book but also much to enjoy from a writer seemingly incapable of writing a bad sentence or a duff passage of dialogue. NT


My Mum Tracy Beaker HHHHH


Jacqueline Wilson, Nick Sharratt, Doubleday, 416pp, 9780857535221, £12.99


Tracy Beaker was Wilson’s iconic first heroine making her debut in 1991. In the current Wilson offering Tracy is now a grown up woman and a mother. The new novel is narrated by her daughter Jess, aged ten. Tracy and Jess live happily in a rather run down council flat. Apart from an occasional card, Jess’s father plays little part in her life – or that of Tracy. Tracy has had a varied work life.


She has worked as a carer in the children’s home where she herself grew up and as a dog walker. Tracy’s foster mother Cam remains very much a presence in the lives of Tracy and Jess, now being known as Granny Cam. There is one thing Jess would love to own but which is beyond her reach, namely a dog. Council rules forbid her having a resident pet. Life takes a distinctly different


turn when Tracy meets a famous footballer named Sean Godfrey and falls in love with him. Tracy and Sean have a history. They knew each other as children, when his nickname was


simply ‘Football’. They met


again when Tracy attended Sean’s gymnasium in an effort to deal with her anger issues. Jess takes against Sean. She is


far from ready to share her mother’s affection. The question is whether Tracy is in line to achieve lasting happiness with Sean? And if so, how will Jess respond? Those readers who back in the


nineties wondered how Tracy Beaker would work out in the adult world now have a chance to understand how matters developed. There is a subtle force at work here. When Tracy was a child she became expert at concealing her emotions from the world and from us


as readers. Now, under


the perceptive eye of her daughter, Tracy’s emotions are laid bare to a far greater extent. Has Tracy learned to master her anger issues? Has she learned to avoid occasional volcanic outbursts? As will be expected by all those who grew to know Tracy well in her previous incarnation, the answer


is a resounding no. She can still lose control. With the deft narrative touch we have come to expect,


Wilson


achieves success at two levels. Those of us who knew Tracy as a child and have grown up with her will be delighted to meet her as an adult. And children coming to this story for the first time will rejoice in seeing the world through Jess’s eyes. RB


The Skylarks’ War HHHHH


Hilary McKay, Macmillan Children’s Books, 320pp, 978-1509894949, £12.99


Peter and Clarissa Penrose, the latter known as Clarry, are brother and sister in a narrative set before, during and immediately after the First World War. The children’s mother died when Clarry was three days old. The children have been raised by their father, who is physically present but mentally absent. Peter and Clarry are regularly left in the care of various servants, as well as a kindly elderly lady named Mrs Vane.


Their greatest joy comes in the


summer holidays, when they travel to Cornwall to stay with their paternal grandparents. They roam free in the Cornish countryside with very little supervision. In contrast, Peter


is


so determined to avoid going to a boarding school that he jumps from a moving train, which leaves him with one leg permanently shorter than the other. When Peter does go to school, he meets and befriends Simon Bonnington. McKay is of course already well


known to young readers as the author of the Casson family series. This book maintains the quality that her admirers have come to expect of a McKay novel. Her book is distinguished by the honesty with which it depicts Peter’s impairment after his leap from the train. McKay does not fall into the trap that many others fall into, the trap of the unexplained miraculous cure. Nor does Peter respond to his disability with unfailing cheerfulness. He feels left out and resentful, as in truth one would. McKay depicts with great effect a binding friendship developed between Clarry and Simon’s strong- willed sister Vanessa. At Clarry’s grammar school she comes in contact with a teacher named Miss Fairfax. Despite the convention of the times, that young women were expected to entertain only the most limited educational aspirations, Fairfax encourages Clarry against the odds to aim at Oxford and to take a tutorial job in the meantime. Many writers whose narratives set in this First World War


are


period concentrate their attention on the details of warfare. McKay concentrates her attention on her characters and the lives they lead in the darkest of days. RB


this excellent series, Molly and Beth are best friends and latterly


For readers who aren’t familiar with step-


sisters: Beth’s dad is now married to Molly’s mum. Beth’s mum died when Beth was very small, and in the first book in the series, Time After Time, the two girls were able to meet her thanks to a chance – or was it? – discovery of a door that opens into the past. This is definitely time travel as a way to explore the unchanging nature of feelings, and as a way to put things right, and so it unfolds: Molly’s dad has recently returned from working overseas and has settled back in his home town near his daughter.


She


becomes increasingly aware of how lonely and isolated he is, especially when she compares his life to her own busy, happy routine with her new extended-family. The two girls return to Molly’s dad’s childhood to find out if the clues to his unhappiness can be found there. What they discover teaches Molly a great deal about her dad and yes, she’s able to improve his life as a result. The story is full of adventure and


excitement – going back in time is not without its risks, and the normally quieter Molly has to be particularly resourceful and brave in this episode – but the emphasis is really on family, love and understanding and there can be few books that prove so clearly yet so delicately to readers that parents are still just people, who might occasionally need your help. Judi Curtin’s writing is characterised


by its warmth and compassion, as well as by her ability to absolutely nail


You’ve Got a Friend HHHHH


Judi Curtin, O’Brien Press, 978-1788490511, 256pp, £8.99 pbk


Judi Curtin takes her young


protagonists Beth and Molly back in time again in this new book, to 1975 to be precise.


culture shock – the two girls know nothing of Chopper bikes, the Bay City Rollers, Jackie magazine or the SodaStream,


though it’s It’s a total hardest


for them to understand the strange misconceptions about women and their abilities, which everyone seems to accept as normal.


the way young girls think and speak. Beth and Molly are exactly the kind of people readers would want for their friends, while this story will resonate with them in all sorts of ways. LS


The Cradle of all Worlds The Jane Doe Chronicles, Book 1


HHHH


Jeremy Lachlan, Egmont 358pp., 978-1-4052-9133-0 £6.99 pbk


As might be inferred from the fact that the subtitle


is The Jane Doe


Chronicles, this is the first book and a debut, in what is expected to be a four-book series from a new Australian author.


This very exciting


first instalment sees Jane Doe, so named because no one knows who she is, having arrived with her father onto


the island of Bluehaven in


mysterious circumstances. Her father, named John Doe, is mentally ill, and she is occupied in looking after him and trying to fit in to a world where she is not accepted and taunted by local


she has was


youths. What little education gained by listening


outside a classroom window, and from the strange older lady, Winifred, who looked after her when she first arrived in the town as a baby. In the meantime she and her father have been reluctantly cared for by a grumpy couple, the Hollows, though their daughter Violet is not like them and has become a friend. Fourteen her


tells that


years later, Winifred her


destiny awaits.


At a festival, her father disappears into The Manor, a spooky building at the top of a lot of stairs, and Jane has to try to rescue him. There are other people and creatures


living


in The Manor which turns out to be full of other worlds (hence the title of this book) and time is not always consistent, with doors that disappear and walls that move – Jane has to keep her wits about her, but the reader should not have any trouble keeping up. She makes a friend, Hickory, but can he be trusted? There is a very nasty and foul-smelling evil genius who seems to be after her, and his leather jacketed wolf creatures are really vicious. It is an exciting story- there are cavernous passages, secret doors, carnivorous trees, battles to be fought with all sorts of creatures and a few surprises before she can find her father, who has recovered his wits and can explain, partly, what is going on and what happened to her mother. Jane is brave and fiercely loyal to her father, with a much-needed sense of humour, but she has flaws, and she is tested in many ways before a sort of resolution leaves us waiting on tenterhooks for the next book… DB


The Raven’s Children HHH


Yulia Yakovleva; trans. Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp. Penguin, 235pp., 9780241330777, £6.99. pbk


The horror of the knock on the door by the Secret Police and the fear of living under such a regime is something thankfully unknown to children in the


Books for Keeps No.232 September 2018 27


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