reviews 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


of Nazi atrocities in Austria, in 1945. In addition to their orphan status, they both have in common a love for and skill with horses. Jakob’s guardian is Herr Engels, a Rider with the Lippizaner Riding School in Vienna who was ordered by the Director of the School to spirit Jakob and the stallions away from the city to a remote farm. When the Nazi soldiers come to look for Jakob and are unable to find him Major Bauer shoots one of the rare


stallions in retaliation and threatens to return to do more damage. Engels realises they must take the


stallions to safety to the Director at his home in Sankt Martin, which entails a difficult and dangerous journey over the mountains and into Nazi territory. Along the way they are forced to cut one of the stallions loose and Kizzy tracks them to return the horse. This is a story full of adventure and tension, bringing to life the terrifying


reality of Nazi occupation-especially for


those not Hitler’s considered part of


friendship between Jakob and Kizzy is handled


grand plan. The growing sensitively


and when


Herr Engels is injured on the journey they work together to bring him and the horses to safety. Attention


to


detail and research which is clearly meticulous brings the horses, the environment and its dangers to life. When they reach Sankt Martin, the


Americans are not far behind, liberating all in their path. The two youngsters have discovered that the Lippizaner mares, used for breeding the famous


14+ Secondary/Adult


A Room Away from the Wolves HHH


Nova Ren Suma, Algonquin Young Readers, 315pp, 978-1616203733, £13.99 pbk


Sabina Tremper is an American girl of seventeen years. Her mother has just moved in with a partner who is father to two daughters. Sabina’s stepsisters accuse her of telling lies about them. Unfortunately Sabina’s mother sides with the other two. Sabina is forced to leave home and move to Catherine House, a mysterious boarding home for girls. It transpires that as a teenager Sabina’s mother had herself been a resident of Catherine House. One of the sinister


features of Catherine House


is that girls regularly arrive there but it is most unusual to see anyone leave, Sabina’s mother being an exception. The novel poses the questions what are the secrets of this strange abode and will Sabina ever escape? This book has traditional ingredients


for a gothic novel which on the face of it should work well. In fact they don’t. This reviewer found it impossible to feel any connection to the characters of the story. We already suspect Sabina, the first person narrator, of telling lies. The literary convention of the unreliable narrator can effectively generate uncertainty and tension. In this case however the unreliability of the narrator generates confusion and divided loyalty. It is perhaps part of the convention that a back story provides a reliable framework within which the unreliable elements can be assessed. This novel plunges headlong into the action without any such back story. In summary, this book represents a praiseworthy experiment which sadly misses the mark. RB


Black Snow Falling HHHH


L.J MacWhirter, Scotland Street Press, 250pp, 9781910895210, £12.99 hbk


Tudor England is a place of ancient beliefs and modern ideas, but it is also somewhere that young women still find inhibits their freedom. The main element of the plot takes place in the year of 1592, towards the end


of Elizabeth I’s reign. It centres on the heroine Ruth, the daughter of an Earl and the strange events she encounters at her country home. However we also have references back to a period 50 years before, when her grandfather was a boy and Henry VIII was on the throne, it was also a time when science was beginning to question the view that the sun rotated around the earth. It is this heresy that Ruth finds in an old book and which lead her to question the world as she knows it. But Ruth also has to cope with the real world; she has an absent father, a less than loving stepmother and the threat of marriage to an unknown suitor. However Ruth has a growing friendship with Silas, who works on the estate and she wants to have more freedom to decide her fate. When she starts having strange dreams it seems vital that she learns their meaning, but things become even more desperate as children start to disappear from the local village. This is a wonderfully mystical story


contrasted with the very real issues surrounding


young girls, especially


from wealthy families, during the Elizabethan period. There is a real sense of time and place in the main setting and the frustration that Ruth feels is very plain for all to see. The magical side of the story creeps up on us and is quite chilling in what is happening; the idea that someone is stealing our dreams and eventually the person themselves is truly frightening. This is very much about the idea of personal identity and having the ability to decide what you want to do with your life. The relationships within the family are well described, with Ruth being reminded that she is as much a part of her father’s estate as the furniture or the buildings. Overall this is a thought provoking and disturbing story, which keeps you enthralled until the very end. MP


England: Poems from a School HHHH


Kate Clanchy (ed.), Picador, 96pp, 978 1509 886 609, £9.99, pbk


Quite a few collections of poems written by children


have been published but none quite like this.


Most often, the other collections are the results of competitions, drawing on a number of schools. But in this collection, all the poets are from a single school, the Oxford Spires Academy, a state comprehensive on the outskirts of Oxford, where there are many children from immigrant and asylum-seeking families. These poems are the result not only of the


encouragement of teachers


but of the work of Kate Clanchy, the book’s editor, who has been writer in residence at Oxford Spires since 2009. She has inspired these young poets to draw on their own lives and ways of looking at the world to make poems that


look both back and


forward and meld the patterns of thought and speech of their past and their parents’ lives with the language of


their new world. This produces


poems that are sometimes angry, often sad, consistently reflective, always considered and crafted, and often strikingly beautiful. For me, they often produce that feeling that I have in meeting a poem in translation, where something new and wonderful seems to emerge from the act of translating, where the sensibility and rhythm of the original language seeps into English and shapes it differently. Some of these poets are, in this sense, their own translators, moving between cultures and inviting us to glimpse ways of seeing and speaking that can then, in some sense, be ours. If England and English are, for many of these poets, only their second home and language, these poems are a profound act of sharing for which we, as readers, can only be grateful. There are many poems I would like to share with you, but here’s just the first stanza from Rukiya Khatun’s Silence Itself: “When I was at school I wanted a friend./ I feared being alone, not because/I minded the being alone, just/people


pitying my loneliness.”


For the rest of the poem and all the other poems, you must buy or, better, borrow the book. Yes, borrow the book from your local library, for it may not be there much longer. And with it, that chance to find books will be gone, for any child, but especially for children like these. CB


Colour Me In HHHH


Lydia Ruffles, Hodder Children’s Books, 314pp, 978 1 444 93767 1,


£12.99 hbk


Arlo is only just approaching his 20th birthday, but experience has already left him all too familiar with what he calls “the black weeds” crawling about his troubled mind. His ability to hold things together depends to a critical degree on his continuing friendship with Luke – they’ve known each other since childhood. They share a flat in what seems to be London, though Ruffles chooses never to use the city’s name. They’re not a couple, but their relationship is unusually deep-rooted. The interplay of their minds and words is rare in its rich playfulness, each needing and celebrating the other. So when Luke is suddenly killed in an accident, Arlo is devastated, especially as he blames himself for the tragedy. The death comes as early as page 50, and for the rest of the book, Arlo is searching. It is so difficult for him to find meaning or purpose, to make connections – with his mum, with friends. His job – playing a character in a modestly successful TV soap – offers no satisfaction. At first, it’s difficult for him to


make any connection with Mizuki either. Arlo has taken flight – to get as far away as he can from Luke’s death, the flat, the soap opera and “Arlo’s Army”, his followers on social media. He heads for the other side of the world and washes up in what seems to be Japan (again, Ruffles is not specific). When they meet, Mizuki is also travelling and, as Arlo slowly learns, she too is lost; since neither is ready to trust, each tells the other only a little of their truths. Their journeys together around the


country are guided by Mizuki and her camera. She is, so she says, in search of a photograph for a competition she must win. For she is fascinated


her by decay


subjects, and


decline – buildings and landscapes – abandoned


hospitals, factories,


a funfair. Day by day, Arlo is drawn further into her search. Sometimes, very little happens for several pages by way of plot-developing incident or


Books for Keeps No.232 September 2018 29 stallions, were taken by Hitler and


are now in danger of being shot. The Director decides to put on a show for General Patton, himself a great lover of horses, to see if this will persuade the Americans to rescue the mares. This breaks another taboo-Kizzy, despite being a girl, is allowed to demonstrate her talents and ride in the show. Ultimately, this is a story of hope, against


set the grimness of Nazi


occupation. It will appeal to those who love horses and adventure and who admire the courage under duress of those who are their own age. VR


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