BfK 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


giving way to an over-abundance of plot-driven


explanation. One near


disaster follows on another as Mila and her sister get colder, hungrier and increasingly desperate. Keeping the


tension going during all this


occasionally repetitive fare is quite a challenge, with the final over-delayed outcome not quite the climax it should be. But there are still many good moments along the way, with the author delving into folklore and myth to enrich her already glowing prose. Fans of Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman could well enjoy this story. Others might wish that so talented an author had taken on less familiar territory where wolves and eagles continue to threaten and winter never lets up until the very end. NT


Famous Family Trees HHH


Kari Hauge, ill. Vivien Mildenberger, Lincoln Children’s Books, 64pp, 9781786032973, £12.99 hbk


This large-size non-fiction title combines genealogy and history and invites readers to explore the family trees of twenty- five historical figures drawn from a range of periods and cultures. The book aims to capitalise on the popularity of such programmes as ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ and an increased interest in genealogy to encourage young readers to expand their knowledge of historical figures via their family trees. This book has worthy intentions


and high production values, evidenced particularly in the detailed folk-art style illustrations and borders, but, overall, the reader is left feeling overwhelmed by too much information crammed into too small a space. Each figure is given a double page spread and the resulting family trees are difficult to decipher despite the guide at the beginning of the book. The print is tiny, often against coloured backgrounds and complex information is presented in small boxes with connections made by several different types of lines.


The frequent use of italic and


several different fonts does not help in terms of readability. Despite these details, there is a lot of information here, and this book should appeal to those readers who already have some knowledge of the historical figures and who love to pore over details and explore connections. SR


Amal Unbound HHHH


Aisha Saeed, Text Publishing, 240pp, 978-1925773026, £6.99pbk


Amal is clever and ambitious,


determined to be a teacher. However, life in her Pakistani village continually thwarts her ambitions. Her role as the eldest of five daughters means that she must help to run the household- at the expense of her schooling-when her mother descends into post-natal depression. Her hopes of an eventual


return to school are quashed when a minor verbal altercation with a man who she is unaware is their tyrannical landlord, Jawad Sahib results in a captive servitude at his home and complete isolation from her family. This feudalism is graphically described-individuals vanish or are ruthlessly


villages are razed


persecuted and entire to the


ground.


The contrast between Jawad Sahib’s opulent life and the hand-to-mouth existence of his tenants is made very clear,but Jawad’s house lacks love and companionship, which abounds in the lives of the villagers. Saeed is adept at creating community life and her characters are clearly and believably drawn. Amal must make the most of her


new existence, as it seems likely to be permanent. She befriends and teaches a young servant girl and, in her role as personal maid to Jawad’s mother, is able to travel out of the family compound with her and even borrow books, illicitly, from the house library in order to keep her mind stimulated. Jawad’s corruption, arrogance and


cruelty are evident at every turn and it is a relief when he is finally arrested and he and his father can no longer maintain their rule of terror over the many villages in thrall to them. Most gratifyingly of all, it is the servants in his household, spearheaded by Amal, who supply the police


the information they need to make the


arrests. This triumph for


with the


underlings of society and the courage of a girl in making it happen give the book a true ring of satisfaction. After all, as Amal so powerfully says, ‘if everyone decided nothing could change, nothing ever would.’ VR


Race to the Frozen North: the Matthew Henson story


HHH


Catherine Johnson, illus. Katie Hickey. Barrington Stokes, 124pp., 9781781128404, £6.99, pbk


Matthew Henson, was in the team led by Captain Peary, who were the first Americans to reach the North Pole in 1909. Yet he is not a household name at all, and did not receive a medal even though the other team members did, and this appears to be because he was an African American. This slim book tells his story in very accessible prose and is beautifully illustrated along the bottom of every page, by Katie Hickey. Matthew came from a bad home,


beaten by his step-mother and ran away, found a home working in a café in Washington DC, listening to tales of daring do and is then determined to sail the seas himself and find adventure. By chance he met a sea Captain who takes him under his wing and teaches him to read and write and many other useful skills. This eventually led to him being part of Captain Peary’s team who made several attempts to reach the North Pole.


30 Books for Keeps No.233 November 2018


What emerges


from this brief


fictionalised account of his life, is the drive that led him to find a better life, to learn as much as he could, and also his quiet acceptance that because he was black, he would be treated in a certain way by most white Americans. It is that realisation that the colour of his skin did not deter him from striving to learn and fulfil his dream, which makes this an extraordinary story.


It


is simply told but the bones of his life are there within the 118 pages. For many boys this will be prove to be an inspirational story. JF


Firebird HHH


Elizabeth Wein, Barrington Stoke, 140pp, 9781781128312, £6.99, pbk


This brief female


story of a Soviet Union pilot during the Second


World War, by the author of Code Name Verity, covers an aspect of the war not normally covered


in


young people’s fiction. Anastasia, a daughter


of parents in the Revolution truly of 1917, which brought the Communists to power, involved


has learnt to fly and desperately wants to be fighting in the war in the air against the Germans


who


are approaching her home city of Leningrad. The young men are taken to fight but Nastia as she is known remains behind with the Chief, to teach the pilots to come. Eventually her turn does come, but sadly she fails to save the Chief when landing behind enemy lines, which it seems from the beginning of the story, leads to her being court martialled. What emerges from this account


is the strong belief Nastia has in her nation and its Communist belief, the Motherland. This and its setting makes it different from many other was stories, and also the fact that not many women fought in the air. There are vivid descriptions of aerial combat and also of the appalling siege of Leningrad in which she loses both parents quite horrifically. Hopefully this story will lead young people to read more lengthy accounts of the war in the Soviet Union and particularly of the Siege of Leningrad, maybe to the novels of Helen Dunmore, who captures it so brilliantly. JF


14+ Secondary/Adult The Chaos of Now HHHHH


Erin Lange, Faber & Faber, 400pp, 978 0 57131747 9, £7.99pbk


Eli Bannister is a sixteen year old freshman at Haver High School in a small town in Iowa. He has a hobby, or rather an obsession, namely coding for computers. In the previous year he witnessed a terrible event. A boy named Jordan Bishop deliberately set fire to himself in the canteen. He died of his injuries. It transpires that his self-destruction was the result of cyber bullying. The author imagines that as a of this and similar events,


result


the government changes the laws relating people’s


of social media in


to cyber-crime and young use


educational institutions. Every online site that is constructed on the net must be registered with the Cyber Monitors. Unregistered sites can be taken down. Their originators can be excluded from school. As part of the same reform


there is an annual American Cyber Security for


section of involves building a Competition. The prizes


internships with big high tech companies. competition


competition winners include One


the


website that intentionally bypasses the new regulations: it’s a kind of hacking chamionship. Eli enters the competition in a team with two other players who recruit him online. They decide


to whether Eli and his teammates


will win the competition or find themselves in trouble. A YA novel set in what many people


see as the mysterious cyber world is long overdue. The novel is narrated from Eli’s point of view. For this reason the reader is inclined to support the creators of the site and hope that it will defeat the regulators. As a result Lange poses a multitude of serious questions about the freedom of young people to exploit technology, the


extent to which online games


should be subject to government (that is to say adult) control, and where the revolutionary technology of the web will lead our societies. The novel ends with a massive and wholly unforeseen twist. This book should be read by


educators as well as pupils. Educators need to understand the world their charges inhabit, magical or sinister. RB


Glass Town Wars HHHHH


Celia Rees, Pushkin Press, 320pp, 978 1 7826 9222 5, £12.99 hbk


This ambitious, wide-ranging novel is as densely woven as a rare fabric. It moves through time, countries and cyberspace, uniting two young people who should never have met. The book opens with Emily Bronte


build a website


called Friends of Bishop designed to humiliate those who harmed Jordan and led to his suicide. Their website will, they hope, get past the new rules. Lange’s novel poses the question


viewing Tom, who is in hospital in a coma and 200 years in the future. The rough and tumble of the Bronte parsonage is beautifully evoked-its familial battles and intrigues and its bright, intense creativity a stark contrast to Tom’s sterile hospital room, its silence broken only by the sound of the machines which keep him alive and the voice of Lucy, who comes every day to read Wuthering Heights to him, in the hope of generating a response.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32