reviews


will follow.’ This led to the use of puppets and the back wall of the set as a sketchbook, to project images from ‘romantic rural drawings to black-and –white drawings of hell in the trenches’. Fascinating also are the comments of actors: Olivia Vinall   ‘I’m nervous every time I go on stage! If I’m not feeling nervous I get a little bit worried’. Seeing Sally Cookson’s hugely


Corpse Talk Season 2 


Adam Murphy, David Fickling Books, 61pp, 978-1-9102-0049-0, £7.99 pbk


involving and innovative production of Jane Eyre while I was working on this review brought home to me the wisdom of two main themes found in the book. First, a play’s success relies on the  contribute and second, as Marianne Prebble makes clear, everyone involved needs to connect with the emotional heart of the play. In this book arresting design, dramatic use of colour and print and photographs       sheer energy of theatre.


MM A Slice of the Moon 


Sandi Toksvig, Doubleday, 468pp, 978-0-8575-3191-9, £7.99 hbk


 a young girl’s journey from Ireland to Portland, Oregon in the mid- nineteenth century. ‘Slim’ is the Dutch for ‘smart’ or


‘clever’, and eleven-year-old Slim Hannigan is a feisty heroine who’s not too keen on her real name of Rosalind. She lives with her family in rural Ireland, where life is hard, but there is laughter and love to keep them happy. Everything changes when the potato crop fails in 1845, leading to terrible hunger, illness and death in the community. Slim’s older brother Henry gets involved with      landlords’ oppression, and a whole series of events culminates in the        emigrate to America. The long voyage across the Atlantic is described in harrowing detail, and life on arrival in New York is equally challenging. However, through Slim’s courage and  survive, and their homemade printing press, which they brought all the way from Ireland, provides them with the means of starting their own newspaper business.


Slim is an engaging character who makes friends with all kinds of people along the journey, facing up to danger and grief with great courage. There are important themes running through the book, including the power of storytelling, literacy, freedom of speech, and equality. As Slim says about her newspaper – ‘I can run it as well as any man’. The book brings to life an important period of Irish history, and what it was like for Irish immigrants in America. It’s also a good, pacey story written with humour and understanding, and well lined up LT


Mr Sparks 


Danny Weston, Andersen Press, 340pp, 978-1-7834-4321-5, £7.99 pbk


Owen has a miserable life. An unpaid servant in his cruel aunt Gwen’s


boarding house in Llandudno, his father missing, presumed dead in the  an asylum, his future seems bleak, until an unusual guest arrives. Otto Schilling is a ventriloquist, a frail and elderly man whose luggage attests to his long travelling life. His dummy, Mr Sparks, alarms and impresses Owen – he seems almost to speak for himself, his sarcasm and imperious manner commanding his operator, rather than the reverse. When Mr Schilling dies in the night,  his remarkable powers, urging Owen to travel with him and thus escape his life of drudgery. Owen’s reluctance is mitigated


This is comics artist Adam Murphy’s second Corpse Talk volume in which the author-illustrator adopts the persona of a chat show host                  volume was shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Book with Facts and this new collection of interviews should be just as popular with its combination of humour and information, its ‘Horrible Histories’       gruesome details and its clever nod to the world of talk show entertainment. Each interview is only two pages long and the chat show style means that the historic information is mingled with the sort of irreverent, intrusive details that readers really want to hear. The illustrations are packed with details, and the colour tones, by Lisa Murphy, suit each historic period. There are several double page spreads interspersed      on the subjects in fascinating, and sometimes disgusting ways, as in the revelation that William the Conqueror’s       readers entertained include a brilliant ‘Digging up the Bodies’ timeline and a ‘Spot the characters’ game. The range of interviewees is wide


by Mr Sparks’s persuasive powers and by the promise of a visit to his mother, who is reduced to a hysterical state, sensing the intrinsic evil of the dummy. It is clear that Owen is in great danger, but he continues his journey, unable to leave Mr Sparks, trapped by his desire to be needed and by a sense of responsibility for his travelling companion, which the dummy has managed to engender.        desperate pursuit and a mystical twist. Quinn, a follower of the beliefs of the Knights Templar, sworn to rid the world of evil, has hired a lumpen      in tracking down Mr Sparks. The wooden dummy is the embodiment of Charles Lacombe, killed in a diving accident but restored by means of galvanisation by his wood-carving father Lucien. The dummy is over two hundred years old and has continued         identifying the needy, the lonely, the disenfranchised and enslaving them by promising them what they most want.


The plot is multi-layered: it is a stirring adventure and a consideration of loneliness, survival and control. There is some over-reliance on coincidence – for instance, the discovery of Owen’s father, shell- shocked and amnesiac, whose memories Mr Sparks restores – but the narrative holds water and will appeal to more thoughtful readers VR


and varied, from Queen Victoria to Laurel and Hardy; most are familiar but some, like founder of entomology, Maria Sibylla Merian, are fascinatingly unfamiliar. This graphic novel from       informative and should appeal to comic strip fans who like to combine SR


Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer





Rick Riordan, Puffin, 495pp, 978-0-1413-4241-2, £14.99 hbk


 of the phenomenally successful series featuring Percy Jackson. This time he has turned his attention to the Norse gods and  Greek, Roman and Egyptian deities he has written about before. At the start of the book Magnus has been living rough for the past two years, after the death of his mother. Then he discovers that his uncles are searching for him, but can he trust them and does he want to be found? The action really starts when Magnus is killed after an encounter  Valkyrie called Sam and taken to Valhalla as a dead hero. He also discovers that he  on a quest to defeat Loki and stop the coming of Ragnarok (the end of the world). Rick Riordan has once again created


to come to terms with. He has created or embellished the character of the gods, but they are not infallible and have the same issues as the rest of us, just on a        that Riordan has his tongue in his cheek, especially when he was writing the chapter headings; they are brilliantly funny and yet 


This is a series that is going to be just as much of a hit as his previous works and I cannot wait to see what role is going to be given to Magnus’s cousin, also named Chase, who has appeared in his other series – a familiar friend for many fans, but will there be any others?


MP The Red Shoe 


Ursula Dubosarsky, Walker Books, 120pp, 978-1-4063-5874-2, £6.99 pbk


Matilda and her two sisters are growing up in Palm Beach on the outskirts of Sydney in the 1950s. Their story is set against a backdrop of the Cold War. World events are paralleled by the tragedies and struggles that emerge in Matilda’s own family.       and Matilda thinks they are spies. Her sister, Frances, acts as if she is happy but she isn’t. She is worried about the disappearance of a friend and miserable at school. Elizabeth, the oldest of the sisters, is refusing to go to school, and the doctor says she has had a nervous breakdown. The grown-ups are facing problems


too. The girls’ father is often away at sea and when he is home he is  in World War II. To make matters worse, his brother always seems to visit when he is away. Now, the girls’ father has disappeared and no one knows what has happened to him. There are two main mysteries


       strange activities of the secretive new neighbours; and the second involves a peculiar incident that occurred when the family went to the Basin for a picnic. This second incident seems to have fractured  uncomprehending. Will the girls ever unravel the truth of what happened and will their father return home safely? This is an atmospheric and


evocative story that works on many  in terms of the plot and emotions, making the reader think more deeply about the narrative and the ideas it conveys. This means it is more demanding than many novels for the age range but also more rewarding, and its accomplished and elegant style will engross the reader.


ARa


Cool Architecture Simon Armstrong 978-1-9093-9679-1


Cool Philosophy Daniel Tatarsky 978-1-9093-9677-7 


at world that is our own, but with the addition of a very full vision of an ancient  full of action, humour and even pathos. The author seems to have a real grasp of the world and gods that he is writing about, which is remarkable given that this is the fourth mythology that he has had


Pavilion Books, 112pp, £9.99 hbk each


 new titles, added to their attractive chunky landscape format series that also includes Cool Maths and Cool Science. Both these new titles tackle big subjects in an imaginative and intelligent way that is at once


Books for Keeps No.215 November 2015 29


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