reviews 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary
New Talent
Other Girl HHHHH
Nicole Burstein, Andersen Press, 272pp, 978-1-78344-061-0, £7.99 pbk
Louise has a task in life: it is up to her to train and develop the superhero skills of her best friend Erica. The goal is to engineer Erica’s discovery by the Vigilants. In the meantime there are exams – and the gorgeous Jay – to cope with. And what about Toby?
This is an extraordinarily assured debut that presents its narrative with supreme confidence. Both girls are very real with recognisable aspirations and concerns. Or are they? We are presented with a world (21st century without a doubt) in which superheroes (think the Avengers) exist and people discover extraordinary talents which will then be put into the service of more ordinary mortals. Can we believe this? The author presents her scenario in a way that allows no doubt; this world is real and
An Island of Our Own HHHH
Sally Nicholls, Scholastic, 216pp, 978-1-40712-433-9, £6.99 pbk
Holly Theresa Kennet is going to be a climate scientist. At the moment, she’s still only thirteen but in recent months she’s hunted for buried treasure in the Orkneys, confronted an exploding dish-washer, saved a seriously sick rabbit, learned a lot about picking locks and made friends with several interesting grown-ups. Before that, life was not only less interesting, it was tough going. She lives with half-brother Jonathan and full-brother Davy (aged 7) in a flat over Ranjit’s chip shop in a part of London famous ‘for being – I dunno – fabulously diverse and cultural and having lots of great food shops or something’. Both of Holly’s parents have died and Jonathan has given up a place at uni to care for Holly and Davy. He works in Cath’s Caff, barely making enough, even with benefits, for them all to scrape by. No treats, no cash for much needed new school shoes. Cheese sandwiches three suppers running says it all. Against all of that, the three are invincible in their care and love for each other.
However, their eccentric, not to say batty, Aunt Irene is loaded. She’s been a
brilliant, well-rewarded
inventor/engineer, travelling far and wide. Her daughter Jo is friendly
enough, but overwhelmed with kids and a business to run. When Irene dies, it turns out she’s left valuable jewellery to Holly and her brothers – the proceeds from selling it would make all the difference. But Irene became almost paranoid in her final weeks and documents, ID numbers and the jewels have all vanished. It seems they may be scattered about the globe in safes that look like silver metal briefcases. On her deathbed, Irene anxiously presses into Holly’s hands a small photograph album. Holly is convinced the album is a clue to the whereabouts of those briefcases.
So begins the treasure hunt in which the family journeys the length of the British Isles, with helping hands from friendly adults such as the geeky types at the London Makers Space, home to ‘about a hundred real, mad-scientist, evil genius type inventors’; they’ll knock up a metal detector in a jiffy or two for the family to use. Their search takes them to the Orkneys and along the way they are joined by Jonathan’s internet girlfriend Kate, finishing her degree in Aberdeen. It’s not long before Kate helps Jonathan to remember there’s more to life than wiping tables at the Caff. Meanwhile Irene’s husband, Evan, emerges as the original Wicked Uncle, scheming to get his grasping hands on the briefcases for himself.
Holly is an avid reader with
consistent. However, this is also a very convincing story about teenage friendship, aspiration, ambition, hopes and dilemmas. Indeed one might be tempted to see the superhero scenario as a sustained metaphor, an intriguing undercurrent to a novel that carries off its imaginative premise without apology and with total conviction. The whole is presented with a freshness of voice that cannot but attract. Burstein is clearly a talent to welcome.
FH
old-fashioned tastes: Sherlock Holmes (in the original, not the Cumberbatch edition), Agatha Christie, Lord Peter Wimsey, The Chalet School, Narnia, The Family From One End Street and Tolkien balanced only by a liking for Hunger Games super-heroine, Katniss Everdeen. When Holly decides to write a book about her family’s adventures, and call it An Island of Our Own, Jonathan says readers will think it’s going to be ‘Swallows and Amazons for rich people’. He’s wrong about the rich people, but the Walkers and the Blacketts would have loved solving a trail of clues, messing about on islands and boats, mostly free from adults except when a spot of help is needed. So here’s a kind of pre-war adventure which begins in the mean city streets of the present. Even Sally Nicholls seems anxious that literal credibility might be stretched a bit. She allows a thoughtful Orkney crofter to reflect, ‘I can’t quite picture [Irene] as the sort of storybook aunt who wants you to crack a code before she lets you inherit her money.’ Maybe, he says, the photos were a reminder to herself, a consequence of muddled old age. I’m more persuaded by the storybook aunt line myself, but I doubt that many young readers will be troubled by mere implausibility, given the attractions of the characters and the pace of the telling.
GF If You Find This HHHH
Matthew Baker, Hot Key Books, 317pp, 978-1-47140-452-8, £6.99 pbk
When Nicholas’s grandfather comes to stay he has just left prison and he is suffering from dementia. Added to this, the family home is up for sale and Nicholas is determined to save it and the tree that commemorates his dead brother. Can he find the family heirlooms that his grandfather buried, or are they just a figment of a rather uncertain imagination.
This is a really complex book that takes a bit of getting into, but when it grabs you, it won’t let go. The hero is weird, even by his own description. He is fascinated by maths and music and often sees things in terms of prime numbers or musical descriptions. However, he is a very strong character and absolutely central to the plot. He teams up with two other boys from his school, both of whom have issues, so we end up with a very unusual and quirky group.
Perhaps one of the most noticeable things in the text is the addition of musical terms at different points of the action; so we have ‘forte’ or ‘pianissimo’ to describe the feelings and the feel of the situations on the page. This is a book with several intertwining stories, some starting in the past and others definitely set in the here and now. The author brings them together and leads us through some disturbing moments until we reach the finale. Above all this is a book about family and the different
forms this can take. It is also about accepting people for who they really are rather than an idealized view and it is about knowing when to let go.
This story really surprised me by the way it has stayed in my mind; it is a very strong plot. Definitely something that repays effort when reading it. MP
Joe All Alone HHHH
Joanna Nadin, Little, Brown Books, 240pp, 978-0-34912-455-1, £5.99 pbk
Joe’s mum’s boyfriend Dean is a drunken slob, but she’s too needy to do without him. Perry Fletcher makes life at school a misery, especially since Joe’s best friend Bradley now hangs out with Perry and won’t talk to Joe. Then there are the Dooleys, who know too much about Dean’s shady dealings around Peckham; and they want a share of the £2000 Joe knows Dean’s hidden in the toilet cistern. Things couldn’t get much worse for 13-year-old Joe. Except they do. He’s been longing for the May half-term holiday but Mum and Dean announce they’re off to Spain. Joe’s not invited. Twenty quid to cover the leccy and everything else. In the fridge is what’s left of a decaying lamb tikka masala. He mustn’t answer the phone or the door or talk to the neighbours, since they’d guess he was on his own and then Mum and Dean would be in trouble. Not that he would, since they’re not that friendly, except for Otis from the flat opposite, a bus conductor down Camberwell Garage. So, Joe tells himself (and us, since we’re listening in to his story), ‘I’m on my own now. I’m Joe Holt and I’m all alone.’
To begin with, it’s brilliant. Dean’s not there to hog the sofa and the Xbox, but as the days pass, things go downhill, and then downhill some more. The loneliness gives Joe space to wonder if he’s still got a nan in Cornwall he could go and see; and how Carl, the only one of Mum’s boyfriends he liked, is getting on in prison. And he wonders about girls and stuff like that.
Suddenly he meets one. Literally on his doorstep. She’s not only good looking, she’s funny, and she likes magazines and horoscopes and stories. And she’s got X-ray eyes that see what Joe’s feeling. She’s Asha, and Otis is her sort-of grandpa. After a bit, Joe even tells her he’s on his own, and she doesn’t tell Otis. While things with Asha get better and better, the money, the food and the electricity are running out. And Joe knows what Dean will do when he gets back and finds he’s made friends with a black girl. When it’s time to go back to school and Dean and Mum still haven’t come home, things get worse. Perry’s seen Joe and Asha down the park; he wants a pound a day to keep quiet. Joe’s run out of cash and gets badly beaten up behind the Chicken Hut.
What stops all of this being as desolate and joyless as it might sound
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