BfK 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


too, especially prime numbers; when things distress her, she’s learned to call out a sequence - two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen and so on, until she’s restored order to chaos. Her need for structure requires rules, and everyone around her must stick to them too.


Her father Wesley is a threatening presence in the novel’s short cast list. Her mother, he says, abandoned Rose. His own childhood was harsh – he and his gentle brother Weldon, who lives nearby, were fostered by seven different families before he’d turned 18. There’s little cash around, and even less when Wes is fired from his job as a garage mechanic; much of what money’s left is drained away at The Luck of the Irish bar. For all Wes’s good intentions to be a better father than his own, living with Rose pushes him close to violence. The novel carries more conviction because Wes is not an outright villain, but he’s no listener, and since the kids in Rose’s class find it hard (or funny) to listen to her too, it’s just as well that Uncle Weldon reads Rose with love and patience. One wet night, Wes tries


something good for his daughter. He brings Rose a gift – a stray dog. Rose names her new friend Rain (reign/ rein) and she becomes an anchoring certainty for Rose. Life at school includes adults who try their best to support her within a mainstream class; and when Rain follows Rose into school one day to the delight of the other kids, they understand Rose more clearly too. In her daily contact with Uncle Weldon, there is empathy and


shattered, when


nurture.


Hatford. Wes lets Rain outside and she doesn’t come back. Rose’s well- planned search is successful, only for her to discover that Rain’s original owners have also been found; their home has been swept away and all the family, adults and children, are desperate to reclaim their lost pet – they need something good to happen. What must Rose do? This is a moving story which will


surely attract many readers, maybe adults as well as children – Rose is engaging as well as vulnerable and her unusual vision of the world is sustained


novel’s apparent simplicity, readers must employ a dual perspective, drawn into the story through Rose’s narrative while standing back to evaluate events.


reminded of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.) But my considerable pleasure in the story was shadowed by the issue of authenticity. In a Note, Ann M. Martin mentions spending a morning at a school for students on the Autism Spectrum (one morning?); and she asked the school’s director to read her manuscript. The familiar question is, How successfully has the writer become an ‘insider’? It’s an old question – as old as wondering whether Dickens could characterise


(Readers might well be her understanding of throughout. Despite the Hurricane


however, on the night Susan


This


equilibrium is ravages


to do


young women. White author/black protagonist? Straight author/LGBT characters? And so writers differ


inhabit ‘other’ perspectives; but while some fictions can draw upon daily experience (in the matter of gender differences, say), other areas such as disability are more problematic for both writers and readers. For example, I’m not knowledgeable enough about autism to judge how accurate Rose’s narrative voice is. BfK readers might like to google ‘disabilityinkidlit.com’ and references to Rain/Reign (the book’s original US title) to find critical and reflective reactions, including contributions from a father reading the story to his autistic son and two published


themselves as autistic.


authors who describe GF


The Story of Antigone HHHHH


Ali Smith, ill. Laura Paoletti, Pushkin Children’s Books, 100pp, 978-1-7826-9089-4, £7.99 pbk


First published in hardback in 2013, this is one in a series of retellings from Pushkin Children’s Books in which contemporary international authors tackle classic tales, both ancient and relatively modern, including Crime and Punishment and The Epic of Gilgamesh. Ali Smith’s take on the tragedy of Antigone is told through the cynical eyes of a crow. With her mind on the fresh pickings it provides, the crow is surveying the battlefield on which Antigone discovers the body of her brother, Polynices, denounced by King Creon as a traitor. Antigone, in defiance of the king and facing the prospect of certain death, performs the burial rites on Polynices’ corpse and the crow watches as Antigone is brought before Creon and her fate is decided. Smith’s retelling cleverly retains the


play, with the crow standing in for the theatre audience, and adds a conversation between the crow and a dog as a prologue to the main action in which the background to the confrontation is filled in for the reader. The Greek chorus, too,


adding a commentary in verse, sometimes collapsing into doggerel, and


as their providing incidental


elaborate sycophancy to disjointed horror as the final tragedy unfolds. It’s a brilliant balancing act. Told in modern colloquial speech, it respects the atmosphere and concerns the


conversation between the crow and the author, refers the reader back to the play itself. Accompanied by stylish and sympathetic


Laura Paoletti, it is a fine work in its own right, for either young people or adults, and an excellent introduction to the play. CB


The ACB with Honora Lee HHHHH


Kate De Goldi, ill. Gregory O’Brien, Hot Key Books, 132pp, 978-1-4714-0505-1, £9.99 hb


This is comics artist Adam Murphy’s 28 Books for Keeps No.216 January 2016 illustrations from original and in a postscript of language unravels


humour from


appears, shape of Sophocles’ in their on. abilities to I realise


Kate De Goldi is an award winning author from New Zealand who has had only one book – The 10PM Question - published previously in Britain. The reaction to that and the quality of the present book suggest that British readers ought to hear a lot more from her. The ACB of the title is a book that young Perry has compiled from her experiences with the residents of her grandmother’s nursing home. Her gran, Honora Lee, is suffering from dementia, which accentuates a nature already cantankerous and eccentric. Perry is the subject both of her parents’ relative indifference (they live such busy lives) and also their well-meaning attempts to fill her life with out of school improving activities in which, despite her best efforts to please, she has little interest and as much success. With Honora Lee and the other residents and staff at the Santa Lucia home she finds both a new family and an inspiration for her creativity. As she creates her book from conversations and events, sometimes wayward, strange, funny or sad, she learns something of the previous lives of the old people and the patience and humour needed to care for them. What might be a quite worthy book is in De Goldi’s hands an uplifting, witty and poignant tribute to the variousness of life. It’s told mainly through dialogue and through


infused with Perry’s own deadpan, ironic, insatiably curious and defiantly idiosyncratic attitude. It’s a gloriously skewed version of what can be a very depressing situation which is supported by some inspired, almost abstract, O’Brien


both the ordered restriction of Perry’s other leisure time and the organic playfulness and community of life at Santa Lucia.


CB Baker’s Magic HHHHH


Diane Zahler, Curious Fox, 336pp, 978-1-7820-2417-0, £6.99pbk


When Bee (short for Beatrix) gives in to temptation and steals a bun to lessen her hunger, she has no idea that this one action will change her life forever. The baker Mr Bouts takes pity on her and gives her a job helping out in the bakery and gradually she learns the art of making cakes and buns. What she also discovers is that she can transfer her emotions into what she is baking; if she is happy then the customers are happy, if she is angry then that emotion is carried over. Soon the bakery is asked to supply cakes and buns to the palace, especially for the Mage Joris who is guardian to the Princess Anika. But all is not well in the kingdom and Bee finds herself on a quest to discover what happened to Anika’s father as well as preventing Joris from taking over the throne. This is a fantastic story for younger


readers. It is set in a country that bears a marked


Holland, with its closeness to the sea and the fascination that Joris has for growing tulips, to the exclusion of everything else. The characters of Bee and Mr Bouts are well rounded and we actually feel involved with


resemblance to which somehow express illustrations by Gregory a third-person narrative


their lives. The plot itself is full of adventure as Bee, Anika and their friend Wil start out on their journey to find what happened to the missing king. Baking is very much a central part of this story and I found it difficult to accept that Bee does not know about such things as nutmeg, lemon and cinnamon: even though there are no trees in the country surely they could be imported from other countries. It is a story full of little twists and turns and is a very satisfactory read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to more by the author. MP


Simon Thorn and the Wolf’s Den


HHHH


Aimee Carter, Bloomsbury, 307pp, 978-1-4088-5801-1, £6.99 pbk


Simon Thorn is twelve years old and for most of his life he has hidden a secret, he can speak to animals. He has never told anyone, not even his guardian Uncle Darryl, or his mother on one of her rare visits to see him, as they might think he is mad. However things are about to take a turn for the worse and life will never be the same again. When his mother


kidnapped by an army of large rats, Simon discovers that he is not the only one keeping secrets.


that there are five races of people who can change into animals, they are called Animalgams and belong to the mammal, insect, reptile, bird or


father was a mammal and his mother is a bird. However there is friction between these two kingdoms and Simon seems to be at the centre of things. This begins the start of an adventure that is going to continue over five books in the series. This is a great


shapeshifters and about


struggles. It is also about family, friends and having an understanding of who you are and where you fit into this world of ours. Simon is a troubled character in many ways; he knows he is ‘odd’, he gets bullied at school, his father is dead and his mother is never there. How he deals with all of this makes p an important element of the story and will impact on what happens in the future. This is one of those really strong plot driven stories that are so popular with young boys. It is very much a case of being ‘on the edge of your seat’ and is bound to become a firm favourite.


MP The Monkey’s Secret HHHHH


Gennifer Choldenko, Hot Key Books, 272pp, 978-1-4714-0352-1, £6.99, pbk


Lizzie Kennedy is a square peg in a round hole. She cannot be the perfect lady that her Aunt Hortense wants her to be. She hates her private girls’ school, and is lonely because she hasn’t made any friends. She would rather to be a doctor like her father, and enjoys helping him with his patients. Lizzie and her family live in San Francisco in 1900, when women were expected to marry rather than have careers. This does not suit Lizzie at all. She has an inquisitive nature which often gets her into trouble. She


story about power


underwater kingdoms. Simon’s is It seems


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