BfK 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


rival in the final race is none other than a girl! There’s an interesting outcome to the race, and Davidde eventually manages to resolve all the different problems he’s been facing. There’s a great sense of place in


this small-town Welsh setting, and the dialogue is natural, making the Welsh accent sing out as you read it. The book is warm-hearted and funny, and should appeal to both boys and girls. LT


Wings: Typhoon HHH


Tom Palmer, illus. David Shephard, Barrington Stoke, 100pp, 978-1-7811-2537-3, £5.99 pbk.


Jess is having difficulties in her relationship with her older


gradually turning to disillusionment. The tactics of the battle are clearly described (though without any whiff of textbook) as is the horror of hand to hand fighting. The awfulness of battle feels more terrible because of the space in the book given to lighter moments and for drama that has nothing to do with war; we are always conscious too of the ordinary home lives going on as they always have and not far from the battlefield at all. As well as the


protagonists, Pierce allows readers to see much of the action through the eyes of the kings at the head of the armies, James and William. Both are worried about their families, are shown to be struggling under the weight of responsibility, and are convincing and


figures. We are aware too of the machinations of a third king, Louis XIV, and led to see that the deaths of so many in Ireland were part of a power struggle based many hundreds of miles away, to do with places none of them would ever visit. Pierce


characters’ stories, the draws together


and the fictional, with great skill, and presents


this important slice of history, with compassion for all involved, and in ways that will be catch the imagination of readers of all ages. MMa


Scrambled HHH


Huw Davies, Firefly Press, 144 pp, 978-1-9100-8036-8, £6.99 pbk


Fourteen year old Davidde works hard at school and keeps his head down, trying his best to keep out of the way of school bully Lyndon and his pals. It’s just him and his dad at home, after his mum has died, and they are a bit distant with each other. But an impulse buy of a motorbike changes everything. Davidde soon learns how to scramble on his new bike and takes on Lyndon, earning the respect of his schoolmates and his dad. His schoolwork starts to suffer, but at least his relationship with his father gets stronger. An exciting TV Talent show comes to town, Search for a Scramble Star, and Davidde finds out that his great


a vivid picture


real-life of


her even sympathetic main teen


Maddie. They are on a summer football camp at Trenchard House where she sees a photograph of a Second World War pilot and she wonders whether women did fly planes during that time. On the last day of the camp they visit an air show and queue up for a go on the simulator although Maddie is not keen. Eventually the two girls are led in by a familiar looking woman and Jess takes the pilot’s seat. She finds she is in fact flying a real Typhoon on a mission to destroy a target which does floor her although she does seem to be able to fly the plane and deliver the bombs on the target with Maddie’s encouragement! On coming into land the girls discover they are back in the simulator but their relationship has improved considerably, and Jess realises who the woman was whose face she recognised. This is a lot to pack in through 100


pages but Tom Palmer succeeds in making this an exciting but slightly implausible read. Jess and Maddie’s relationship is sketched in enough for the reader to understand the tension between them, and the message that women can fly aircraft is well made. It would have been good to use some original photographs of women flying aircraft during the war


This would a good starting point for a discussion about women’s role in combat, and mature enough for less able readers to read, as this is a story with some depth within the confines of the page count. JF


The Inventory: Gravity HHHH


Andy Briggs, Scholastic, 297pp, 9781407161808, £6.99 pbk


Just imagine a secret underground facility that houses secrets and inventions that are too dangerous to be used in the real world; this is the Inventory and it has been Dev’s home for as long as he can remember. His ‘Uncle’ is the curator and guardian of these treasures. Lately however, things have started to go missing and it is up to Dev and his friends Mason and Lot to try and recover them from the organization known as the Shadow Helix. Dev has certain advantages in that he was ‘grown’ in a laboratory and designed to protect the


side have an earlier prototype on their side. When an amazing weapon


28 Books for Keeps No.221 November 2016 Inventory, however the other perhaps? sister


called ‘Newton’s Arrow’, which can manipulate gravity, is stolen, the team find themselves in a race to retrieve it before it can wreak havoc. As you would expect with a book by


Andy Briggs this is very much a plot driven story. It is full of action and the pace of the events keeps you hooked throughout the book. Whilst this will probably find its main audience with young boys there are also strong female characters that make this an enjoyable read for anyone who like their stories full of thrills and action. This is the second book in the series but you do not need to have read the first one in order to enjoy this. However I am sure that the target audience will want to read all of the stories and will be looking forward to a follow on from this.


action is the important part of this plot


character of Dev and how he is coping with the reality of his ‘creation’.


Whilst the


makes you think about what defines someone as human and also how we see our ‘family’ and I am sure that this element will be explored in future books. This is a welcome addition to the school and public library. MP


Master Will & The Spanish Spy HHHH


Tony Bradman, illus. Tom Morgan- Jones, Barrington Stoke, 96pp, 978-1-7811-2567-0, £6.99, pbk


From the first page the reader is back in Elizabethan Stratford upon Avon with Will Shakespeare, a boy at school in the afternoon hearing music heralding the arrival of the travelling theatre. Things at home are not good and Will slips away to be at the front of the queue for tickets as Burbage has promised a free ticket. Burbage encourages the boy but his father won’t let Will go to London with the company. There is a subplot about a Catholic priest which neatly illustrates the religious intolerance of the time. At the last John Shakespeare relents and the last chapter moves on to the time when Will is famous and can give his father the coat of arms he so desperately sought. This is a very good depiction of a boy


finding his future, taking the reader deep into the past with every word. The world of the travelling theatre, how plays were written, rehearsed, costumed and played is clearly told in few words, a real art in such a short format. The tension between Will’s parents, with his mother his father


disappointed at every turn, and his eventual pride in his son’s success, is clear. The illustrations add to the story. A real gem of a book! JF


The Secret of Nightingale Wood HHHHH


Lucy Strange, Chicken House, 336pp, 978-1-9106-5503-0, £6.99 pbk


The time is the immediate aftermath of World War I. The family consists of Henrietta Georgina Abbott, 12 years old and known as Henry, Henry’s beloved mother and father and a baby known as Piglet, real name Roberta. There is a live-in nanny called Nanny Jane. A brother Robert died in a fire before the family left London. Henry’s


a failing businessman Catholic,


there is some focus on the It


mother has some kind of nervous breakdown. She received little help from Dr Hardy, the local GP who seems to be interested only in cases that further his research, rather than cases where he can help the patient. He prescribes rest, by which he means that the mother will be drugged and locked in her bedroom, out of bounds to either of her daughters. Henry’s father has departed for


several months engineering work in Switzerland, a suggestion hovering in the reader’s mind that he cannot cope with his wife’s


novel now revolves around Henry’s attempts to keep the family afloat and try to arrange its reunification. This book


strengths. It shows a sympathetic understanding of


difficulties in a context where such understanding was a rarity. Second, the book confronts prejudices about mental health and disability that are widely shared and that can shape anyone’s vision of another person. Thirdly the book has a great deal of intertextuality with late nineteenth and early twentieth century classics such as The Secret Garden and Alice in Wonderland. RB


A Message to the Sea HHHH


Alex Shearer, Piccadilly, 216pp, 978-1-8481-2569-8, £6.99 pbk


Tom Pellow’s father, a merchant seaman, was lost at sea a year ago when his ship went down with all hands. There was no funeral, there is no grave – only the sea. Tom decides that he’ll write messages, put them in bottles and consign them to the sea. The first message is simply informative, the next few humorous and whimsical by turn. Then, to his delighted amazement, he receives a reply – but one which is far from ordinary since it comes from the hand of a sailor who died over 200 years ago.


have no knowledge of his father-down in Davy Jones’ locker Tom is at first incredulous, then angry, thinking that a cruel hoax is being perpetrated on him. He writes again and the advice he receives from the long-dead sailor gives him the strength to understand that he must battle on and rebuild his life. He casts one more bottle into the sea-this time containing a message from the heart to the father he believes to be dead. Then, the miracle begins.... This book shines with honesty:


Shearer fearlessly explores grief – Tom’s and his family’s – creates a community which lives, year on year, with the knowledge that a life lived on the sea may be cut short at any time, creates characters who live on the page. He explores the hope which lives on in the face of impossible odds and he makes a 200 year dead sailor a credible, central character. Given all these positives


therefore whereabouts


covertly revealed almost


disappointing that the of


Tom’s


the narrative and that the ending becomes


certainly too coincidental. VR


far too early too


neat father


it is is


in and When the dead sailor claims to


has three mental


main health illness. The


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