BfK 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


the wild Atlantic. Her descriptions are concise and arresting. McCaughrean is always worth


reading and this


is no exception. This is a book to recommend to young readers who want a challenge. FH


The Pavee and the Buffer Girl HHHHH


Siobhan Dowd, illus Emma Shoard, Barrington Stoke, 112pp, 978-1-9113-7004-8, £12.99pbk


Siobhan Dowd first wrote this story for an anthology on racism. Reissued now as a graphic novel with expressive illustrations by Emma Shoard the story has lost none of its power to move readers; the spare text is as powerful and direct as when first written, while the story feels unsettlingly current. Young Jim Curran is a Traveller, a


Pavee in his own language. He and his family have recently arrived in an Irish seaside town and are immediately met with suspicion and hostility. The town’s young


people share all their parents’


attitudes and Jim and his cousins are labelled ‘dirty Gyps’, ‘tinker-stinkers’, the name-calling soon turning to physical attacks. Not


the Buffers (non-


Travellers) are cruel: there’s a kind man in the chip shop, once a Pavee himself, the school librarian looks out for Jim, and then there’s Kit, a girl in Jim’s class


who is almost as much an outsider as he is. Jim and Kit become secret friends, meeting in a cave in the cliffs, sharing more than one ‘short kiss in the dark under the dripping stalactites’. Their relationship is beautifully depicted, a real tenderness between the boy and the girl he thinks of as his skylark. Meanwhile the of


hostility of rest the the community continues,


culminating in two shocking incidents: Jim’s little cousin Declan is so badly bullied he ends up in hospital, and the local police raid the Travellers’


camp, smashing their possessions and threatening more harassment. The family decide to leave, not just the town, but Ireland itself. Jim has to say goodbye to Kit though for this reader anyway, there’s a feeling that one day he might return. Siobhan Dowd worked


for the


rights of Travellers and her book gives real insight into their lives, not just the prejudice they endure, but the warmth and closeness of their communities. At a time when hostility to those regarded


as ‘other’ or


seems almost entrenched in society, this powerful, beautifully


seems ever more important. MMa


See You in the Cosmos, Carl Sagan


HHHH


Jack Cheng, Puffin, 314 pp, 978-0-1413-6560-2, £6.99 pbk


This story is told in the voice of eleven- year-old Alex, whose particular hero is the late, popularising astronomer of the title. It consists of a series of audio recordings he makes for the benefit of life forms out there in the cosmos. Alex’s intention is to put all these on to a Golden IPod which he will then launch via a home-made rocket. And if this sounds like a tall order, it is, with his final attempt to send his IPod into space a dismal failure. But on the other hand, he has now managed to get miles away from his catatonic mother, with who


14+ Secondary/Adult Release HHHHH


Patrick Ness, Walker, 288pp, 978-1-4063-3117-2, £12.99, hbk


Another remarkable novel from Patrick Ness. This time, he takes inspiration from, and pays tribute to, the unlikely coupling


of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs


Dalloway and Judy Blume’s Forever. So it’s a day in the life of Adam Thorn, a day of changes in which he comes to a different understanding of the relationships in his life. The name is significant. For this gay son of an evangelical preacher in a Washington State suburb might as well be the first man on earth as he struggles to make sense of his emotional and sexual life. And Thorn? Well, that’s the painful hook on the stem of the red rose of romance, and there is blood drawn, both metaphorical and literal, in this momentous day. In part, this is a tale which addresses the clash of conservative and liberal


social


attitudes which is everywhere around us. But like Ness’s previous novels, conflict is deeply embedded in his characters’ lives and relationships, so that any attempt to reduce the novel to that kind of agenda is foolish. You might say, any other novel


too, that more than for


that I have read, this is about the


physical side of gay sex - so some of the Forever inspiration. But that too would be too simple. Ness is so good at conveying the waves of feeling, physical and emotional, now merged, now separate, in any


relationship,


that this is about how any of us have loved, both in and out of bed. I am not sure if we really need the story that runs alongside Adam’s day, about the restless spirit of a girl murdered in a drug induced rage. But that too grips in its own way and Ness brings both strands to a kind of mutual conclusion,


unlikely though The State of Grace HHHH


Rachael Lucas, Macmillan, 272pp, 978-1-5098-3955-1, £6.99, pbk


young adults


Grace is a girl of fifteen who is autistic. (Note: do not say who has autism.) She lives with her mother, father and younger sister Leah. Her father is a TV nature cameraman and is away on location much of the time. Grace believes there is a manual on how to be human. Everyone except Grace got a copy. Unlike many autistic


characters


in books and films, Grace does not have a special talent. She is not a


30 Books for Keeps No.224 May 2017 that


seems for much of the novel. You really need to read it. CB


mathematical genius. What she does have is a horse named Mabel, whom she absolutely adores. It is easier for Grace to communicate with Mabel than with people. Grace meets a boy named Gabriel or Gabe. At this point two unforeseen strokes of chance - one involving Mabel herself - disrupt the whole situation. The remainder of the narrative deals with Grace’s attempts to cope with these events. Grace has worked


hard to develop


communications protocol employed by people who are


the subtexts that others pick up effortlessly. Nevertheless


conversational complexities still elude


is learns Lucas


her understanding of the not


autistic, some


of Grace is deft, accomplished and memorable.


herself


all the more impressive when the reader


and her daughter are both autistic. This reviewer was reminded of Lois Keith’s A Different Life, the story of a girl who becomes a wheelchair user written by an author who is herself a wheelchair user. The publishing house of Macmillan also deserves credit for seeing that this is far from being a minority interest book. There is one aspect of the book


less satisfactory. At the end of the text when the narrative is done there


her. Lucas’s representation This achievement that


appears a list of Grace’s Ten Things, the ten misconceptions about autism she would like to defuse. At the end of a book which emphasises with stunning effect


that Grace,


everyone else who is autistic, is a member of


the human race, she


erects ten barriers between her and everyone else. The narrative carries itself


with power and precision,


without this didactic coda. RB The Girl In Between


HHHH


Sarah Carroll, Simon & Schuster, 228pp, 978-1-4711-6062-2, £6.99 pbk


A girl and her ma seek shelter in an old, abandoned mill to escape a life of homelessness and danger on the streets of Dublin, constantly pursued by the yellow-jacketed ‘Authorities’ feared by ma.


To the girl, the


dilapidated mill is both castle and sanctuary and the memories and ghosts it contains do not frighten her. All that matters to the girl is that her ma always comes back from begging on the streets. But as ma’s drinking and drug-taking spiral out of control and the Authorities draw nearer, the girl has to retrieve deep memories and, with the help of the mysterious Caretaker, work out who the ghosts really are.


like


outsiders told story


he lives miserably alone after the death of an absentee father. He is also currently looked after by the new adult friends he has made on his journey to the rocket site set aside for amateur enthusiasts of space travel from America and beyond. How Alex manages all this is made believable because of his infectious powers of


ingenuous charm.


Those who take up with him never seem to realise they are running a considerable risk, given that any new adult


year-old


relationship with an eleven- child travelling without


permission away from home could raise considerable suspicion. But as a juvenile character Alex dates back to a previous fictional world where the potential kindness of strangers always outweighs more contemporary suspicions about


motives and


behaviour. He also eventually tracks down a neglectful older brother plus a previously unknown half-sister, so to an extent keeping his new itinerant life more safely within family bounds. A final return home goes well enough, although his mother remains mentally ill for the foreseeable future. Jack Cheng tells his story artfully enough,


veering away from


sentimentality though often only at the last minute. Funny, moving and sharp-witted, there is much to enjoy here for readers of the same age as Alex and indeed older. NT


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