reviews This powerful homelessness,


14+Secondary/Adult continued story of


grief, abuse and


isolation is told in the colloquial voice of a naive young girl.


The narrative


jumps backwards and forwards, with times and locations marked by her ma’s frequent lapses into addiction. An atmosphere of fear and tension builds throughout, together a feeling that


with something is very


wrong, that is only explained by the supernatural twist at the end of the story.


Whilst there are elements of


confusion and repetition, this is, on the whole, a skilful and moving first novel with an effectively unsettling feel and a deliberately ambiguous ending. The author


succeeds in


combining the harsh realities of life on the streets within a story that reads


like a bleak, modern fairy


tale with archetypal characters, girl, ma, Caretaker, Authorities, and its own perilous castle.


should appeal to


emotional YA title with its important themes


Out of Heart HHH


Irfan Master, Hot Key Books, 272pp, 978-1-4714-0507-5, £6.99, pbk


This is an ambitious novel which begins and ends with poems by William Blake, Little Boy Lost and Little Boy Found, and moves restlessly around the meanings that we give to the heart. Adam’s grandfather has just died, and his father left the family some time ago. Adam lives with his mum, his younger sister, Farah, who speaks only in sign language, and his grandmother. We meet him as a rather


young man, drawing and playing with words, his favourite occupations, in a small attic room of his house, and thinking of Icarus. When he goes to help the other men of the family to wash his Dadda’s body before burial, he learns that his grandfather’s heart has been used as an organ donation. Not long after, a tall, pale man in ill- fitting charity shop clothes arrives at the Shahs’ door, and announces, ‘I have a heart in my chest that belongs to you. To your family. To Mr. Abdul-Aziz Shah.’ And so William Tide becomes a part of the Shah family, much to the consternation of the neighbours. In what


follows, somehow stemming


from his grandfather’s deathbed gift, we see Adam and the other members of his family gradually emerging from the shadow of the hurt, grief and shame which we learn has been inflicted by his absent abusive father. There is a great deal to admire in


this novel, not least its ambition, and some memorable writing. I found the body washing and Adam’s dream of being the surgeon carrying out the heart transplant particularly powerful. However, I was left with a feeling of an even better novel struggling to emerge.


This intriguing, those


older readers who appreciate social realism, mystery and a hint of the supernatural. SR


There is perhaps too much happening, too many good ideas; so that we don’t stay long enough in one place to explore the situation or the characters’ response to it. This is particularly noticeable in regard to


William’s


acceptance into the family, which is a brilliant notion and has the potential for a lot more exploration. CB


Birdy Flynn HHH


Helen Donohoe, Rock the Boat, 372pp, 978-1-7807-4939-6, pbk


Berenice Flynn, known as Birdy,


is aged 12 in 1982. She lives in a working class English milieu with an Irish Catholic mother and a Protestant Liverpudlian father. She has two older siblings, Eileen and Noel. This is a family with a mass of secrets, most of which will be explored in revelatory mode throughout Donohoe’s book. As Birdy narrates her story, we learn that she is uncertain about her sexuality and suspects she may be transgender, though that term is never used in the text. Her introduction to sexuality is both confused and painful. Birdy’s story is also confused. Her reactions to events are mixed. Some aspects of her character revealed by the action are frankly


unattractive


and sometimes unexplained. Moreover an abundance of serious issues fly around the book, including sexual abuse, low educational attainment and the political questions surrounding Irish independence. For all these reasons reading this novel becomes a testing experience, one which some readers may decide to be too demanding. These difficulties mean that an


withdrawn, self-contained


otherwise excellent book finds it hard to command the respect it deserves. RB


The Hate U Give HHHHH


Angie Thomas, Walker, 432pp, 9781 406375114, £7.99 pbk


Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in Garden Heights, a poor and potentially lawless American urban ghetto although she hates anyone calling it that. She goes to school in respectable neighbouring Williamson, where she is one of only two black pupils. This proves a hard balancing act, given that she feels she must talk and even dance in quite different modes whichever community she is in at that moment. But when she and old friend Khalil are stopped in their car one night by a trigger-happy policeman who then shoots


the boy dead without any


real provocation, Starr has finally to decide where her loyalties lie. This novel is written with a real informed urgency. Never


sense of


mind that it is too long and sometimes repetitive. Thomas’s account of what it is actually like to fear any encounter however trivial with the local police force is unforgettable. She also vividly describes the experience of going to a party where gun shots break out and


what it is like to live in an area with dope sellers on every street corner. Her own family remains warm and supportive while other adolescents her own age fare badly at home. Everyone knows who the local drugs baron is, but no-one dares take him on as he spreads corruption among teenagers looking for ways of earning spare cash. This novel was inspired by America’s


Black Lives Matter movement. With publication in 14 different countries and a filmed version on the way it deserves to make a major impact in its own right. Its tragic story is made bearable by the love that keeps Starr’s family going and her own lively teenage reactions to what is going on around her. Her touching relationship with her white boyfriend throughout also carries its own message of hope. Written in a dialect that is never difficult to follow, it is as powerful an argument for mutual understanding and compassion between


those urban Every Hidden Thing HHHHH


Kenneth Oppel, David Fickling Books, 368pp, 9781443410298, £10.99 hbk


Dinosaur skeletons! Hostile American Indians!


Teenage orphans, one girl,


one boy! Young love! Double dealing! Near death! This novel has them all in this latest offering from a master- story teller who writes so fluently that events on the page flow by as if in a film. Things are initially tough for 17 year-old Rachel, accompanying her bossy and arrogant father in search of bigger and better fossils. But then she meets Samuel, whose own father also has the same aim in mind and in his own childish and boastful way is just as bad a parent. Both adults end up brawling with each other while their children look on helplessly before falling heavily in love. But they also have to pretend to be spying on each other’s camps in order not to get sent back to their separate homes. Set in the end of the nineteenth century in the ‘badlands’


of this story educates as well


the American West, as


entertains. Meticulously researched details of what to look out for when prospecting for dinosaur remains are made compellingly interesting. The events described are partly based on real historical happenings during the so-called ‘bone wars’ where two American rival collectors, living at the same time as characters in this novel, endlessly plotted against each other while discovering over a hundred new dinosaur species. Rachel and Samuel are fictional but come over just as real. Kenneth


Oppel never disappoints,


and this cleverly constructed novel, bearing with it a real sense of the past, very much warts and all, must surely be one of his best. NT


dwellers of


varying colours and incomes as it is possible to imagine. NT


I Have No Secrets HHHH


Penny Joelson, Electric Monkey, 336pp, 978-1-4052-8615-2, £7.99 pbk


Jemma Shaw is a British girl aged 14. She has cerebral palsy affecting all


four limbs and her speech.


Jemma is devoid of communication capability. She cannot speak and her hands are too seriously affected to use sign language. So she exists incommunicado. Jemma is a fulltime user


of a


manual wheelchair. The condition of her arms makes it necessary for Jemma to have someone pushing her chair. Controlling it herself is beyond her. Jemma has lived with her foster parents since the age of two, along with Finn (aged six and autistic) and nine year old Olivia. Olivia displays extremely challenging behaviour. She is now on her sixth foster home. Jemma was born a twin and yearns


to meet her non-disabled sister. Jemma also has a fulltime resident


carer named Sarah. Jemma adores Sarah. Sarah


treats Jemma in


ways that suit her age. Sarah has a boyfriend named Dan. Everyone likes Dan – everyone except Jemma. Just before the story begins, a boy


from the neighbourhood named Ryan Blake has been murdered. The killer has not been caught. How will this nexus of individuals be explored? What is Jemma’s role as the narrative unfolds? Joelson


takes a worthy place


alongside Sharon M. Draper in giving a presence on stage to disabled young people. Her depiction


of frustration in a realistic disability


is for the most part convincing. She describes


Jemma’s speechless manner.


still untamed


And the daily details of a disabled person’s life are accurately reported. Research has been done. There are however some issues. Her foster parents of course know that Jemma cannot speak or use hand signals. Yet their complete inability to understand anything about her baffles this reviewer, whose experience with aphasic children suggests there is always much available to be learned about their thoughts and feelings. Body language can be powerfully expressive. To make a more practical point, Jemma’s solitary carer Sarah seems to cope with all Jemma’s needs without much support, taking few days off. In the real world fulltime carers need backup. Now to a more fundamental point. Are there certain things that should not be said in a book for young readers? At one point Dan murmurs to Jemma that in her situation he would take his own life. He volunteers to help arrange her


suicide. This episode notion that hovers


on the edge of the impermissible. It is a courageous narrative stroke. But it might give young readers the dangerous


disabled


people’s lives are seen as valueless when their experience does not equip them to contest the idea. RB


Books for Keeps No.224 May 2017 31


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