BfK 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


when an ancient evil is meant to come out and take anyone who is not safely shut in their home and one day Amaya leaves her door open and her brother is taken. Her search to find her brother before the curse makes her forget him takes her in to many dangers, but she meets people who are also suffering and who need help.


This is a wonderful and exciting


story that emphasises the importance of family and of friendship. It also reminds up about memory and how so much of our thinking about those around us is linked to the memories that accumulate; about events and activities that we have shared or heard about.


people often feel more connected to celebrities that to their families it is important to keep alive the knowledge of our


finally makes a new and increasingly intimate female friend. Told in verse, mostly free but with occasional


Judy Blume’s


stuff. Its subject matter is reminiscent of


story Blubber written around the same sad


subject and published


over forty years ago. But has nothing improved since then? Lily has to fight her battles entirely on her own in the face of a male pupil thug and some pathetic girl hangers-on. Her teacher can’t cope and the school has no anti-bullying policy.


Lily eventually


decides, quite literally, to take matters into her own hands, with the implied lesson here that if you don’t look after yourself no-one else will. This is still unfortunately true in


some schools, but others surely are doing better now? As it is any young readers who are


also overweight


could well come away from this dark novel fearing for their own classroom future. It would be a shame if tough- talking stories


about bad school


experience also had the effect of appearing to normalise such cruelty as an expected everyday occurrence. How nice instead if this talented author came up next time with a story detailing pupil and teacher solidarity against bullying along with the idea that meeting violence with violence is not the only way to solve all of life’s problems. NT


The Switching Hour HHHH


Damaris Young, Scholastic, 277pp, 978140195049, 6.99 pbk


This is a very timely reminder of how connected we are to the land and the climate that surrounds us. Amaya lives with her younger brother Kaleb and Grandma Uma in a land that is suffering from a horrendous drought. At the same time children are mysteriously disappearing and their families begin to suffer from the Sorrow Sickness and seem to forget all about them. The Switching Hour of the title is that twilight time


rhymes, this is strong ground-breaking


to maintain the bonds that have held families together. There


past and also is


also an important message about global warming and the dangers that so many areas face from the treat of drought, flooding and other environmental disasters. Amaya is a frustrating heroine to begin with, but we gradually build up an empathy with her and we watch her grow as an individual. It is a great read for those who like stories with magic, folk


tales mixed with some more


serious elements about the world we live in. MP


Wolf Light HHHH


Yaba Badoe, Zephyr, 292pp, 9781786695512, £!0.99, hbk


At a time when the world’s most famous


climate campaigner


(excepting Sir David Attenborough) is a sixteen year old girl from Sweden, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find a novel


with special powers and much determination


in which three teenage girls set out to thwart


predatory capitalists bent on savaging the natural world. Zula from Mongolia, Linet in Cornwall and Adoma in Ghana draw their power from ancient spiritual beliefs which venerate the natural environment. They convene in a spiritual dimension where they take on the attributes of animal spirit guides; and they support one another in trials which are as much about growing up, assuming responsibility, finding a voice, falling in love and coping with grief, as they are about outwitting the “skin walkers” who see only the possibilities of exploitation in ancient landscapes. Badoe has a relish for language and writes prose which is at times unself- consciously poetic. Her


clever integration consciousness of


girl power, family relationships (particularly climate


the


with grandparents), and


cultural beliefs of her three heroines makes for a fascinating story. I was sorry when the tale came to an end. So many books these days run on


28 Books for Keeps No.238 September 2019 In an age where


to over 300 pages or set out to be the beginning of a series without there being enough to sustain their ambition. Here I would have loved to have had more of the same. CB


The Boy Giant HHHH


Michael Morpurgo, illus Michael Foreman, 288pp, 978-0008347918, £12.99 hbk


Omar is a twelve-year-old Afghan


refugee. He and his mother want to get to England but his mother says he is to go ahead alone. She will join him later. Omar begins his journey in an overloaded yellow dinghy, a journey which nearly costs him his life. When he comes ashore not in England but in Lilliput, his arrival feels like Gulliver’s. The reader does not know for certain whether Omar’s perception of himself as huge is real or imagined. Omar spends the next four years


with the Lilliputians and without his mother. He believes that she has reached England before him. Omar is befriended by two Lilliputians, Zaya and Natoban. They teach him English and escort him round the island, becoming his best friends while he is in Lilliput. The novel now poses the


force on which the island depends. However, that’s just one of the life forces in the island town of Eden. The other is the boy Dev, an inventor whose ingenuity and ambition are limitless. When we meet him he is jumping off a cliff supported only by chicken feathers and cheese powered boots. Jamie Smart helpfully provides diagrams of some of this young Da Vinci’s machines, although there’s no danger of readers trying them out at home. It’s doubtful whether you can order “stretchable ortingle tubes” or “smellkonics” even online. Oh, and I mustn’t forget Dev’s other remarkable quality - determination. That is, he doesn’t know when to stop, as my mother used to say. Dev’s inventions often have


unforeseen disastrous question whether Omar and


his two best friends will ever reach England. Will Omar be reunited with his mother? Opening a Morpurgo book, one


expects to find oneself in a strong relationship with the narrative and the characters. With this book, this reviewer did not feel the expected relationship. Morpurgo has attempted to combine two very different genres, the realistic narrative of refugees in flight from danger or poverty and the more imaginative intertext with and retelling of Swift’s famous fantasy. If any author could combine these very disparate elements, it would seem that Morpurgo could do so. But in fact the strain of combination seems to be too severe even for him. Once the reader has become reconciled to the dissonance of the two themes, the read is enjoyable. But the dissonance remains. Some but not all of Foreman’s illustrations are included in this pre- publication copy. When complete they will add signally to the appeal of the book. Two themes dominate the text, namely the need to be kind and welcoming to strangers and the need to eliminate war. But both themes seem to be hammered home in an uncharacteristically blunt and unsubtle


many admirers will feel that on this occasion he has not lived up to his past standard. RB


Flember, the Secret Book HHHH


Jamie Smart, David Fickling, 370pp, 978 1 91098 946 3, 6.99, pbk


You may well wonder who, or what, Flember is. First, it’s the name of the island where the story takes place, and then it’s the name of the life


consequences. Think the sorcerer’s apprentice, and, worse still, think Dr. Frankenstein. Dev, from the very best intentions, and with the help of a long lost secret book, harnesses Flember to create life; and, in this case it’s a giant teddy bear with the unrestrained impulses of a hunger driven toddler. That’s where all the bother begins, because there’s only so much Flember to go round and Dev and Boja the bear (surely nothing to do with Boris Johnson?) have used up nearly all of it. Jamie Smart’s self-illustrated story is packed with incident, humour and ideas. There’s also a serious message about “the journey of a young boy taking responsibility for his mistakes”. Indeed, any story where there’s a town called Eden possibly has more going on than appears on the surface, even if the surface has more peaks and troughs than a gale in the Atlantic. CB


The Space We’re In HHHH


Katya Balen, Laura Carlin (illus.), Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 292 pp, 978 1 4266 0194 0, £10.99 hbk


Max is aged five, He has autism. His brother Frank is aged ten and is the narrator


of Balen’s story. He has


no such impairment. The mother of the two boys is the one who best understands Max’s needs. The loving father is also present. Early in the narrative Frank fails


to show his brother the respect and understanding that Max needs, He even uses the unacceptable word ‘retarded’


to describe his sibling.


However we should not think of Frank as acting out of ignorance. He knows his language and behaviour are unacceptable. He is acting from anger, frustration and impotence. At this point a disaster overtakes


manner. The author’s


the family. Balen’s novel now explores the question how the different members of the family cope in the aftermath of the disaster. Special attention is paid to the question how Max’s needs are met in the new family circumstances. Many novels featuring characters with disabilities portray special schools in a negative light, the needs of the pupils largely unmet. Balen in contrast depicts Max’s school in a positive manner. Frank’s account reveals how the school enables Max to develop at his own pace and in


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