reviews 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


ways that he finds appropriate. One notable feature as the story unfolds is a brilliant example of intertextuality with Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, which any reader familiar with Sendak will enjoy. Laura


Carlin’s monochrome


illustrations are, it seems, meant to be drawings created by Frank. They combine artistic skill with a childlike element that complements the text. This reviewer


has certain


misgivings about the language used to describe the disabled character. It is of course true that such retrograde language inspire it


and are


the attitudes that sadly commonplace


in the real world. The writer is doing no more than reflecting this reality. To do otherwise would be dishonest. At the same time there is a danger that sensitive readers encountering such evidence of prejudice might stop reading. And that would be a pity. RB


The Wind in the Wall HHH


Written by Sally Gardner and illustrated by Rovina Cai, Hot Key Books, 32pp, 978-1-4714-0498-6, £12.99 hbk


“Wishes are such sweet profanities, they


fall so mouth...”


If you had one wish, how would you use it? You might think you’d be wiser than the narrator of this picturebook for older readers – but under the same pressure, you too might find yourself wishing for something you did not intend. In the


cold Northumberland, an


climate of eighteenth-


century Duke orders his gardener to grow a pineapple – a feat that is almost impossible


to achieve, as


this newly-fashionable fruit is ‘sun- obsessed’ and must be given very special treatment. The gardener does his best, but his pineapples do not thrive. The Duke, anxious for the prestige that such a novelty will bring, employs a Mr Amicus from Brazil who arrives with a mysteriously shrouded birdcage and moves into the hothouses, where he proceeds to grow a perfect specimen. The ousted gardener suspects


that Mr Amicus isn’t Brazilian – or indeed the expert that he claims to be. Spying on him, the gardener discovers the magical secret in Mr Amicus’s birdcage – a feathered fairy-wife, capable


of granting


wishes. The gardener wants to help her, but it takes a summer storm to free the fairy-wife. She spends the night with the gardener before granting him a wish that must be used “wisely” if he wants to see her again. But the gardener is attacked by a jealous Mr Amicus and finds himself in a dead-end corner by an enormous wall. He forgets the fairy- wife’s advice. “I wish it would hide me,’ he thinks – and the stones part. The gardener is trapped.


carelessly from the “On good days when the wind


doesn’t moan down from the moors, I think she will come back to free me,” he says. But the gardener is still waiting inside the wall… The Wind in the Wall was written when Sally Gardner was writer residence


in at Alnwick Castle, and


although some of the site-specific details add depth and context to her story, there’s a sense that it doesn’t wear its research as lightly as it could. That said, it’s always a pleasure to welcome new picturebooks for older audiences and there is much to admire here, from Rovina Cai’s atmospheric artwork to the gothic flavour that permeates Gardner’s historically-inspired text, evoking classic ghost


stories and inviting


readers to view their surroundings with new eyes. CFH


A Pocketful of Stars HHHH


Aisha Bushby, Egmont, 272pp, 978-1405293198, £6.99 pbk


This moving beautifully told story


introduces us to a distinctive central character with a very particular story to tell. Yet, as with all the best coming- of-age stories, it contains truths for everyone and insights for all readers. Safiya’s parents are divorced. She


chose to live with her father and believes that she’s a disappointment to her mother, even that her best friend the more worldly and confident Elle


is closer


mother wishes her daughter to be. The opening chapter


to all mothers


of those rows that will probably be recognisable


to the person her features one and


daughters, the sort in which emotions run too high, that end with slammed doors and things said deliberately to hurt. Shockingly, Safiya is denied the chance to apologise when her mum suffers a stroke and falls into a coma. But time alone at her mum’s hospital bedside brings dreams that transport Safiya back to her mum’s childhood home in Kuwait and a chance to watch her mother as a


teenager. The dreams are linked to Saff’s love of gaming and she embarks on a quest to find objects that matter to her mother in the belief that by succeeding she can save her life. In the process she learns much more about her mother, and most importantly, a chance for them both to say how much they love each other. The experience of


changes


understanding their


relationship;


her mother and indeed,


Saff’s she


realises that: ‘If you cut Mum and me open we’d be filled with the very same fire, glowing red and orange and gold.’ Seamlessly woven in is a backstory about


changing relationships strength at


school and we watch as Saff gains the


to form new, better


friendships and to stand up for what she knows is right. Aisha Bushby maintains a delicate


balance between the dream world and


the both equally


everyday one, vivid,


credible


keeping and


compelling. An impressive debut and a skilful examination of grief, love and growing-up. AR


The Time of Green Magic HHHHH


Hilary McKay, Macmillan Children’s Books, 214 pp, 978 1 5290 1926 1, £9.99 hdbk


McKay’s new book has three protagonists, Max aged fourteen, Abi aged eleven and Louis aged six. They are a mixed family, Abi’s father having married Louis’s and Max’s mother. Abi’s mother


died


when Abi was a baby. As happens in McKay stories, the parents are often absent. The father is a doctor with a busy schedule and the mother is an international aid worker who spends much of her time working abroad. Max and Abi cope well enough with the parents’ absence, Abi seeking refuge in books. But the young Louis finds the situation hard to deal with. Coping with loneliness and neglect,


Louis creates a big cat named Iffen. As Louis’s sense of isolation deepens, so Iffen becomes more real and more aggressive. The big cat begins to leave physical marks of his presence such as claw indentations on the rug in Louis’s bedroom and a big scratch on Louis’s ankle. As adults, mother and father of course cannot see the big cat. But Abi and Max can. They embark on a quest, to return Iffen to the world whence he came and thus to restore Louis’s mental freedom. As readers of McKay will have come to expect,


driven by a powerful


this is a book imagination


and a deep sense of what a family means. This novel has an intense focus on the power of literature and literacy as Louis learns to become a reader. The book highlights potent intertextualities


with


Narnia and Anne Frank’s McKay expertly describes


impressively intelligent


perspective parents on the


a strictly the


yet at the


same time as endearingly innocent as a six year old should be. From


absence


story-telling of


the


serves to focus attention children and is therefore


a necessity. But if this reviewer is obliged to cite one minor flaw in this impressive work it is that the parental figures, being absent so much of the time, lack reality in the narrative. If they are (as we imagine them to be) caring parents, it is hard to reconcile their


feelings with their continued


absence from the young children. RB Inchtinn, Island of Shadows


HHHH


Danny Weston, uclanpublishing, 226pp, 978-1-4063-1037-5, £7.99 pbk


There are shadows aplenty in this novel; eerie casts of light; troubled minds; unquiet souls. This is the story of Noah and his widowed mother Millicent, famous author of


children’s books featuring The


Adventurers, a group of plucky young souls who have dedicated themselves to righting wrongs. However, since her husband’s death in the Second World War, Millicent has suffered writer’s block and feels the need of a remote location to give her the peace and isolation which she believes will stimulate her creative abilities. There are few locations more remote than the island of Inchtinn, as Noah quickly discovers. His overwhelming fear of water


makes the journey to the island in a small boat almost unbearable and the


accommodation is little more


than an extremely poorly furnished wooden cabin. Trying desperately to find something to do, Noah begins to explore a cave in the cliffs. Here he meets and forms a friendship with cloaked and hooded young girl who, he discovers later, died 500 years previously in the then notorious leper hospital on the island. Mysteries accumulate, then begin


to unfold, revealing a past full of cruelty and corruption. Millicent refuses


to believe Noah’s stories


about a mysterious figure outside his room, until the presence enters the cabin and injures her so badly that Noah is forced to overcome his terror of water and swim to the shore in a storm in an effort to find help. The ghostly girl appears in selkie form and saves his life-and Millicent’s, too, as he is able to get help. This action-packed tale is far


more than a simple ghost story: it explores family ties, loss, corruption and courage. The storyline mirrors Millicent’s stories in many ways: mysteries to be solved, help


from


(for example) diary. that


imaginary space created by works of fiction that enable us the readers to cope with challenges in our day to day real world. The characterisation in the novel is excellent. Louis is


Books for Keeps No.238 September 2019 29


unexpected waters and the triumph of good over evil. VR


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