reviews


colourful vocabulary from her own heritage adds strength and depth to the overall atmosphere. The prose is lush – overwhelming, as descriptive phrases, employed


adjectives, adverbs at


every moment


14+Secondary/Adult continued I Hold Your Heart


HHH


are to


heighten emotion and tension. This is romantic fantasy. The style of writing reflects the requirements of the genre – as do the plot, (there are some nice twists offering moments of surprise) and characters; the expectations of


its readers will be well satisfied. FH The Wishing Bones


HHHHH


Michelle Lovric, Orion Children’s Books, 377pp, 978-1-444-009997-2, £6.99, pbk


This lengthy, complex and sometimes chilling book


is not for


inexperienced or faint-hearted reader, but for those who are able and willing to persevere there is a mighty treat in store.


The story opens in Venice in 1739 with the murder of an innocent tourist in The Hotel Of What You Want, an establishment


Magoghe, one of


set up by Arabella four evil Sicilian


sisters who fled to the city to escape armed conflict in their homeland and who have abandoned all compassion in the face of greed and a desire for revenge against the citizens of the city which refused to help them. Their hearts have become hardened to all but the pusuit of money and the bones of their victims are scrubbed and aged to be sold as holy relics, much prized by Venetians. Orphaned Sorrowful Lily, cruelly


raised in the convent run by another of the sisters,is schooled in the murder of the hotel’s guests by Ivo, who has his own tragic secret. Enter Darling Dearworthy, niece of one of Arabella’s victims:feisty,Irish, with a marvellously poetic vocabulary, eager to find out what has happened to her uncle. Introduce Casanova in his fifteenth year and build an alliance of these unusual young people, united in their desire to strip the Magoghe sisters of their power and return the relic of Saint Lucy’s body-stolen by the sisters- to her beloved Venice. The fabric of the story is not yet


fully woven, however. There is a strong thread of magic realism, with a talking statue of the Madonna, a fretful baby Jesus, mermaids who speak like wise but wonderfully entertaining pirates, murderous giant eels-and an overwhelming conviction that evil will be routed in the end. The narrative pace is brisk and the reader is taken on an unforgettable physical and emotional roller-coaster ride. This exceptional book repays readers a hundred-fold. VR


the


Karen Gregory, Bloomsbury, 319 pp, 978 1 266 0916 8, £7.99 pbk


Gemma Belfine is aged almost seventeen. She is a promising A Level student (though not expected to hit the top rank) and a talented country singer and songwriter. She lives with her mother and father and her younger brother Michael who is a gifted footballer. The children’s father channels a great deal of time and energy into Michael’s possible career as a player. Gemma sometimes feels that she is invisible to her father. Gemma’s interest outside the home


rotates around a part-time job. She works at a café with her friend Esi, who is Ghanaian and an academically outstanding student. Gemma then meets Aaron Weaver at the sixth form college. Aaron is handsome. He treats Gemma like a princess, buying her expensive gifts and devoting every waking hour to her. But Aaron begins to monopolise Gemma, claiming all her time, texting her at 2 AM, encouraging her to quit college. Gemma enters for a talent


competition and would have had a good chance of making progress were it not for the intervention of Aaron. There is now a contest to exercise control over


has never learned proper English


while Jo has never learned enough Cantonese to talk back to her. Short for her age she is also picked on by bullies at school. So far so miserable? Not a bit of it. Jo is also wonderfully resilient, seeing off recurrent crises with the acid humour also found in her comic line drawings breaking out on every other page. Largely autobiographical, this story does not spare her uncomprehending and uncaring family whose


only


interest is to run the business and make as much profit as possible. There are no birthday or Christmas presents for her or her younger sister, nor for the older brother who now lives with his grandparents.


immediately accessible - but those who give it the time and attention it deserves will be rewarded. Mello’s sophisticated


papercuts and


collages take us on a journey deep into unfamiliar territory, a world of scrubland furnaces where children labour to produce charcoal, and his evocative prose - somewhere between a poem, a conversation and a dream – is narrated by a hornet, whose insect’s-eye view makes the story even more surreal. But forcing boys to work in such conditionsissurreal, and this book raises awareness about child labour in one of the most powerful ways of all – by immersing us in something that communicates more than just the facts. Events in this book unfold in story-


form. A hornet is caring for his larva in its muddy nest. In his search for food to nourish it, the hornet observes a boy and his friend as they tend the charcoal ovens, inadvertently


start Gemma, a contest


between Aaron on the one hand and her family and friends on the other. The strength of this book lies in


the way the author makes the reader aware, slowly but inexorably, of the coercive control Aaron seeks to exert over Gemma. Gregory also strikes a telling blow in the narrative by inserting brief passages told from the viewpoint of Aaron. These passages remind us that there are two sides to every disagreement, without ever mounting a spurious defence of Aaron’s behaviour. Readers should be aware that the book makes reference to sexual assault and pornographic images. The major flaw in this book is also its


greatest strength. In the early stages of Gemma’s relationship with Aaron, the depiction of the romance is totally idyllic. The


reader recognises how


much Gemma stands to lose. Some readers may find these early pages difficult to stomach and may abandon the book. If so they will miss a novel that in every other way merits their attention. RB


Chinglish HHHHH


Sue Cheung, Andersen, 373pp, 9781783448395, £7.99 pbk


This novel written in diary form starts when its narrator Jo Kwan is 13. It finishes three years later. Jo comes from Hong Kong but now lives in Coventry. She has a tough life, helping out in the family Takeaway run by her unstable, sometimes violent


and her long-suffering mother who But Jo has a real talent for drawing


and against the odds finally wins a scholarship to the London College of Fashion – just as the author once did herself. She also has a best friend Tina, who helps her during some of the worst moments. But her real saviour is her determination to come through to her ambitions despite huge family pressure pushing her back into a life she is intent on escaping. She still dwells on ordinary adolescent concerns like


clothes,


hairstyles and boyfriends while working behind the family counter sometimes up to thirty hours a week on top of school days. Somehow she manages to remain excellent company, with a talent for black humour that makes this exceptional book a real pleasure to read. Misery memoir it is not, although there are sad moments. This is a novel that deserves to be read by anybody from teenage onwards - it is that good. NT


Charcoal Boys HHHH


Written and illustrated by Roger Mello, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn, Elsewhere Editions, 46pp, 978-1939810199, £16.99 hbk


This unusual picturebook for older audiences will surprise readers with its unconventional subject


matter father and approach and may not appear


a bushfire, hide from the inspectors and make an unplanned trip to the steelworks. On his return the boy destroys the hornet’s nest – “Are you listening to me, boy? Waste of time, I’m shouting in Hornet, he understands only Boy”– and is duly stung by the insect, who seems more attentive to his young than are the adults who should be caring for the charcoal boys. But around and between these plot points lie other ideas and inferences for readers to notice and interrogate – Mello leaves much unsaid and invites us to fill in the gaps. What is the significance of Albi’s key? Is the hornet right to call himself bad? And what happens to the boy after he’s been stung? Observant readers will notice


the


word either, and draw their own conclusions. All does not end well in charcoal-burning territory, and we emerge with our eyes opened, blinking, wondering how and where and why we were transported. This is a book that deserves to be


explored and shared and talked about, but may require adults to champion it to get it off the shelves. It would make a great starting point for investigative and creative activities. Roger Mello is an internationally-acclaimed Brazilian author-illustrator and recipient of the Hans Christian Andersen Award who has published more


than a


hundred titles for children and young adults. Daniel Hahn is an editor of the Ultimate Book Guide series and a prizewinning translator. Elsewhere Editions is based in New York and the text for this book includes some US vocabulary. CFH


Books for Keeps No.238 September 2019 31


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