BfK 8 – 10 Junior/Middle continued


had been in after failing to have the villains convicted in the past. The villains are as nasty as you could wish for and there are some excellent twists and turns in the plot, so that the audience is kept guessing throughout the book. I look forward to any further adventures of this intriguing pair; after all being a ghost can be quite useful for an investigator. MP


The Steam Whistle Theatre Company


HHHHH


Vivian French, Walker, 304pp, 978-1406376319, £6.99 pbk


A standing ovation for Vivian French whose new adventure has all the elements of the best dramas, i.e. intrepid


villains, lively scenes, a profusion of hopes, dreams and well-laid plans going awry.


It heroes and unscrupulous opens in London


where the Pringle Players, a family theatre-troupe, are facing shrinking audiences and hard times. Almost before


you can say curtain up however, Pa Pringle has had a flash of


inspiration and the family, including youngsters Charlie and Rosie, are travelling north


to the provinces


and audiences who have yet to experience the delights of Pa’s Lear. Newly arrived in the unsuspecting


town of Uncaster they encounter rival theatricals escapologist Little Baby Bubbles and his manager mother, who have had the same thought and have even more pressing reasons for escaping the capital. The Pringles find digs with the aristocratic Lady Poskett, also down on her uppers, and in spite of the best efforts of their rivals and thanks mostly to the determination and ingenuity of housemaid Edie their show goes and is declared a triumph. French is a gifted storyteller and this is a delight from start to finish, action- packed, hugely entertaining. Set in the late 1800s there’s a real sense of the times too and she vividly conjures up the camaraderie of the theatre. MMA


When We Were Warriors HHHH


Emma Carroll, Faber & Faber, 248pp, 9780571350407, £6.99 pbk


Emma Carroll is fast establishing


herself as one of the most consistent and accessible authors writing for KS2 readers. Taking historical backgrounds she makes


them immediate and


appealing. Her books have varied and intriguing themes ranging from a ghost story, her first Frost Hollow Hall


about Jessica’s role in their lives, and it’s unfortunate that her allergy to dogs means that Georgie’s beloved mongrel Mister Mash has to live in a nearby dogs’ home. It’s while walking Mr Mash on the beach with her best friend Ramzy Rahman that Georgie meets Dr Emilia Pretorius and all their lives – indeed the future of the whole world – changes forever. As scientists go, Dr Pretorius


is firmly in the crazy/crazy haired tradition of Doc Brown – an eccentric genius with a somewhat cavalier attitude


to the personal safety of


others. She’s built an extraordinary VR machine which has the ability to transport people into the probable future and just needs some willing assistants to help her try it out. The plot allows for


moments, as well


The Dog Who Saved the World HHHHH


Ross Welford, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 978-0008256975, 416pp, £6.99 hbk


Ross Welford’s new novel, his fourth, returns to favourite themes: time, time travel, family. The Dog Who Saved the World combines a fantastical plot, relying on an ingenious manipulation of


the laws of quantum physics,


with a traditional and warm-hearted adventure full of friendship, growing understanding, and family love. Georgie lives in Whitley Bay with


her dad, brother Clem and dad’s girlfriend, Jessica. Mum died some years earlier. Georgie is unconvinced


10 – 14 Middle/Secondary Asha and the Spirit Bird


HHH


Jasbinder Bilan, Chicken House, 288pp, 9 781911 490197, £6.99, pbk


lots of very funny as some that


are really quite frightening, and the tension builds when a terrible disease breaks out, one that is spread by dogs and deadly to humans. The ability to time travel into the future suddenly becomes more than a game. Welford controls his plots with real skill and there are moment of high drama, comedy and tragedy as, with the help of Mister Mash, Georgie sets out to save the world. He’s confident enough to allow Georgie to meet a version of her future self, and to learn from a conversation the two of them have. Genuine emotions are always at the centre of the action, however wild it gets, and no matter what is going on around them, we trust his characters who are as warm and realistic as they come. AR


26 Books for Keeps No.235 March 2019


This debut novel was the winner of the 2017 Times/Chicken House children’s fiction competition. It’s an adventure for top primary school children that offers an attractive mix of social realism and cultural fantasy and is set in the northern Punjab, close to the Himalayas and the source of the Ganges, where the author’s own family has its Indian roots. Young Asha, facing the possibility of losing her village home, sets off to find her father in the distant city where he has gone to work in a textile factory. She has only a month until the debt collector returns for the final time and on the journey with her friend Jeevan, she faces setbacks and dangers that she overcomes with courage and ingenuity, and with the help of the spirit of her maternal grandmother, Nanijee, in the form of a lamagaia, or


bearded vulture. For readers


unfamiliar with the story’s setting, it introduces aspects of everyday life in the Punjab, including a glossary of Hindi and Punjabi words, and cultural and spiritual practices,


also including the


beliefs and reverence


for ancestors and a pilgrimage to the temple at the source of the Ganges. It also tackles some headline social issues. Towards the end of the novel, Asha and Jeevan are kidnapped and forced to work with other children picking metal on a vast rubbish tip in the city; and they discover,


too,


to the excavation of Tutankhamen, a circus to WWII. Here we are back with that World War II, a setting which featured in Letters from a Lighthouse. Indeed young fans will be delighted to meet characters they can recognise. However, When We Were Warriors is not a single novel. Rather it is a linked series of three novellas. There are three protagonists to enjoy, three situations in which to become involved – but Carroll skilfully links all three in a way which provides a satisfying read. This is not just through the setting – the south-west coast of England facing the potential threat of invasion and enduring bombing raids., but also through characters, not least, Eddie the GI stationed in the area; a clever device. The situations are domestic, requiring believable


involvement


and action on the part of the young people. Carroll’s writing style is easy and contemporary without being anachronistic, attitudes are faithfully represented and there details


are many that will both surprise and


inform. Though many young readers will easily finish this book perhaps in one sitting, for others the organisation into three separate stories will provide an added attraction. FH


that the factory where Asha’s father was working has been destroyed in a fire. There’s perhaps a little too much going on, which is maybe not surprising in a first novel. Asha’s strength of character is unnecessarily underlined at times. And the neat ending will possibly not come as too much of a surprise. Nevertheless, it’s a story that engages and thrills. CB


Now or Never-a Dunkirk Story HHHHH


Bali Rai, 978-1-407191-36-2, Scholastic, 203pp, £6.99 pbk


This absorbing and revealing book is part of the Voices series, published to give a platform to those unsung heroes from the past whose authentic stories have not been fully told. Now or Never explains the role


of the


Royal Indian Army Service Corps, sixteen


hundred men who,in the


Second World War, with mules and trained mulateers supplied food and equipment to British troops across France. Although their


role in the


war has been acknowledged in some prestigious quarters-for example, the Imperial War Museum-the media has not been widely used to acknowledge the vital role these men and their animals played. Fifteen year old Fazal Khan is proud


to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and support the British Army in his role as mulateer but his enthusiam and naivete are gradually worn away as the war progresses and the advancing German troops eventually force the British into retreat to Dunkirk. The


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