reviews


Indian soldiers encountered a degree of prejudice and hostility from their British counterparts and,in addition, during the retreat, had to abandon their beloved mules as they could no longer be fed. Fazal tries to stay loyal to the British but his close friend Mushtaq repeatedly reminds him that the war is not their war, Britain not their country and many British soldiers do not regard the Indian troops as their equals. Nowhere is this more apparent


than on the beaches at Dunkirk, when, amidst the wholesale slaughter of the troops as they await rescue comes the order from High Command that all non-white troops should be left behind in the rescue operation. One officer, Captain John Ashdown, father of


the politician Paddy Ashdown,


refused to obey this order, stating that it would be morally wrong to leave the Indian troops behind. He remained true to his priciples and saw to it that as many men as possible from every creed were saved. He was rewarded for his efforts with a court martial, which resulted in him being stripped of his rank and his career ended. This simply written and moving


book ends with a short tribute to Captain John Ashdown. Like Fazal, he believed in duty and, like Fazal, he saw that the men who he served under were too often flawed leaders. VR


Ghost HHHH


Jason Reynolds, Knights of, 224pp, 978 1 9996425 2 5, £6.99


Following the UK publication of his remarkable verse novel, A Long Way Down, last year, it is good to welcome an earlier novel by this multiple award winning author. This one was first published in the States in 2016 and is the first of his “Run” (US title “Track”) series of four books that has featured in the New York Times best seller lists. Each book is written from the point of view of a member of The Defenders youth running team, kids who have been brought together from different city backgrounds to take their place on the team, exploring what the experience means for each of them. This is the story of Castle Cranshaw, aka Ghost, a boy whose father has been imprisoned


for


domestic violence, including shooting at Castle and his mother.


Ghost is


haunted by the memory of his father and his own life is punctuated by “altercations” that lead to frequent school


suspensions. It’s an old


American story of how sports can transform troubled youth, but it’s an excellent version for pre-teens, with a convincing first person narrative that reveals Ghost in all his contradictions and charts his changing perceptions of himself, his community and his running mates. It’s told with economy, humour and understanding of the pressures of growing up, especially growing up poor in America. CB


10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued She Wolf


HHH


Dan Smith, Chicken House, 320pp, 978 1 910655 93 1, £6.99 pbk


This is an atmospheric but somewhat bleak tale set in set in the chilly Northern lands in the time of the Viking invasions of Britain. The story opens with the cruel murder of Ylva’s mother and as we discover later her dog too.


Ylva believes she must


avenge her mother’s death as is the Viking way. She is convinced a three- fingered man is the killer as she saw him leave the trading post hut her mother had entered. Ylva is an awkward and intense


child and finds human contact difficult – she lives in her head, listening to her dog’s wise counsel and telling the old Norse tales she learned from her mother to comfort herself. We might think now she is borderline autistic.


So, when a kind stranger,


Cathryn, appears together with a boy, Bron, who can only communicate in sign language and offers Ylva help, she brushes them off determined to manage on her own. But after a near- death encounter with slavers Ylva reluctantly agrees it would be safer to travel with Cathryn. Although Ylva is highly suspicious of Cathryn’s motives she gradually begins to trust her as Cathryn is unusually sympathetic to her needs. Along the journey to find the three-


fingered man they encounter fierce warriors, wolves and a very dangerous bear.


Bron and Cathyrn are forced


to split up to confuse their pursuers and when Ylva decides to take in an orphaned wolf cub they argue when Cathyrn explains that the cub is a wild animal and not a dog.


island is a prison, a further one a deserted cemetery; and, over all the isles, the weight of a dead woman’s curse. The Widdershins sisters are the particular victims of this curse, for any Widdershins daughter that seeks


to leave Crowstone head. Adventurous faces


certain death beyond its perimeter to the sounds of crows screeching in her


middle


daughter Betty would have found any restriction on her aspiration onerous, let alone one so draconian. So this is the tale of how Betty, teenage Fliss, and little Charlie risk everything to lift


the curse. Luckily, they begin Cathryn falls


on her knife and is badly wounded but Ylva manages to get her to a cave where she tends her and is with her when she dies. Ylva finally faces the three -fingered man but realises too late that he is not what she thought he was and that her preconceptions may not always be right.


Thankfully, Ylva


and Bron do reach a place of safety and there is happy ending of sorts. This is a page-turning story: desolate landscape described


the is beautifully throughout and Ylva is


a strong and brave heroine but the constant threat of danger and the unrelenting


hardship make this a


discomforting read and it is at times hard to warm to it. There is a helpful glossary at the back of the book and some information on Viking life. This could be good novel for class discussion. JC


A Pinch of Magic HHHH


Michelle Harrison, Simon and Schuster, 368 pp, 978 1 4711 2429 7, £6.99, pbk.


Crowstone is one of Isles:


the Sorrow places of shadows, marsh and sea mists. The nearest other


with the help of their tavern keeping Gran, who presents them each with a magic heirloom: a carpet bag for Charlie that can take them anywhere instantly; a mirror for Fliss in which she can “face time” anyone wherever they are; and a set of Russian dolls for Betty herself whose properties can confer invisibility, as long as you remember


the proper


This is a fine piece of dark fantasy, in which, as in the tales that are its models, the human capacity for cruelty, sometimes visited by children on children, or sister on sister, is exceeded only by the strength


of


love. Michelle Harrison maintains the sense of doom, lightens it with flashes of humour, and creates a careering plot


and interesting characters,


gradually unravelling the secrets of the curse, as the sisters lurch from one perilous situation to another.


It’s


an ingenious and compelling tale. CB Scavengers


HHHHH


Darren Simpson, Usborne, 978-1-4749-5602-4, 322pp, £6.99


This book has all the hallmarks of a tale from a dystopian world future, with a boy called Landfill and Babagoo-the man who looks after him-living in the most primitive of conditions and scavenging what they can from their environment in order to survive. The irony of this scenario is that, unbeknown to Landfill they are living in present time but hidden from the otside world, which Babagoo fears as a result of its corruption and cruelty. Landfill is named for the place


where Babagoo found him, having been cast aside there by his mother and he is subject to Babagoo’s rules about how to keep safe and preserve the status quo. The pair have developed their own idiosyncratic


language variations-


largely, though not exclusively onomatopoeic-and terminology, which give their conversations both interest and opaqueness. Their relationship shifts and changes but there seems to be real regard between them, woven through with Babagoo’s shifting parent/teacher/bully persona. Babagoo constantly drills Landfill in his rules, which are many and particular. However necessary and sensible rules might be, however, they are there to be broken and Landfill, eager to see The Outside beyond their own world of


Hinterland, ventures tentatively


and fearfully into the unknown. This has devastating consequences when Dawn, an Outsider, comes into Hinterland using Landfill’s exit route from it. She is initially curious and then alarmed at Landfill’s lack of knowledge and understanding of her world and alerts the authorities to his situation. This-and Babagoo’s illness and


procedure.


subsequent death-mark the end of the Hinterland and the beginning of exposure to life on The Outside. Landfill gets his first taste of this when he tries to go and buy medicine to treat the animal bite which Babagoo received which has become infected. We see our world through Landfill’s eyes and it is a source of shame to us. Greed, violence and a disregard for one’s fellow man prevail and Landfill-naive, sheltered, a lover of all living things-is at a loss to understand it. Yet, through Dawn, he has come to appreciate music and when, after the destruction of Hinterland, he is searching for food he follows its sound. He witnesses a baby being rescued from a tip site-rather


too


neat an echo of his own fate?- and recognises


a spark of humanity


within the rescuers and the book ends with his nervous resolve to take his chances in this new and startling environment. VR


Halo Moon HHH


Sharon Cohen, Quercus, 340pp, 9781786540102, £6.99, pbk


Sharon parallel


Cohen’s narratives come together


story features that


eventually in an apocalyptic


event on the Yorkshire moors. One strand is the story of Ageze, an Ethiopian boy who excavates three mysterious discs, associated metal pointers and a brass key from the sand near an ancient church. The discs are covered in symbols that Ageze learns to read with the help of an old scholar. When the discs and the pointers are assembled into a single unit, and the key is turned, Ageze discovers the instrument (the Portendo device) has the uncanny ability to foresee impending disasters, like a nearby burst water main and factory fire. Meanwhile, in a small


Books for Keeps No.235 March 2019 27


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