BfK 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


Yorkshire village, the strikingly named Halo Moon is making a friend of Pedro Ortega, the new boy across the road, and together they study the stars at night and go for daytime walks on the moors. Back in Ethiopia, Ageze’s


device reveals that the


next catastrophe is due to happen in Yorkshire. It’s further away than usual, but he determines to make the long journey to warn those who are in the path of destruction.


Arriving


in Pockley, worse for wear from the journey, and befriended


by Halo


and Pedro, he then has to convince everyone to take him seriously. He does, and the village is evacuated, but then the children somehow find themselves in the very eye of the storm. A preface bravely declares that, while such a story might be unbelievable and impossible, it did all happen. I doubt whether any reader will believe that for a minute, but Cohen tells her story in the right spare urgent prose and, like buried treasure, a secret cave behind a waterfall, and the ability to see the future, it’s a fiction that children might find seductive. CB


The Unworry Book HHHH


Alice James, ill. Stephen Moncrief, Dr Angharad Rudkin, Usborne Publishing, 96pp, 978 1 4749 5077 0, £8.99 hbk


The first point to make is that a child using this book must have his or her own copy. There are lots and lots of suggestions of things to do that mean writing IN the book, so this is not one for the library! It is sad that these days so many children need books about worrying, but so it is, and they are proliferating. This is a good one with some simple scientific explanations of how the body and the brain respond to worries and concerns and how to deal with them. A small black and white cuddly character is on every page and provides reassurance and advice, and the constant interspersed text and pictures are clear and concise. There are so many things to do, such as drawing patterns, dancing and being active, writing limericks or stories, scribbling, mindfulness,


a diary, yoga exercises, joining the dots, brain puzzles, origami, etc.


keeping It


is all very positive and should provide many helpful hints and encouraging ideas for young minds, particularly those who worry excessively. ES


A Story About Cancer (With a Happy Ending)


HHHHH


India Desjardins, ill. Marianne Ferrer, Solange Ouellet (Translator), Frances Lincoln, 96pp, 978 1786 03218 8, £9.99 hbk


This story was written because a ten year old girl asked the author why no one seemed to write a cancer story with a happy ending. In the long- drawn-out treatment that is usual


for children with cancer of any kind, it would be simplistic to say that having a ‘happy ending’ is the be- all and end-all of their needs, but it is certainly the strongest and best outcome. The fifteen-year-old girl in this story explains the five years of her life since she was diagnosed, and it hasn’t been an easy journey: the pain associated with her chemo; the problems she has had with her parents because they try too hard to be supportive and often get it wrong; her guilt feelings about her sister who doesn’t get enough attention; her friend, Maxine, who has died from the Leukaemia she herself suffers from and whom she misses very much; how she longs to be treated as ‘normal’ and how she meets Victor, her boyfriend, who is the only one who ‘gets it’. At the beginning of the story, she and her parents are walking to the appointment with the specialist who will tell her if her condition is cured or, transversely, if the illness is going to kill her.


Beautifully written,


with illustrations showing the girl to be a grey shadow of herself, the only colour being of others around her, until the end when she and Victor fall into each other’s arms and she is able to tell him she is cured and her colour and vibrancy return. It’s a moving story with much about what it feels like both inside and out when one is experiencing cancer, and it should be on every children’s or teenage ward that deals with young people


any form.


diagnosed with cancer of The teenage romance is


important because it gives reason for hope, and girls particularly will respond to that aspect. An unusual and very beautiful production. ES


Chester Parsons is not a Gorilla


HHHH


Martin Ford, Faber and Faber, 324pp, 9780571332236, £6.99 pbk


This is a very original quest story. Chester Parsons has lost his body and his quest is to get it back before he forgets himself. Like all burgeoning actors, Chester loves pretending to be someone else, but, when he visits a therapist to help with his stagefright, he discovers he has the power to do much more than just pretend! Chester is a mind-jumper, and has


the power to enter the body of any other person or animal. With this extraordinary ability realised, Chester and his sister agree that the best thing to do is sign up with a production company and make films of Chester’s antics. This proves very successful, and videos


of Chester controlling


the bodies of squirrels and badgers, and possessing badgers and horses, and making all kinds of animals do all kinds of crazy things, are instant social media hits. However, Chester soon loses control when, while inside the mind of a gorilla, someone steals his body.


28 Books for Keeps No.235 March 2019


This cues up a race-against-time


adventure, as Chester charges around town inside the body of a giant gorilla, trying to track down his body before he is stuck inside his furry prison forever! Chester teams up with a collection of hilarious helpers, who provide comic relief. A gormless, cocky, cockney detective


is accompanied by an


extremely exuberant TV producer and several very, very weird physic, mind-bender types, and all of them have their own motivation for helping Chester (or not!). Though there is lots of fun to be had


from accompanying a young boy as he sees life through the eyes of animals, and of his older sister (gross!), the most enjoyment comes from the strong sense of jeopardy as Chester’s search


secrets, with implications far beyond just himself. The


uncovers increasingly dark book confronts


moral questions about what makes us who we are, in an accessible and provocative way, and would be a great one for children to share with one another or with adults. Chester Parsons is not a gorilla - or isn’t he? SD


The Great Animal Escapade HHHH


Jane Kerr, Chicken House, 289pp, 9781911490340, £6.99 pbk


With a splendid cover and a good title, this is an old fashioned adventure story.


first book, The Elephant Thief, and features


majestic elephant


It follows on from the author’s the


Maharajah of that book, together with Danny who trains him. Danny has been taken in by the Jamesons who run the Belle Vue Zoo in Manchester in the 1900s, and his performance as Prince Dandip with Maharajah forms the centrepiece of an extravaganza complete with fireworks which Mr.Jameson hopes will bring in a great crowd of people and secure his zoo.


But there are people who


have other plans for the land and this is complicated by the local vicar who objects to the zoo being open on Sundays. For Danny life gets even worse when a man appears purporting to be his long lost father. This all sets the scene for


false


accusations, barrels of gunpowder, and an elephant losing half a tusk. The reader feels for Danny having


his emotions played with, whether he can he believe Mr. Larkin, and then finding it so difficult to talk to the Jamesons about it, not to mention trying to be friends with Hetty, the vet’s daughter, whose fierce aunt will not let him see her. Danny is a plucky hero, and the scenes in the story where he gets the elephant to roll the barrels of gunpowder down the slope into the lake and thus save thousands of lives are very excitingly told. There is plenty


of local and historical


atmosphere to make the story really credible and the plot moves along at a satisfying pace. The notes at the end fill in where some of the story has a basis of fact, and the whole is tied up neatly possibly leading to a third book. Boys and girls of 9+ will


really enjoy this. It stands alone from the first story, which this reader will certainly go back to in order to find out where Danny and Maharajah’s story begins. JF


Unstoppable HHH


Dan Freedman, David Fickling, 300pp, 9781788450492, £10.99 hbk


Author Johnson


of the best-selling football


series,


Jamie Dan


Freedman once again makes soccer the cornerstone of his latest novel, and does so extremely well. But off the


two-dimensional and their dialogue has none of the salty


pitch, his characters remain rhythms of


actual street speech so well caught by Angie Thomas in The Hate U Give and On the Come Up. The story revolves around mixed-race fourteen- year-old Roxy and her twin brother Kaine, much the darker of the two. Once close, they now get on badly, with their unemployed Dad regularly making things worse. And life on their London estate contains extra dangers, with Kaine getting too close to gang warfare for anyone’s comfort, least of all his own. But with such a firm authorial hand on the tiller, readers will soon realise that everything is going to work out well in the end, with once oppressive family debts somehow paid and minor characters happily married off while tricky ones suddenly turn into selfless supporters of others. Serviceably written, avoiding highlights as well as low moments, this is fiction at its blandest. It is only when we get to sport, either when Kaine is playing football or when his sister is fighting to win on the


tennis court, that


things start taking off. Not so much a fictional victory then, but certainly a draw, hard fought to the end. NT


The Cosmic Atlas of Alfie Fleet HHH


Martin Howard, ill. Chris Mould, Oxford University Press, 309pp, 978 0 19 276750, £6.99 pbk


In this comic adventure, Alfie Fleet is desperate to earn some cash so that he can buy his poor mum a new foot spa...and maybe afford something other than fish head soup for dinner for a change. Answering an ambiguous ad, he begins working for Professor


Bowell-Mouvemont, and


soon realises that the job will involve an awful lot more than the lifting and moving that had been described. The Professor, it turns out, is the last remaining member of a unique and ancient


organisation: The Unusual


Cartography Club. He is custodian of a stone circle that is a portal to millions of worlds all over the universe. This is a wonderful opportunity for Alfie to broaden his horizons, and also an excellent source of comedy and adventure, as the unlikely duo hop from world to world, taking in the local sights and running into all sorts of unexpected trouble. Planet Maureen, and


Brains-In-Jars- World Outlandish, all host


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