reviews 8 – 10 Junior/Middle continued New Talent The Secret Starling HHH


Judith Eagle. Illustrated by Kim Geyer, Faber and Faber, 272pp, 978-0-571-34630-1, £6.99 pbk


Clara is alone. Her home a dilapidated mansion on the Yorkshire Moors, her life governed by thy rules of her Uncle. Then her Uncle abandons her. For the first time Clara experiences freedom – and when Peter turns up on the doorstep, friendship. But why is Braithwaite Manor being sold? What are the secrets that are being kept from Clara? Who was her mother? With Peter and the children from the village Clara sets out to discover the truth. The epithet


“old fashioned” is


being applied more and more to new books, especially for this age range. What does it imply when it is at its best? A real sense of story, characters that have appeal, a plot that inspires belief and is rooted in a real domestic world but allows for


that sprinkle of fantasy that


everyone wants, a satisfying reading experience for confident readers - all of these should be part of the package. This debut novel certainly earns this description. Julia Eagle cleverly sets her narrative in the 1970s – a period that is sufficiently historical


protagonists


to allow her young plenty


of freedom


unfettered by modern gadgets such as the mobile phone or the internet but one that is near enough in time to feel contemporary. Her influences are clear – The Secret Garden is


and, in doing so, remind readers of all the crucial community benefits of libraries: places to meet friends, share ideas, learn new things and, most of all, to exercise our imaginations. It is joyful to read about children who take such pleasure in sharing books - they are not even surprised to learn that magic is real, such is their faith in the stories they have read. The book is also a celebration of individuality. The unique personality of each character is very easy to see, and it is crystal clear that all of us have the potential to be whatever we want to be and to achieve great things. Age is no barrier to standing up for what is right, gender doesn’t define one’s interests, and being bored doesn’t mean you can’t be a wizard! These positive messages for young


readers are successfully delivered, and the story has ample excitement to


maintain children’s attention.


However, an increase in tension and genuine drama would improve the book still further, as the presence of Faith and her confident wizardry means


that readers will never


accompanied by a robot to carry their shopping and keep them informed of social media updates. It is a strange and unusual world


for Boot, but


is not difficult to imagine, and is a convincing evolution from our current addiction to mobile devices. It is not just the world around him


that has changed. Boot feels different and is aware that having feelings at all makes him rather unusual. As he sets off to find Beth, Boot realises that he is in danger. In danger of capture and destruction by the luddite at the local scrap store, who is determined to rid his town of job-stealing robots. He is going to need some help. Robots that help Boot, including


one, the novels of Noel Streatfeild another – and from these she takes that ability to create characters the reader can care about, lively children in a story that instantly makes one want to turn the page. Her style is as confident, full of a rich vocabulary and vivid descriptions that rely, not on extended paragraphs, but on the well-chosen the text the


action


adjective that brings to life. Dialogue moves along


briskly adding


colour and character, engaging the attention. This is a really satisfying book for young confident readers; certainly the


villains are nasty


and coincidence is a useful tool to ensure the happy ending but again the author shows great skill in persuading her


audience to


suspend any disbelief and enjoy her story. This is a writer to watch. FH


really fear for the children’s safety. Nevertheless,


The Dragon in


Boot: Small Robot Big Adventure


HHHH


Shane Hegarty, illus. Ben Mantle, Hodder Children’s Books, 240pp, 9781444949360, £6.99, pbk


Boot is the story of a robot’s quest to restore his memories by finding his owner, Beth. It’s a simple enough premise, but Boot’s journey is one of discovery, and he finds so much more than he was searching for. When Boot wakes up, he has only


a few short memories on his hard drive, and these are his only clues for finding his owner and re-establishing their


friendship. He notices that,


since he was switched off, his world has changed. Humans have adopted robots of all shapes and sizes to help them with all manner of tasks. There are robotic fridges and fire extinguishers and everybody


is the


Library is good fun and is the perfect thing to read on a bean bag in the corner of a bustling local library. SD


the rough and rusty Noke, and the elegant Red, also seem different to the other robots by whom they are surrounded. They’re not sure what it is about them, but they are aware that they aren’t like all the others, and the friendship they develop is genuine these


and likeable endearing. Through robotic characters,


Hegarty invites readers to consider deep questions about themselves: What does it mean to be alive? What is it that makes us who we are? Does it matter what we look like? These themes, along with the narrative of a toy robot’s quest to find his child owner, evoke very similar feelings to those conjured by the Toy Story films, and readers will recognise a number of similarities. However, the world described by Hegarty is sufficiently vivid and original, with characters that children will easily laugh with and relate to. Accompanied


by engaging and


playful illustrations, the action and excitement throughout, provided


of peril by The


levels and the angry Flint from the scrapyard.


decreasing greatest


jeopardy,


though, is in the question of whether or not Beth will welcome Boot back into her life, and this is the true heart of the book. We are all insecure under the surface (even if our surface is a shiny metal one) and we all long for someone special in our life. Boot’s story reminds us that we are all unique and that we should always be ourselves, even when we can’t quite remember who we are: ‘“I am me,” I said, because I didn’t know how else to explain it.’ SD


Milton the Mighty: The Teeniest Superhero


HH


Emma Read, ill Alex G Griffiths, Chicken House, 243pp, 9781911490814, £6.99


Milton is a false widow spider, and, in this adventure story for children, he shows readers that spiders are capable of


very much more than


spinning webs and creepy crawling. This story is a real celebration of


spiders, and provides a window into their tiny world. There are big ones, tiny ones, elegant ones, ones who are paranoid about the size of their cephalothoraxes... and all of them are


in Boot is sustained with plenty


power


Diver’s Daughter – A Tudor story HHHHH


Patrice Lawrence, Scholastic, 168pp,


978 1 407191 40 9, £6.99, pbk


Eve is a twelve year old girl of East African descent living in sixteenth century Southwark with her mother who had been snatched from her home in Mozambique. When a Thames wherry (ferry boat) taking them to St Bartholemew’s fair capsizes and Eve falls overboard her mother dives in to rescue her. Her skill as a diver is spotted and she is offered the strange opportunity to make her fortune by retrieving treasure from wrecked ships off the South coast. The first step is to find an African diver; Jacques Francis, who had been involved in salvaging treasure from Henry VIII’s flag ship The Mary Rose and is likely to know the site of the other ships. Their journey from London to Southampton in search of him involves many dangers;


they are tricked, robbed


and threatened and find themselves in ever increasing debt. However, they do find some kindness and are offered a temporary home with a widow in return for helping care for her daughter. Eve searches for the former diver, hoping he will enable them to pay off their debts. She finds him living under an assumed name working for an apothecary. However,


Books for Keeps No.237 July 2019 25


a lot more worldly and informed than we might imagine. Milton, the story’s hero, for example, can read and understand human speech - a skill that proves extremely useful when he is threatened with extinction! It is a celebration of humanity as well, though, as Milton and his chums rely upon the kindness of Zoe, the young girl with whom they share a house. The wonderful world of arachnids


is not really appreciated by all human beings, including Zoe’s dad, who screams pathetically every time he even hears a rumour of


spiders.


And there are rumours of spiders - rumours of deadly venomous beasts lurking in British households, everywhere. This drives him to employ the help of BugKILL, who promise to eliminate every minibeast in the house. Milton soon realises that he has


been miscast as a genuine black widow, and that he has brought armageddon to his home and to his friends. Drastic measures are necessary and an adventure begins, which requires him to step out of the shadows and somehow enlist Zoe to help him keep BugKILL at bay. This takes a very long


time


(communication between spiders and humans is not easy) and the pace of the action is more of a snail’s pace than a spider’s scurry. There is some dangerous fun to be had as Milton enlists some deadly comrades, and arachnophiles will enjoy the inclusion of some geeky science details, but Milton the Mighty would benefit from an extra injection of excitement. SD


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