BfK 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


Determined to make amends Rayne decides to follow her mother to the outside for the answers she needs and she and Tom escape down the tunnel with the broken spell book. Once outside Rayne breathes the


spell of finding and they are met by a talking fox, Frank, who Rayne ends up wearing as scarf as he has no bones. Frank leads them into a perilous adventure


but far worse danger


awaits them at their destination in the form of evil nemesis, Mali who turns out to be Maleri’s twin sister. There are twists and turns aplenty readers and the world


to satisfy


building is well-crafted and inventive. I especially loved the


living in the spell book and nipping prying hands.


The story follows


familiar tropes but with a freshness and charm although somehow it didn’t quite rise above the sum of its parts. The characters are plucky and believable: sceptical Tom with his cheeky sense of humour, Rayne, insecure yet a little too trusting and the loveable and roguish Frank. JC


Tulip Taylor HHHH


Anna Mainwaring, Firefly, 250pp, 9781910080979, £7.99 pbk


Tulip Taylor is a hit on YouTube with her vlog about makeup and lifestyle. It is her way of feeling in control of her life, given that she has a very untypical home, including a mother who is trying to make a living by exploiting social media. When Harvey, the son of a TV personality and survival expert, comes to her school there is an immediate tension and he seems to be very critical of her life style. However when the opportunity to take part in a reality television show occurs, Tulip finds herself agreeing to take part; unfortunately Harvey is also part of the group. How will Tulip cope with the outward bound life and what about her relationship with Harvey? This is a truly delightful story, with a


heroine that really grows on you. At the beginning there is a perception that she is somewhat shallow, but as we see the circumstances of her life we realise that Tulip is coping with a huge number of pressures and is still able to be positive and be a good friend to those around her.


Her mother is


fixated on making a living through her blog and is willing to promote almost anything to do so; while her younger brother and sister have some issues about being a unicorn and a Disney princess among others. Harvey also has problems, with a famous father and a somewhat aggressive brother. The author shows clearly the kind of stresses that young people feel they have in their lives and also the impact that


social media and television


can have on the way that they are perceived.


The idea of ‘celebrity’ has


been with us for quite a long time but with the introduction of media such as YouTube, Instagram and SnapChat


grotesques


it has become increasingly easy for young people to achieve this status. The problem comes in how they are able to deal with the pressures of this fame, because in the modern world celebrity has become a two- way street, where the audience can comment on what they see and those comments are not always positive. Despite the very serious topics that are covered in this story it is still light and full of hope and a good deal of humour; I definitely think it is a brilliant summer read even for adults, as it gives a superb insight into the modern world of teens. MP


Secret Suffragette HHHH


Barbara Mitchelhill, Andersen, 237pp, 9781783448333, £6.99, pbk


The jaunty picture on the cover of a young red-haired


suffragette does


somewhat belie the contents of this story, telling of a poor girl, only 12 years old, who becomes a Suffragette. Daisy is the eldest of four children


of a family who have hit on hard times. Their mother works in the shirt factory and the twin boys are looked after by a childminder until Daisy and her sister Lily who is six, come home from school. The family seem to live on bread and cheese, and sometimes some milk. This is grinding poverty indeed. Mum is handed a leaflet about the Suffragette movement and this sparks Daisy’s interest, and does lead to some life changing events. Daisy’s father believes women are very definitely second class citizens and this nearly leads to the breakup of


the Suffragettes come to


family. Fortunately kind the


rescue


but not before some heart breaking scenes.


The plight of women at this time, belonging to their husbands without any say in their lives is very clearly portrayed and this Daisy sees and wants to act. An interesting aspect brought out by this story is that Suffragettes not only wanted the vote but equal opportunity and pay for women, and Eliza’s plight working in the jam factory brings this to the fore. Daisy is a girl old beyond her years, willing to fight for what she thinks is right but also seeing the plight of her family and the need to be together. Even when her father is at his worst she does not stop loving him, so this is a many layered novel which some younger readers might find upsetting. The small but telling pictures of life, sleeping four to a bed, two each end with Great Aunt Maude’s smelly feet in the face will make girls smile, but must have been truly awful! JF


Malamander HHHH


Thomas Taylor, Walker, 302pp, 9781406386288, £7.99 pbk


A mixture of magical realism and Gothic adventure, this amiable novel


zips along at a good pace 28 Books for Keeps No.237 July 2019


until its needlessly spun-out ending. Told from the perspective of mild- mannered


twelve-year-old


Augustus Herbert


Lemon, in charge of the Lost and Found department at Eerie-on-Sea’s Grand Nautilus Hotel, it tells how he and his new friend Violet of the same age solve the mystery of the legendary sea monster known to all locals as the Malamander. They also discover what happened to Violet’s parents, once also on the same track but now disappeared. And there is Sebastian Eels to deal with as well, a sinister writer with a hidden agenda, not


to mention the ghostly, water-


logged figure of Captain Kraken, sporting a boathook as substitute for a missing hand. All great fun, from a writer with a


good turn of phrase and an original take on what could otherwise be fairly well-worn material. Previously the illustrator for the first Harry Potter book jacket, Taylor includes witty pen and ink illustrations before each chapter anticipating and then fleshing out details to come. There is also an opening map of Eerie-on-Sea, featuring among other details the Whelk and Walrus Pub, the Church of St. Dismal and Dolphin main square. The author has drawn some of the inspiration for all this from Hastings, his nearest town; the rest comes from a lively and cheerful imagination well worth sampling. NT


is barricaded sanctimonious


into the


lighthouse so that he cannot buy any more bottles, and has supplies brought to him. Lampie is taken by the


teacher, Miss


Amelia, to live and work for seven years to pay for the loss of the ship, at its owner’s home, the Black House, where there is said to be a monster. She has to work hard,


scrubbing


floors for Martha the housekeeper, but she befriends her son, the simple- minded Lenny, and discovers that the ‘monster’ is a boy, Edward, whose mother was a mermaid. (This is not a spoiler- there is a mer-boy on the cover.)


Spurned by his father, the


Admiral, who rarely visits the house, Edward has been trying to please him by practicing walking, but of course it’s very difficult for him. There are elements of The Secret


Garden here, as Lampie coaxes the frustrated boy out of his room and becomes his friend, and their mutual support means that he teaches her to read, and she enables him to find his talent for swimming. She takes him out of the house in a little cart, but almost loses him to a sideshow of ‘freaks’ which includes a mermaid. When the owner, the Admiral, comes home after a long time at sea, he finds a very different household, but is not pleased with the lack of walking progress and sacks them all. Fortunately, all is resolved to everyone’s people,


satisfaction, and some including some


of the


‘freaks’, begin completely different lives. (Fans of the film The Greatest Show will appreciate the difference in their situation). Freedom in various ways for different


people and humour


much a theme, but there is tension, excitement


is very in the


telling, not to mention mermaids and friendly pirates. This is great story, which draws the reader in, and the characters are a delight, especially Lampie with all her credible strengths and weaknesses. Annet Schaap is well-known in the


Lampie and the children of the sea


HHHH


Annet Schaap (author and illustrator), translated by Laura Watkinson, Pushkin 334pp., 9781782692188, £10.99


Lampie’s real name is Emilia, but she lives in a lighthouse with her father, Augustus, who has lost part of one leg and is often drunk, so she climbs the stairs to light the lamp every night, except one night when she has forgotten to buy matches…That night, a ship crashes into the rocks, and there is trouble. Her father accepts the blame, but the punishment is harsh for both, as they are separated.


Netherlands for her illustrations, and Pushkin, a publisher which regularly finds the best books in translation, has picked up this her debut novel, which has already won 4 prizes in the Netherlands and Flanders in the original language. This is not at all surprising, and one can only hope that there will be more to come. DB


Lost HHHH


Eve Ainsworth,Scholastic, 264pp, 978-1-407185-44-6, £6.99, pbk


Alfie is lost. His mother has died of cancer, he has abandoned his promising juvenile football career his father is locked in his own guilt and grief, unable to communicate on any significant level with his son. Alfie has cut himself off from all sources of emotional nourishment to deal with his own grief and guilt-guilt at playing a vital match while his mother lay dying in the hospice. He cannot face the pity of his friends and while he longs for everything to be back


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32