reviews 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


much as it was in many small rural communities, but here the dream of a united Ireland amid the poverty dominates lives. Colm’s love for the man he believes is his father and his desire for his approval, is palpable and the reader feels for him when his world is torn apart, but the story ends with hope for his friendship with Alice and the future which awaits him. I was very much reminded of Geoffrey Trease’s


story about Garibaldi in


1848 A Thousand for Sicily which also brings a revolutionary movement vividly to life. JF


The List of Things That Will Not Change


HH


Rebecca Stead, Andersen, 216pp, 9781783449378 £12.99 hbk


who believes her dead. This historical adventure focuses on the popularity of mediums in Victorian society. The story switches between the three children whose fate is so intertwined with that of their captor. They know she does not have the power to sustain keeping all three prisoners indefinitely – they need to escape. Can they escape her clutches without risking their own lives? This is an exciting story, a page turner with a satisfying ending for all three main characters and a suitable fate for their captor. DB


Read our Q&A interview with Jenni Spangler.


The Sound of Freedom HHHH


Anne Murtagh, O’Brien Press, 236pp., 9781788491259, £7.99 pbk


The passion for Irish Independence runs through this story of an Irish teenager in 1919 and does rise off the pages to make the reader feel as if they were present. Colm Conneely’s father is heavily involved in gunrunning and other illicit activities, and has regular visits from the police. Colm himself is desperate to join the Volunteers but is not quite 14, which is when his father has promised to speak to him about it. In the meantime Colm has a dream of going to America with his fiddle to earn his living. He does become involved in a robbery and also a big illegal meeting where his dream is realised, but a visitor to his home shakes all his belief in his background. This is a stirring tale, very much told


from one side with the British seen to be the enemy much as they were, and still are seen to be in some parts of Ireland. But the feel of a movement is there and the emotion that means. The reader can feel why Colm is desperate


to be a Volunteer, as


everyone he knows, apart from Mrs. Dobbs in the Post Office is involved. Anne Murtagh paints a picture of rural Ireland, with small farms and villages, peat fires and tea always on the go,


Written in the first person, starting with the voice of an eight-year-old girl, it is never clear what level of audience this novel is addressing. The issues and problems it addresses are too old for young readers but too oppressively sweetened for older ones. In so much contemporary junior fiction the more unsuccessful any former marriage might appear to have been the more frequent tend to be the protestations of parental love for those children left behind. This is true of this novel, where expressions of


love to and


from a variety of quarters rain down so persistently as to risk becoming merely repetitive. Bea, its cute young heroine, does


learn some important lessons from sessions with her therapist Miriam of the type that benefits her and could possibly do the same for some of her readers. Sharing her life between mother and father, she goes to Miriam because of her occasional aggression to other


children, particularly She also so


in one past incident which she thinks might have led to terrible consequences.


suffers


from continuous, painful eczema. All this while she has to establish a new relationship with Sonia, the same age-daughter of the man who has now moved in with Bea’s coming-out gay restaurant-owning father. Sonia is less keen on possessing a new step-sister than is Bea, and their growing relationship is handled well. All characters are regularly fortified by the wonderful food always present in the house, described in enough succulent detail for readers to wish they could get some of it too. But little else is as memorable in these pages. Rebecca Stead has previously won the Newbery Medal and the Guardian Prize. Here’s hoping for a return to form in any future story. NT


Hope against Hope HHHH


Sheena Wilkinson, Little Island, 222pp, 9781912417421, £6.99, pbk


The bitterness between the Catholics and the Protestants in Ireland in 1921


is laid bare in this story of Polly who runs away from her home on the border after her brother beats her, to follow her cousin to Helen‘s Hope in Belfast. Polly finds a community of young women from all backgrounds living together in harmony and trying very hard not to take part in sectarian activities. Belfast is riven with hatred as the elections for the new Northern Ireland Government are taking place. Polly’s hot headedness results in an early confrontation and a subsequent encounter unfortunate


leads indirectly death to the of a wounded


veteran soldier in a fire. This makes Polly confront her relationship with her brother suffering what we would now call PTSD. Sheena Wilkinson deserves praise


for taking on this very difficult subject matter, and through the plot paints a picture of a very divided society, riven with extremism and total


inability


to see the other side. Polly herself with her wild hair and her devotion to her easily manipulated cousin, is beautifully follows her


drawn, and the growth into a strong


young woman, gradually beginning to understand the actions of Ivy the bully. Her encounter with Patrick a wounded veteran, down on his luck, prompts her to comprehend


reader


trip Scoob jumped at the chance. This was not to be a trip purely for pleasure, however, but a chance for his Grandmother to revisit her past and attempt


to educate Scoob in


the history of racism. The issue is further highlighted by the fact that Scoob is black and his grandmother white. Reminders of this punctuate the


narrative - the hostile looks


directed at Scoob wherever they stop to eat or shop - and the Travellers’ Green Book which Grandma and her black husband used to tell them where it would be safe to stay when they were travelling . The reader is educated, too, seeing the landscape - political and emotional - through his grandmother’s memories. Mysteries


are threaded through


the story - the reason for his late Grandfather’s Grandmother’s to his father’s collection


prison sentence, his refusal


phone of expensive the jewellery


which Scoob finds in the Winnebago. There is repetition, too, in situation and response and some difficulties with American


colloquialisms and the


actions of her brother. The ending is a little pat and lacks the rawness of the story and does not ring entirely true. The book is very definitely for the upper end of this age range. JF


language but the narrative moves along quickly and the action does not let up - a bonus for younger readers. The book ends on a note of high emotion, but also one of positivity - Scoob and his father make a new start in their relationship. The mysteries of the story are solved, too and Scoob’s mother, who left when he was a baby, wants to make contact again. This makes the ending feel rather crowded and almost


breathlessly rushed –


almost like a race to the finish to tie all ends together. VR


The Infinite HHHH


Patience Agbabi, Canongate, 237pp, 9781786899651, £6.99 pbk


Elle is aged twelve, but also only three since she was born in a Leap Year. A brilliant runner, she also has Special Needs, at school alternating between


feeling tongue-tied and


other moments when she says too much. Her best friend Ben is even more disturbed, well into the autistic spectrum. They are both ceaselessly mocked


by one particularly


unpleasant pupil but their teachers are encouraging and sympathetic. Thus the background


Clean Getaway HHH


Nic Stone, Knights Of, 214pp, 978-1-9133110-2-5, £6.99, pbk


William ‘Scoob’ Lamar is in trouble at school. His friend Shenice’s younger brother is disabled and Bryce, the school bully targets him relentlessly. When Scoob comes to his defence and fights Bryce he is blamed for the


fracas and suspended. His


father imposed a lockdown so when his beloved elderly and eccentric Grandmother turned up in a brand- new Winnebago and announced that


they were going on a road to what


becomes an increasingly rich brew. Because of her birth Elle has the ability to leap forwards and back again in time. There are other Leapers who can do this too and they all congregate at a Time Squad Centre twenty eight years into the future. But things there are not as they should be.


A mysterious teacher calling


himself Le Temps is pursuing policies and practices outlawed in a future climate-change aware society. And guess what – he is in fact the bully who once made Elle’s life unhappy at school now grown into malevolent middle age. The only way she can stop him is to return to her original time and try to make friends with this one boy who so has it in for her.


Books for Keeps No.242 May 2020 29


to respond calls,


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