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BfK 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued There is so much plot and counter-


plot in this debut novel it is almost impossible to follow every twist and turn in a narrative that takes twisting and turning to a very testing level. But underneath all this activity there is a striking prose style from a writer previously known as a successfully published


poet. Born of Nigerian


parents but brought up in London, Agbabi is a welcome new voice in junior fiction, well worth savouring. The first instalment in what is going to be The Leap Cycle series,


this


ambitious novel combines respect for the health of the planet with a lively sense of adventure across time. Now for the next! NT


Memoirs of a Basque Cow HHH


Bernado Atxaga, trans. Margaret Jull Costa, Dedalus, 223pp, 978 1 912868 01 8, £9.99 pbk


Memoirs of a Basque Cow must surely be in the running for Title of the Year, though it’s difficult to speculate what expectations it might evoke in young readers’ minds. What they would find is a gentle bovine tale, set among the mountains and valleys of the Spanish Basque


country,


beginning in the late 1930s and then meandering towards the end of the century without much concern for chronology. Not too much happens, though something almost does once or twice. There’s a good deal of chat between a couple of cows, a cow and a diminutive nun, and a cow and her Inner Voice, often with a hint of whimsical humour. Mo, the author of the Memoirs,


is born ‘shortly after the end of the 1936 war’, already equipped with an extensive vocabulary; that’s the Spanish Civil War, of course, and a group of


Republican guerrillas is


holding out in the hills above the valley where much of Mo’s story plays out. At one point, she is caught up in what is almost, but not quite, a bloody trap set for those resistance fighters by Franco’s brutal Nationalists, led by one Green Glasses. Mo can’t understand a word he says (though her friend La Vache qui Rit can and duly translates); all of Green Glasses’ dialogue


is represented by the


single word, ‘Karral’, repeated (and repeated) throughout the text. We never learn what the original means which might be confusing,


even


irritating, to a reader of any age. As is the name La Vache qui Rit. An adult reader may well know that’s the name of the oldest branded French cheese. But the laughing Vache is always red in the ads, while this Vache is proudly black, with not a good word to say for any other cows, especially reds. Many, many times, she repeats, ‘There’s nothing in this world more stupid than a stupid cow!’ As for Mo’s friend laughing – rien. She is fiercely intent


on denying her essential cowness, preferring to pursue her


inner wild boar, ablaze with violence and adventure. Such subject matter may not make too much sense to a young reader. Mo herself is fond of cow-related culled


quotations from Basque


lore; she also loves the stories told by her friend, the tiny nun, Pauline Bernadette, such as the classic tale of ‘The Trojan Cow’. Their first meeting was memorable. One night Pauline Bernadette jumped out of the upper window of her home to escape a serenading suitor, landing by chance on the passing Mo’s back. Together, cow and girl run away to a convent where they live happily for almost ever after. Among the byways of the story (engagingly translated with, I would guess, a sensitivity to the comic spirit of the original), some critics have found philosophical depth. I couldn’t find much more than advice which could be summarised as ‘Be Yourself’ or ‘Accept what Nature has given you and Make the Most of It’. Even so, as a second reading confirmed, an adult reader might find a kind of refreshment in the random musings of this likeable narrator in her remote hills; but the lack of action and the absence of a more linear plot could offer a confusing challenge to the 9-13 age group suggested by Dedalus in their Press Release. GF


Wink HHHH


Rob Harrell, (author and illustrator), Hot Key, 316pp., 978-1-471409-14-1, £7.99 pbk


Rob Harrell draws on his own


experience of eye cancer as an adult patient, to tell the story of Ross, a seventh grader (year 8 in UK) who finds that he has ‘mucoepidermoid carcinoma of the lacrimal gland’, and may lose his sight. This devasting diagnosis has a huge impact, not only on him as he starts really noticing the world around him, but on his Dad and step-Mom Linda, his best friends Abby and Isaac, and the other kids in his school.


Abby is very supportive,


but Isaac just disappears, and that hurts. A partial reprieve comes when a sympathetic consultant finds that eye removal is not necessary and recommends proton radiation. The gruelling 36 sessions, with Ross having to stay absolutely still, are eventually successful, but he has the indignity of having to wear a hat all the time, including in class, to protect his eye from too much light. The story is a little like that in Wonder, but a different same situation. Humour helps – Rob Harrell makes Ross like himself, a talented cartoonist, and he draws Batpig in various situations, but music saves him, as it also saved the author. His radiation technician, Frank, encourages him to move away from the music his Dad and step-Mom like, and get into heavy metal, which certainly helps with the inner rage,


30 Books for Keeps No.242 May 2020


and eventually Ross learns to play the guitar well enough to perform at school. The kids at school also have varying reactions, and Ross hates being known as ‘the cancer kid’. There is a sub-plot involving some unkind cartoons, or memes, about Ross’s situation that circulate among the kids, pinging into their phones, and eventually, via an unexpected source, Ross finds out who is responsible,


and that person is


punished by the Principal. It is all very American, in language and general attitude to life- Ross has a scar on his forehead like a ‘dime slot’, as his older fellow patient Jerry, a great character, notices, and that becomes his own nickname for Ross. They get through a huge amount of McDonald’s fries and cokes, and the time that Frank is able to spend with Ross is evidently far more than would be possible in our NHS (wonderful though it is), but young readers are quite likely to be acclimatised to American ways by now. There is a rather American happy ending, with hugs all round, but it’s not


too sentimental, and it


is indeed good to be positive about treatment for illness. Rob


Harrell’s best friend’s


daughter was diagnosed with cancer of the femur, and she found it so helpful to talk to Ross, who ‘got’ the whole cancer situation and could talk about scar care etc., and the fact that sometimes you just want to scream, that he decided to write this book in hopes of helping other children who are trying to cope with life-threatening illness. The cartoon illustrations of Batpig are fun, just as a 12 year- old might draw, and Rob Harrell’s storytelling is very engaging. Whether or not the reader has an illness, this should help with understanding for those who have. DB


14+ Secondary/Adult


needing support, Matt decides he must find her. And he does – but the consequences are very different to his expectations. The truth can be very uncomfortable – and the consequences devastating. Helena Close catapults us into the chaotic, emotional world of the adolescent facing the challenges of life. We see a contemporary environment that is messy, complicated, full of difficulty – even tragic – but there is also humour. Indeed there are moments when the reader might be forgiven for thinking that the scenario is beyond belief – and yet will know that often reality is even more


unbelievable. The The Gone Book HHH


Helena Close, Little Island Books, 300pp, 9781912417445, £7.99 pbk


Matt was ten when his Mam left. That was five years ago and over these years he has been writing to her – letters he has never sent but which he keeps as his Gone Book. Now with his family falling apart – his father struggling with alcohol promles, his elder brother turning to drugs, owing money, his younger brother


narrative has an authenticity, and moves at a pace through dialogue and the personal experience of Matt rather than description or reflection seen from the perspective of a third person. Indeed the language is so contemporary and colloquial that adults recommending this book – and it


is worth recommending


– should be aware that it makes. Young readers will feel its reality and find in Matt someone they can recognise; his world will be one they themselves can imagine, or indeed may be living. This is a debut author well able to join writers such as Brian Conaghan or Alex Wheatle in putting teenage experience onto the page. FH


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