reviews


has been used on a multitude of occasions, but where normally these are places of wonder, fantasy and even adventure, Krystal Sutherland takes us to a place that is hellish in the extreme and definitely somewhere we want to avoid.


The relationship


of the three sisters is central to the whole story and we can only watch in horror as the truth gradually begins to unfold and the framework of their lives begins to unravel.


The author


leaves us with a bit of a cliff-hanger, which might mean there is potential for a follow on, or she might just leave it to our imaginations; only time will tell.


who love their horror


14+ Secondary/Adult continued Felix Ever After


HHHH


Kacen Callender, Faber & Faber, 368pp, 978-0571368013, £7.99 pbk


Felix Love is seventeen, a talented artist


attending a selective New


This is a superb read for those stories and


compulsive reading even for those who don’t. (NB, there’s quite a lot of blood and gore and some strong language). MP


Bone Music HHHH


David Almond, Hodder, 212pp, 978 1 444 95291 9, £12.99, hbk.


From the beginning of his writing for young people, David Almond has been concerned with the malleability of time and perception: the way in which the past and present are twisted within us and shape us; and how our nature, for better and worse, remains elemental despite all the trappings of the modern world that we wear and carry with us. In his work, the visionary and the ordinary are inseparable. Perhaps not as in earlier ages of signs and miracles but never too far away, particularly in childhood and adolescence. In this new novel, his protagonist Sylvia, has moved from Newcastle to the wilds of Northumbria. At first, she hates it, cut off from friends and all she has ever known, even her mobile phone is near useless. But gradually she is drawn into an understanding of the place and of herself. Music, reaching back through the Northumbrian folk tradition (clog dancing and all) into prehistory, plays a big part; particularly through the bone flute of the title, fashioned from the wing of a dead buzzard. And there are new friends, too: Gabriel, a boy of her own age, who makes the flute with her; and old Andreas, a former prisoner of war from Germany with a troubling past. Yet, perhaps more than any of Almond’s other novels, it is what Sylvia herself experiences that is important. Among the plains peoples of the Native Americans, a young man would go on a vision quest into the wilderness, where he would find the name by which he would be known for the rest of his life. Sylvia, too, goes out into the dark Northumbrian wilderness (passing a fallen ‘totem pole”) to find her own way from the past into the future. CB


York art school. His main ambition is to secure admission to Brown University, Rhode Island, by winning a scholarship. Felix was born a girl, though he is now known to everyone as a boy. In fact his former female life is something he carefully conceals. He has never been in love. The book describes Felix’s struggle to find love in whatever form it may take. He must also learn to command acceptance, not least by defining his own gender identity.


Callender’s gender novel is unusual,


mounting an examination in depth of the emotions an individual may experience during the process of


transition. The author


himself has made just this transition. Accordingly he is in a position to provide a detailed account of the transitional process and its attendant complications. He also


shines on the danger of a


revealing light on the question of family acceptance during transition, and


receiving


abusive mail. Felix is in fact part of three minorities in the USA, also being black and gay. Callender’s will stimulate a range of


book active


discussion, not only because of its central theme but also because it features profane language and drug taking, giving the impression


that


both are a normal part of art school life.


It is persuasive to argue that


the inclusion of these features is no more than realistic. But teachers and parents should be aware of these features before handing the book to an impressionable young reader. The 14+ categorisation should also be strictly respected. RB


One in a Hundred Thousand HHHH


Linni Ingemundsen, Usborne, 335pp, 978-1474940641, £7.99 pbk.


ASander Dalen is a Norwegian boy aged fifteen. He has Silver Russell syndrome,


with restricted growth


and arms of different lengths. He is of course the shortest person in his school year, a fact which irritates him profoundly. He has an older brother Jakob and a younger brother Adrian. Naturally people imagine that Adrian is older than Sander simply because he is taller. A new boy Niklas joins the school and befriends the Dalen brothers. The book poses two questions. Can Sander come to terms with his condition and begin to accept himself as he is? And what is Niklas’s secret? One of the strongest features of


this novel is the friendship Sander forms


is initially


with an elderly man who described as ‘the


town


lunatic’. The name is a misnomer. The two individuals discover that both of them have lost someone they love, in the case of the Dalen brothers their father and in the case of the older man his beloved wife. Sander and his new friend discover that they have a shared passion for photography, which leads them to a closer bond. Another strength of the book is the way that Niklas’s secret is revealed, slowly and credibly. This reviewer


found only two


points at which the performance of the book was less than satisfactory. At the opening of the book Sander deliberately fails some tests at school. He reasons that if he is marked down as less intelligent he will be held back and have a better chance of being the same height as his classmates. The message delivered to children with impairments is that underperforming may be a legitimate competitive tool – the opposite of what should be encouraged. The author no doubt wished to register just how desperate Sander had to be to resort to this tactic. But all the same the message is unacceptable. Elsewhere in the story the friends attend a Halloween party. Niklas decides to attend disguised as a suicide victim. Suicidal impulses crop up frequently in the book. Once again it is possible to understand the motivation of the author. Reality may accord too often with her image of an impaired life. But it is a note better left unstruck. RB


All American Boys HHHHH


Jason Reynolds & Brendan Kiely, Faber, 330pp, 978 0 571 36675 0, £7.99 pbk


Rashad and Quinn share narrative. Jason


Reynolds, the who


is black, writes the chapters told by sixteen-year-old Rashad, while Brendan Kiely, who is white, writes those contributed by Quinn, a senior at the same high school as Rashad. Reynolds and Kiely are educators as well as writers; Kiely is an experienced high school English teacher, while Reynolds


Ambassador


is currently for


Young


a National People’s


Literature in the States. Following publication in 2015 in the US, All American Boys made a considerable impact, winning the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award; the writers visited many schools, listening and talking to students who had read the book, fulfilling their hope that it would


‘start conversations’. In


publishing the novel six years after its initial appearance, Faber presumably decided the UK was also ready to talk. Within a few pages, Rashad is


in Jerry’s Corner Mart, taking time selecting chips (aka crisps) to buy before he heads off to a Friday night party. He’s glad to be out of school, and out of military uniform, since Fridays include ROTC drill (Reserve Officer Training Corps), and he has to wear full kit all day. He loathes the Corps - he joined only to satisfy his ex- soldier, ex-cop father, who sees the


army as the way forward for a young black American male. A woman is also scanning Jerry’s shelves – until she stumbles and trips over Rashad, just behind her. He offers his help. After shouts and accusations – and no time for answers - the cop on duty in the store, watching out for shoplifters, grabs Rashad, slams him down outside on the sidewalk, cuffs and beats him, ‘a fist in the kidney, a knee in the back’. Each blow is an earthquake to Rashad. All this is witnessed by Quinn, standing twenty feet away.


To his horror, he realises


he knows this cop – it’s Paul Galluzzo, older brother of his closest friend. Paul has been a trusted mentor to Quinn since the death of Quinn’s father, blown up by an IED in Afghanistan and now revered throughout the town. That’s how it all kicks off. Rashad’s hospitalised, with a broken nose and


fractured ribs, activist facing police


charges; and also facing his father, who assumes his son’s guilt, while Rashad’s


older brother


Spoony never doubts his innocence. Quinn keeps his head down. He’s made it onto the school basketball team, tipped for State honours; soon there will be visits from scouts from universities with lucrative sports scholarships to be won. The two plots, driven by the incident, follow separate


paths


through Rashad’s recovery in hospital with numerous visitors and Quinn’s life at home, in basketball training, in lunchtime cafeteria arguments, dialogues in and out of lessons and at parties and barbeques. Video evidence of the arrest explodes onto social


media, news channels.


attracting The


whole


national town


takes sides. Everything culminates in a mass demo organised by the students. All those conversations lay things out for Quinn – and readers - to consider. This is not a simplistic anti police story, but it is anti police brutality and racism. Quinn sees that he cannot hide for ever – he has to work out where he stands. There may be some blind spots


for UK readers. The values, language and


dynamics of the basketball


squad and their dictatorial coach – and those of the ROTC - may well seem alien. Likewise the bad-ass banter of the overwhelmingly male cast, in contrast to the occasional voices of reasoned protest of just two significant young women. Readers might not recognise the names and stories of real world victims of police shootings such as Michael Brown and Freddie Gray, which are read out at that final demo; but the web offers instant information. However, they will surely realise the book was written before the restraint and death of George Floyd and the subsequent impact through Black Lives Matter. They might


also think Rashad’s


experience was not so different from the frequently reported instances of Stop & Search on the streets of South London and elsewhere. GF


Books for Keeps No.248 May 2021 31


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