reviews 10 – 14 Middle/Secondary continued


place due to the genetically modified creatures that previous generations had


dragomansk is similar to a dragonfly but with a lethal substance that will kill its victim. One of the main aims of the Martian researchers is to find a secret cure for this venom, but how is Bree involved and more importantly who or what are the voices that she hears in her head? This is a totally brilliant science


developed as weapons; the


just fixating on one area of your life. If you find that this door closes then you need other things in your life that can take its place and perhaps even more importantly you need friends who like you as a person, not because you are good at a sport or music. A great book for the younger teen


. MP


Voices from the Second World War: witnesses share their stories with the children of today.


HHH


Walker, 320pp, 978-1-4063-6011-0, £14.99 hbk


Selena in his place. But the King’s dying curse has sprung a trap, closing the Way and imprisoning them in the Silver Kingdom. No-one now can move between the realms; the only hope of getting home is for the human children to travel to the Temple of the Threefold Goddess, whose forms have been bound, and set her free. But unimaginable perils lie along the way. As in the previous two volumes,


Womack interweaves figures of classical mythology, like Mithras and his torchbearer


characters and creatures


own invention – notably the huge crab,


spare the gore; the processes by which the goddess’s forms must be freed may well induce a wince and a shudder in the squeamish. His main characters, sometimes


to their more charismatic, sinister counterparts, and can occasionally come


fashioned. But the limpid, soaring quality of his descriptive prose, coupled with the swift pace of the action,


satisfying culmination to this transporting trilogy – with an assured, rich and unexpected ending.


IRW Alien Rain HHHHH


Ruth Morgan, Firefly, 294pp, 9781910080382, £7.99 pbk


Bree is just an average student at The Pioneer School in New Cardiff, a settlement on Mars. When she is chosen to be part of a student group attached to a research trip to Earth she is totally dumbfounded. The three other students are all brilliant in class, but she is struggling, so why has she been added to the group? something they are not


When they arrive at their destination, the original city of Cardiff they are stunned by the devastation that they find and Bree seems to be particularly sensitive to the atmosphere around her. However the Earth is a dangerous


telling her? Is there makes for an intensely across as stilted or old- suffer


Cautes, with of


his


and treacherous Cygnet, son of the Knight of the Swan – to great effect. Characteristically, too,


especially Simon, by comparison


She-who-rakes-the-shores, he doesn’t


fiction story for pre and younger teens. The fact that it takes place in the shell of the vibrant city of Cardiff makes it very accessible; you can go and visit the sights, especially the Museum of Wales where much of the action is set. Bree is a heroine that you really want to succeed, despite the odds that seem stacked against her. This is very much a book about believing in yourself and the talents that you have, even if they are different from those around you. The wider picture is a very sobering one about our future and what happens when we do not live in peace with others. Some of the discoveries that we find are a total shock to Bree and lead her to reconsider all that she has been told about the history of her people and the planet she is visiting. This gives you a lot to think about and it is also a fast paced action story for both boys and girls.


MP Girl out of Water HHHH


Nat Luurtsema, Walker Books, 320pp, 9781406366525, £6.99 pbk


What do you do when your whole world falls apart? Lou Brown’s life has been totally focused on her swimming for as long as she can remember and she has finally reached a level where she can try out for Olympic training. However something has gone wrong and at the trials she came in last, with her best friend Hannah winning and getting the chance to go off to training camp.


difficult with the school bullies lining up to make fun of Lou, but then three of the coolest boys in school ask her to help them train for a talent contest; as synchronized swimmers. Added to this, Hannah is having problems at training camp and life at home is not as simple as Lou would like. This is a funny and sad tale of


family, friendship and finding out what is really important in life. Lou tries so hard to get things right and yet they seem to fall apart at the important moment, like


collapsing at the talent show trials and soaking the judges and audience. The main themes of the story seem to be around family, school, best friend and whether she will ever get a boyfriend. The author manages to tread a fine line between these various elements, providing


pathos and humour.


where the family realize they have just attended the wrong funeral had me in fits of laughter (not a common occurrence when reading) and the many water related disasters are all hugely amusing.


lesson that comes across is about not Perhaps the main


just the right amount The


scene of the swimming pool Life suddenly becomes very


This compilation of people’s first-hand accounts of the Second World War has been put together by First News children reporters, plus some other accounts. It is an uneven collection in that some are


memories of war, and some are very adult indeed, talking of rape, men being blown up in front of soldiers, torture of resistance fighters and other kinds of violence; also of course they talk of immense courage and witness to the horror of war. It follows the progress of the war in sections from the outbreak of war, women at war, the Holocaust to VE day and the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima, with family and news photographs illustrating each page. The headings are in black typeface on a red/orange background which does make them very difficult to read. It has a very good cover with what looks like a propaganda poster. It does seem that there has been


Some are from grandparents and great-grandparents personal


interviewer concerned, and occupy just a page.


reactions of the give child the very child-like


adults. Because of this huge variation in the contributions this would be better used by teachers and adults in order to ensure the memories reach the correct audience. It is vital that these memories do


JF


not die as the survivors of the war die and so this is an important book. It is just a shame that it is not as good as it could be; maybe it would have been better in two separate books.


Death or Ice Cream HHH


Gareth P. Jones, Hot Key Books, 256pp, 978-1-4714-0428-3, £6.99 pbk


Death or Ice Cream is a collection of short stories that interconnect and give us a picture of the surreal town Larkin Mills. They start with a mysterious visitor to Albert Dance and his domineering bedridden mother.


the business of buying anecdotes in exchange for a strange vial of purple liquid that he assures Albert will provide the ending to his story. One story leads into another until


The visitor is in


by the end we understand the nature of Larkin Mills. All are slightly surreal and a little bit creepy. Imagine a town where the public art talks to you, where the only hotel doubles as the funeral home, the only wax works in the museum are of local people. The clue comes in the story that


some confusion as to the audience of this compilation, because of the different


pages and are very adult memories of war, of fighting, seeing friends killed and with adult reactions to war and their experiences to end with. There is a memory of witnessing a man killing his own daughter because she was a collaborator and was about to blow up the soldier concerned. These memories are written by adults for


Others run to several


explains the origins of Larkin Mills in Roman Britain when an alien falls to Earth and may or may not have taken over the Roman Empire with the help of a British slave. The stories are funny and well


levels of the memories. and


written, you actually believe in the rather


populate the pages. You begin to see how the mundane could be hiding a wholly different world beneath.


the tales unfold you begin to realise that what drives the narrative is the age old struggle of good over evil, death or ice cream. Apart from the fascinating stories


it is fun to place some of the names from the obvious Dulwich West or to speculate as to why the alien is called Larkin? I don’t think Milton makes an appearance but he should be mentioned in passing.


CD


14+ Secondary/Adult The Moonlight Dreamers


HHHH


Siobhan Curham, Walker Books, 350pp, 978–1–4063–6582–5, pbk


Amber, Maali, Sky and Rose are girls who don’t want to be told what to do, how to behave, what to wear etc. They form a secret society named the Moonlight Dreamers, set up by Amber for like- minded girls she wants to be her friends. At the start none of the girls know each other. Rose and Sky are brought together because Rose’s supermodel mother is dating Sky’s houseboat-dwelling father. ‘Yes I am a dreamer. For a dreamer


is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees dawn before the rest of the world.’ This is the quotation from Oscar Wilde that gives the Moonlight Dreamers their name.


must


explain something she dreams of achieving or experiencing. The girls decide they will work together to fulfil each of their dreams. The rest of Curham’s book follows the attempts to realise the four dreams. Curham picks her way skilfully


Inaugurating introduce


the herself As strange characters that


club each girl and


then


around the clichés that abound in books for readers of this age. The convention is that each character must be desperate to find a mate, whether of the same or another gender. In the real world young people’s ambitions are more complex, more varied and hence


shows in this excellent book that it is OK to get together, to read, to talk, to speculate, to dream. At the same time, however, the aims of these girls are firmly rooted in their daily lives.


Books for Keeps No.219 July 2016 29 more interesting. Curham


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