A Thing of Beauty

 Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, illustrated by Tom de Freston, is truly a thing of beauty in more ways than one but not least because of the way it looks and feels.

The impact of a beautifully produced book can`t be overestimated, especially if it`s a book aimed at young readers.  This hardback edition, as one reviewer says, "will redefine what a children`s book can look like".* 

The cover, in greys and yellows, with the figure of a girl apparently walking into the centre of a whirlpool, surrounded by wheeling birds and the eponymous shark, magically captures a story which includes issues of fear and loss, seeking and separation and mental health.

Inside, the text is interspersed with similarly evocative images and clever overlays which hide and then reveal their subject, thereby creating a feeling of constant movement, of ebb and flow, of migration and return, all of which feed into Julia`s story.

Movement and change are a central theme of the story. Julia`s father has been commissioned to get a remote lighthouse up and running automatically. Her mother, a scientist who studies algae, "a special kind that cleans the water of any bad chemicals and perhaps one day even breaks up some kinds of plastic," is also keen to make the trip in the hopes of being able to be able to study her first passion: "the biggest things that that lived in the coldest seas" and especially a very special kind of shark - a Greenland shark.

So begins a summer of unravelling secrets, new friendships and understandings, not to mention adventures in stormy waters and a shark "older than trees".

Kiran Millwood Hargrave never writes a bad book but this one is very very special and stays in the mind long after it is finished.

* Katherine Webber Tsang

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A genius for story-telling.

Hilary McKay, author of The Swallows` Flight, has that rare gift of writing books for children which, while they often tackle dark and difficult subjects, do so through a lens of compassion, joy, laughter and warmth. She achieves this through the characters she creates and in particular the families that populate her books. In this case the families come from different sides of World War 2 but by the time they connect we are so completely immersed in their respective stories that it turns out there are no "sides" to be taken. 

Instead we watch while essentially decent people, of all ages and personalities, try to negotiate their way through the tragedy and loss that war inevitable brings while embracing whatever happiness can also be found. 

The result is a story, or rather multiple stories, of coping with adversity and opportunity (the latter sometimes even resulting from the former) against a background of family bonds and personal friendships that McKay portrays with such understanding and wit that the reader, or this one anyway, becomes completely invested in "what happens next", surely the hallmark of genius storytelling.

I closed the book with much regret at having to leave the characters behind but then (for the second time in as many months - see previous post) the realisation dawned that The Swallows` Flight is actually the sequel, or, as described on the flyleaf, the companion, to The Skylarks War. Thus I was able to discover the "backstory" to some of the central characters in The Swallows` Flight which only added to the experience.

Perhaps it is worth noting that both books are classified as Junior Fiction and are excellent examples of why (as Katherine Rundell says**) adults should read children`s books. Not only are they beautifully written, they also deal with the traumatic subject of war in a careful, understated but nevertheless honest way and provide a persepective on early 20th century life which must be as far removed from a young person`s life now as it is possible to be!

**Why You Should Read Children`s Books, Even Though You Are So Old And Wise (Never get tired of recommending this book!)

A girl, a wolf, a boy..... and a time slip.

 "Dara thought about the lines,thin as mist, between possible and impossible, between real and not real, between here and now and there and then."

Couldn`t happen of course: 21st century boy meets Stone Age girl. Or could it? Depends if you can believe in those thin lines and the feasibility of occasionally slipping across them, backwards and forwards from one to the other and back again.

The strength of The Way To The Impossible Island by Sophie Kirtley is that you absolutely come to believe in the plausibility of such a thing - disbelief not so much suspended as discarded altogether for the duration of the book.

Dara is frustrated by a chronic illness that has kept his life "on hold" until he`s had his Big Operation,  Mothgirl by the idea that at twelve-summers-old she will soon be expected to exchange her "wild, fast-hearted hunting days" with her wolf, By-My-Side, for "woman-days only, slow and dull as mud, filled only with making nutcakes and scraping deerskins and smoking meat upon the fire."

For both of them, the somewhat daunting and mysterious Lathrin Island, exerts a pull - Dara imagining rowing out to it when he`s had his operation and is fully fit, Mothgirl wondering if it`s where her long-lost brother is.

When Mothgirl runs from her home to escape being forced into domesticity and marriage to the son of the odious Vulture and Dara breaks away to escape the devastation and anger he feels at having his operation postponed again, their timelines collide and they end up making the perilous journey across to the island together in a leaky boat.

It is on the island that the adventure gathers pace. Having mourned together the apparent loss of Mothgirl`s wolf companion, they find signs which indicate her brother is, or has been, there and come to believe that Vulture is pursuing them. They learn to communicate with each other, to work together to survive, both finding skills and strengths they didn`t know they had. Perhaps most telling of all they come to understand that "normal" - or "norm-ill" as Mothgirl hears it - might not be for either of them, that there is always room for difference.

The interactions between Mothgirl and Dara are often humorous as they try to understand each other. The story gallops along apace with plenty of cliff-hangers at the end of chapters which mean you have to turn the page and find out what happens next. The conclusion is suitably uplifting as both our heroes have not only survived all sorts of challenges but learnt, as Dara muses, that "maybe there was more to real life than he ever could plan for. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Strange, amazing, scary stuff. No -one ever knew. There was no map. there were no answers."

Not a bad "life-lesson" and the thing that stories can teach so well.

       

P.S. Missed that there was a book that came before this - The Wild Way Home - which would normally be a bother as this reader at least prefers reading stories chronologically but am reassured The Way To The Impossible Island stands alone quite comfortably. 

P.P.S. Like all the very best books this one has a map of the island at the front. Perfect.

Splendiferous indeed

 Sometimes there`s no need to do lengthy reviews. Sometimes the books simply speak for themselves and come into that magical category of "un-put-downable" and in the last couple of months there have been two that definitely fell into that category.

First, The Dictionary of Lost Words  by Pip Williams.  It`s based on real events, the compilation of the Oxford English Dictionary, and centres round the fictional character of Esme whose father is one of the people working in the Scriptorium, the "garden shed" in Oxford where the work took place. Some of the characters Esme interacts with are based on real people and what emerges is a fascinating analysis of the significance of language and its power to define class and identity. In particular, at a time when women were having to fight for equality, it asks who decides which words are "acceptable." 

And if this makes it sound a bit dry, nothing could be further from the truth. It is also a novel about family and love, set against the turbulent times of the First world War and the battles of the suffragettes. A quite compulsive read.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-09/history-of-the-oxford-english-dictionary/12010628

The second Splendiferous Story is just that - a cracking tale by Chris Brookmyre. The Cut has been described as "highly original" and that must be partly because one of the main protagonists is a 72 year old woman whose age actually is not  the most remarkable thing about her. Her partner in crime, so to speak, is a young mixed race university student who is trying hard to extricate himself from an environment where he might end up making some foolish decisions. 

Together they set out to right a wrong in this rollicking fast-paced thriller which frequently has the reader tempted to glance at the end of the chapter to see if they manage to extricate themselves from yet another apparently doomed situation.

Perfect escapist reading, sometimes quite dark, occasionally a little gory and with more twists and turns than a twisty-turny thing, to say anymore might give the game away.   Enjoy!

Stirring Up a Hornet`s Nest

 So there I was thinking I`d quickly rattle off a breathless review of Jeanine Cummins American Dirt...."couldn`t put it down", "fast-paced thriller", "intense", "heart-stopping" etc etc when I was stopped in my tracks, for this novel is not only all of those things but also,apparently, controversial.

I might never have picked it up in the first place if I hadn`t heard an interview with the author on Simon Mayo`s Books of the Year podcast (recommended if only to hear Matt Williams laugh.....) Suffice to say I was hooked the moment I started, despite the brutality of the opening sequence. All the above adjectives apply: I had to resist the temptation on several occasions to check the last page to see what happened but at the same time found I didn`t want it to finish (which had a lot to do with the quality of the writing).  I also felt I`d learnt a lot...though it turns out I may not have........

Having finally finished it I went back to the podcast and realised that  I`d only half heard it. For it turns out that some people, authors and reviewers mostly from what I can see, objected to American Dirt on the grounds that Cummins wrote a book about Mexican migrants although she is neither Mexican nor a migrant. The ensuing debate got heated, especially once Oprah Winfrey had picked the novel for her book club. 

There is plenty online so anyone interested can find out more (starting here is probably as good a place as any:  https://www.vox.com/culture/2020/1/22/21075629/american-dirt-controversy-explained-jeanine-cummins-oprah-flatiron) and I recommend listening to the author  on the podcast, discussing  how she dealt with the storm that blew up around her and the book.

Some folk might take issue with the idea that it`s possible to learn anything from a book written by someone who hasn`t experienced what she`s describing, regardless of how much research was done, but I did find it, as one reviewer put it, "an eye-opener" as well as a page-turner.

 So the recommendation stands but maybe read it before investigating the ensuing furore. 

                                                                

"We`re not separate from nature but part of it."

The title of Dara McAnulty`s book Diary of A Young Naturalist does nothing to prepare the reader for the intensity of the experience of reading it. Once drawn into the world of Dara and his family it is nigh impossible to leave until the book is finished. Whatsmore, when you finally lift your head and look around you may fnd that, for a while at least, you are looking at the world through different lenses.

At one level Diary is just that, the description of a year in a young adolescent`s life as he observes the natural world around him and copes with the ups and downs of growing up. These are only heightened by the fact that not only is Dara autistic, so are his two siblings and his mother. As he says, it`s his Dad who is the "odd one out, and he`s also the one we rely on to deconstruct the mysteries of not just the natural world but the human one too."

Of the various strands that are woven throughout the book, the strength and warmth of, in Dara`s own words, this "eccentric and chaotic bunch" is what holds the whole thing together: "as close as otters, and huddled together, we make our way in the world."

The affinity they share supports Dara as he spends long hours taking in every detail of the  natural environment that surrounds him, as he deals with often overwhelming emotions, from happiness to grief and pretty much everything in between; as he copes with school in a world that tells him he doesn`t "look autistic" and makes him "fair game" for bullying and, perhaps most importantly, as he tries to visualize how his future as a "would-be scientist" and passionate environmentalist can evolve from this maelstrom. 

And if all that sounds a little too angst-ridden to make for a cheerful read, the energy and humour of the book will come as a surprise. This often noisy, rambunctious family, dashing off to immerse themselves in forests, climb mountains or explore rivers will take you along for the ride.  There are stories, there is music, there are moments of exquisite stillness and silence but there is also activism and political debate. Most of all there is kindness, not only within the family but towards a human world that doesn`t always deserve it. expressed through the quite beautiful writing which flies in the face of the assessment of a teacher who once claimed that Dara would "never be able to.....string a paragraph together". 

I do hope he/she reads this dazzling work and reconsiders.  

"You don`t have to understand life. You just have to live it."

Whenever you approach a book you`ve been meaning to read for ages, a book which has been praised to the rafters and sold millions of copies, it`s a nerve-wracking thing........perhaps it`s been over-hyped, perhaps it`s not as good as everyone says.....what if you have to admit to not loving it ........

Well, phew! Matt Haig`s The Midnight Library is a clever, warm, poignant reflection on the way we deal with what life throws at us, how we react, what we regret and how we can find the hope and resilience to keep going.

These are universal themes but addressed here with such kindness and humour it`s hard to put the book down as you follow the many lives of Nora Seed. 

As Mrs. Elm, the librarian, says;
                    "Every life contains many millions of decisions. Some big, some small. But every time one decision is taken over another, the outcomes differ. An irreversible variation occurs, which in turn leads to further variations....."

A little suspension of disbelief is required as Nora tries out potential variations to the life she has decided to abandon because she is "just really crap at it. At life." She is in pain, aching with despair, not in a black hole but the black hole itself , full of regrets, "drowning in herself".

Thankfully the author doesn`t deal in pat answers and happy ever-afters because, guess what, life ain`t like that! And yes, ultimately Nora returns to the life she intended to leave (not really a plot spoiler) but aware that the important thing is simply to be alive:  without that there is no hope, there is no potential, with it there is ""a future of multifarious possibility".

Could have been cheesy, could have been sentimental, could have coloured everything rosy but it doesn`t.  Nora finds a way to embrace the simple fact of her existence, not seeking a nebulous `perfection` or giving up when it becomes clear there is no such thing. 

One of those books that will stay with you: it`s definitely worth a try - the book that is - though the same might be said of life.