"All texts must be open, to all people" (Katherine Rundell)

Katherine Rundell`s book Why You Should Read Children`s Books, Even Though You Are So Old And Wise has been mentioned before here and no doubt will be mentioned again....and again...and again but especially when I`ve read something as enthralling as Jospeh`s Elliott`s Shadow Skye trilogy.

It is both sad and misguided that children`s books are still so often seen as the poor relation of fiction, that borrowers in the library service where I work still feel the need to apologise shamefacedly for having enjoyed a brilliant Young Adult book, never mind one categorized as Junior Fiction. (The categorization of books is a subject for another time😉)

Saddest of all is that some well known figures in the literary world get so snooty about it (no names, no pack drill but I see you), in the process making the problem worse as well as displaying an astonishing ignorance about some of the factors involved in encouraging children to become confident and enthusiastic readers.

So back to the books that prompted that mini-rant:

 

Set on an alternative Isle of Skye, this magnificent saga takes its heroes and heroines to the plague devastated mainland of Scotland, across the water to Norway and eventually to the kingdom of England, ruled by a despotic king and his allies, all in an attempt to defend their clan`s homeland.  There are terrifying shadow creatures known as sgàilean, blood magic, treachery, deceit and even a huge, vaguely familiar Scottish beast. The reader is completely swept up in the pacy narrative but the books real power lies in the three central characters,  Agatha, Jaime and Sigrid and the clever technique of giving each their own distinctive voice and alternating the chapters between them so the story is told from three different points of view.

It works brilliantly: not only is each voice unmistakable (the heading at the top of each chapter to signify who is speaking becomes almost redundant) but their language informs their characters without the need to make explicit observations. Especially delightful is what Elliott refers to in the notes as Sigrid`s "idiosyncratic slang", which absolutely nails her energy and resourcefulness not to mention her wry sense of humour.

Themes of loyalty, trust, love and tolerance run throughout the narrative, challenging our heroes at every turn to make hard choices about what is right and what is wrong. Which is why, when it is handled as well as this, anyone could be proud of saying they`d read it. Or, as Rundell says:

          "...the writing we call children`s fiction is not a childish thing.....(rather it) has childhood at its heart, which is not the same thing."

"Storytelling on a grand scale."

When you get towards the end of a 548 page hardback novel and realise that  you have to resist the urge to check the last page to see what happens while at the same time not wanting it to end at all - that is the absolute essence of good storytelling.  And Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver has it in spades.

Billed as a  "reimagining" of David Copperfield but set in Kingsolver`s Appalachia it is by no means necessary to have read Dicken`s classic story before embarking on Demon Copperhead. Those who have will recognize some of the characters as playing much the same role as in the earlier novel. But what draws you in perhaps most powerfully in both cases is the relating of the story by the heroes themselves - if, indeed, as David Copperfield says, they turn out to be heroes.

The opening paragraph of Demon Copperhead immediately sets the tone, the language and not least the wry humour which runs through the whole sorry tale of a boy born into poverty of a drug addicted single mother:

                            "First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they`ve always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let`s just say out of it."

And with that we are launched into an autobiography which rattles along at a breathless pace, following the fortunes and misfortunes of Damon, whose red hair and feral nature soon earn him his eponymous nickname. There`s a large and varied cast of characters whose lives touch Demon`s in one way or another, for better or worse, often as they also are dealing with their own crises of poverty, alienation, and drug addiction. 

As always with Kingsolver, politics and political structures are central to much of the plot but we are not being lectured at: much of Demon`s growing up demonstrates the abject failure of the very systems nominally there to support children in his position. Whether it is lack of resources, lack of political will,  a commentary on the forgotten communities in some parts of America - or indeed a combination of all these - is left for the reader to decide.

In any event it is impossible not to will Demon on, to celebrate his successes and despair when life throws him another curve ball. The writing never falters and with Kingsolver herself having grown up in Kentucky it feels like the story has been written as much from the heart as the head. 

Fact or Fiction?

Dystopian stories, set in an imagined future that often rests on an actual past and present, can make for disconcerting reads. How much more so if this imagined future isn`t in fact that far ahead. Rosa Rankin-Gee`s novel Dreamland falls into that category which is perhaps why, in an author`s note at the end of the book, she goes to the trouble of pointing out that while the story may be fictional "it builds on events and policies that are occurring today" which she then proceeds to delineate, in order to "be clear about which elements are based on fact".

And that`s a sobering thought once you`ve read the novel.  It`s a powerful read made all the more so by the strong first person narration. Chance is one of those characters you remember long after you finish the book. Buffeted by political forces outwith her control, social deprivation, family upheaval and the imminent threat of the consequences of climate change, Chance tries to navigate a way to survive. It sounds grim, it is grim, but there are moments of humour, of love and sheer human resilience that keep you reading on and rooting for Chance to succeed despite the constant, often inevitable, setbacks she faces. 

The backdrop is the town of Margate, a seaside resort whose fortunes have yo-yoed over the years but which, Rankin-Gee tells us in her author`s note, is currently enjoying another renaissance. Nevertheless part of its recent history mirrors the "relocation" theme which in many ways is central to Dreamland and where fact and fiction bump into each other. 

 By the end Dreamland is hard to put down: you`re  holding your breath as Chance aims to take control of her life and prioritise the things that really matter to her. And you`re left in no doubt that if she were to manage that Herculean task, she`d be one of the `lucky` ones.

Scarier than ...a really scary thing.

 Not being a massive fan of really frightening thrillers I discovered you don`t need to read them in order to scare the pants off yourself: try The Revenge of Power by Moises Naim and see how well you sleep for a day or two after you`ve finished it. 

A relatively hefty looking tome, it is not a difficult read despite being a detailed analysis of, as the subtitle says, "How Autocrats Are Reinventing Politics for the 21st Century".  In fact it is an extraordinary description of the way in which "populism, polarization and `post-truth` politics" (Naim`s 3Ps) have resulted in a marked increase in authoritarian and autocratic regimes around the world. 

For such dry sounding subject matter it is in fact a dramatic story of corruption, collusion, manipulation, criminality, dark social networks and carefully calculated disinformation which weaken, even destroys, the individual`s ability to distinguish between fact and fiction or perhaps more significantly their desire to do so.

And if anyone`s inclined to shrug and say they don`t "do" politics it might be worth reading just to understand how politics is "doing" them.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?kn=The%20Murderer%60s%20Ape&sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-topnav-_-Results&ds=20 or at your local library e.g. https://www.livelifeaberdeenshire.org.uk/libraries

Books and their covers.

 They say you shouldn`t judge one by the other but it was the cover of The Murderer`s Ape, displayed provocatively on the library shelf, that prompted me to borrow the book, despite the fact it is a weighty volume and I knew nothing about its author, Jakob Wegelius.

And what a treat it has turned out to be.  A genuine cracking yarn, with a start, a middle and a very satisfactory happy ending (which is not a plot-spoiler as you know almost from the beginning that it can only end well). This is not to say there aren`t ups and downs in this tale of Captain Henry Koskela and his chief engineer, Sally Jones, a gorilla of many talents and much wisdom. 

Wrongly accused of murder, Koskela, aka The Chief, is thrown into prison and thus Sally Jones embarks on a mission to right the wrong and free him. There are goodies and baddies, and baddies who turn out not to be so very bad, just misled. There are setbacks and triumphs and more setbacks. There are chases halfway around the world, betrayals and the kindness of strangers, not to mention cliffhangers which would make it a wonderful story to read out loud, closing the book at a crucial moment, leaving the audience wanting more.

And yes, the library has classified it as  "Young Adult"  but it should appeal to anyone who can still suspend disbelief and embrace the spirit of an excellent, heartwarming story.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?kn=The%20Murderer%60s%20Ape&sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-topnav-_-Results&ds=20 or at your local library e.g. https://www.livelifeaberdeenshire.org.uk/libraries

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!)