Frazzled: Everyday disasters and impending doom by Booki Vivat
HarperCollins, 2016. ISBN 9780062663665
(Age: 9-12) Recommended. Themes: Confidence, Brothers and Sisters,
School Life, Emotions. Booki Vivat's debut novel Frazzled
introduces the emotion-charged writings and drawings of Abbie Wu, a
Chinese-American girl about to journey into the great unknown -
Pointdexter Middle School. Abbie suffers from middle child syndrome,
Peter her older brother is good at everything and he has all the
trophies to prove it. Sweet six-year-old Clara is her confident
little sister, a wonderful artist who is all ready to start
kindergarten. Then there is Abbie whose anxiety is overwhelming her
life; she believes 'nothing good ever happens in the Middles.' Even
her mother brushes off her daughter's concerns, busy with being a
single parent she does not really understand Abbie's anxieties.
Even her best friends are looking forward to middle school: actress
Maxine is excited to join the drama elective and Logan is excited to
hone his skills as part of the computer gaming and programming
group. Abbie however is so concerned with her lack of talents - she
is uncoordinated, prone to stage fright, tone-deaf and
technologically confused, she believes that everything is hopeless.
Abbie's hopes and dreams of delicious school cafeteria lunches are
crushed. While the eighth graders enjoy tasty meals, the rest of the
school lines up to receive standard soggy vegetables and bland
mystery meat meals. Without an elective choice, Abbie joins all the
loners and troublemakers in study hall. Here, Abbie finally
discovers her special abilities.
Vivat's fun pencil and ink illustrations perfectly display Abbie's
emotional lows and highs. They are complimented by the expressive
text sizes and styles ranging from bold and vibrant to tiny-labelled
diagrams. The contrast of black and white explodes off the pages,
especially when Abby pictures her school life as a gigantic black
hole.
Booki Vivat's enjoyable novel develops well-being themes including
self-esteem, growing in confidence, discovering your own talents and
finding your own place in the world around you.
Rhyllis Bignell
Duck gets a job by Sonny Ross
Five Mile Press, 2017. ISBN 9781760405359
(Age: 4+) Highly recommended. Work, Following your dream, Humour.
When Duck realises that he needs to get a job, he looks at his
friends, all of whom have jobs in the city. They love their
spreadsheets and encourage him to apply for a job like theirs. So he
follows their lead and applies for a job and getting an interview
must decide how he will look. After several swaps, he puts on a hat
and takes a briefcase with him, opting for the professional look.
Following advice from his friends, he gets the job and begins his
work in the city. But he finds the work boring and falls asleep and
so decides to quit.
He thinks hard about what he should do. He has always loved art and
done well with his art work, so he puts his work into a portfolio
and applies for a different job. The interviewer hires him and so he
has work which he loves, and he never falls asleep.
This delightful story based firmly on the author's own experiences,
will have younger children loving hearing it read aloud, or read
themselves, absorbing the message of following your dreams, of not
being influenced by others. The tale will be a wonderful springboard
for children to share ideas about their own likes, dreams, abilities
and futures. I love the illustrations, with humour for kids to find
and laugh about, offering differing visions of city life, showing an
obvious delineation between the job that Duck hates and the one he
loves. The colours reflect Duck's mood and the duck motif is
repeated in the glorious endpapers. With deceptively simple but
beguiling text I loved working out just how the author had achieved
his aims through the text and his illustrations.
Fran Knight
Where's Wally by Martin Handford
30th Anniversary edition. Walker Books, 2017. ISBN 9781406375695
(Age: 5+) Highly recommended. Wow - 30 years ago Where's Wally
first appeared and the book has lost none of its appeal over the
years. When it arrived on my desk I immediately spent quite some
time going through and finding the picture of Wally on different
pages as he travelled around the world. I was thrilled when I did
find him, but needless to say I had a few pages that completely
baffled me and even returning again couldn't find the little figure
with the red striped jumper and hat.
After the initial browse I went back and read the new letter from
Handford to his fans and discovered some more things that the reader
could search for, including the tail of Woof, making the book even
more enjoyable. As the search goes on, there are lots of fascinating
and humorous little figures, details and scenes which are so
enjoyable that hours could be spent perusing the pages.
This is a wonderful book to give children as a gift and it will also
keeping the family occupied for hours. In the library make sure that
no one marks where Wally is and spoils the fun!
Pat Pledger
Freeks by Amanda Hocking
Pan Macmillan, 2017. ISBN 9781509807659
(Age: 15+) Freeks by Amanda Hocking is an exciting and fast
paced novel about a young girl called Mara and her life in a
travelling circus alongside her mother and friends. Set in 1987,
Mara's colourful travelling companions are desperate to find their
next short stop as they scrounge for their livelihood going from
town to town and looking to attract large crowds. Their main appeal
to the public is their one-of-a-kind circus performances which
includes fire dancers, tigers, magic tricks, a house of horrors, the
sideshow, a Ferris wheel and more. But these are not the ordinary
attractions of just any circus, half of the population whom live
with the travelling show have abilities that breach the border
between the natural and supernatural. On their way to their next
stop (like it or not for Mara and company), many members of the
troop get bad feelings about the upcoming town which put many at
unease, and these feelings worsen when one of their own wanders from
the camp for longer than her usual spells of absence. It's up to
Mara to interpret the signs shown to her and take care with the
inhabitants of the town, and find if the town brings out more in
Mara than she first anticipated. Freeks is a captivating story that indulges its readers to
the engaging internal dialogue of Mara which helps add to the
mystery and thrill of the story as we interpret the events that
unfold both through our own eyes as well as hers. This novel is
better suited for an older teenage audience due to both adult and
violent themes. Overall, Freeks is an exciting read that is
refreshing and leaves the reader looking for more fantastic writing
by Amanda Hocking.
Sarah Filkin (University student)
Silver in the blood by Jessica Day George
Bloomsbury, 2016. ISBN 9781681190242
(Age; 13+) Recommended. In the peak of youthful society of 1890's
New York, two young cousins, Lou and Darcia, are at their social
prime with constant attention turned on them as they are the mixed
blood of a wealthy New York family and an ancient Romanian line.
With vague warning, both girls are caught up in a whirlwind trip to
finally engage with their Romanian relatives and connect to their
ancient heritage. The trip is long and with it, more questions and
strange situations appear and are discussed in letters and journal
entries from both girls. Once in her home country, Darcia is
frustrated by her Aunt Kate's sudden change in personality; what
could make someone go from being like a mother, to a prison guard.
Darcia demands to find out what is the real reason they were
suddenly brought back to Romania and why everyone she knows and
loves is starting to act incredibly strange. By the end, neither
girl will ever be the same again.
Jessica Day George writes Silver in the Blood in such a way
that captures the reader's attention and really makes the 1890's in
America, Paris and Romania burst with life, painting a very
relatable and realistic scene for her characters to interact. With
reference to another well-known novel from the time, Silver in
the Blood is exciting for readers of fantasy and mystery. This
novel is recommended for an teenage audience (13+) due to themes of
violence and romance. A fantastic read that leaves readers hoping
for more stories about the two cousins, Darcia and Lou.
Sarah Filkin (University student)
Captain McGrew wants you for his crew! by Mark Sperring
Ill. by Ed Eaves. Bloomsbury, 2017. ISBN 9781408871034
(Ages: 3-7) Captain McGrew's in need of a crew to assist him with
hoisting the sails, digging for treasure, 'splooshing' down the poop
deck and even squeezing lemons for his lemonade. With his bushy red
beard, eye patch, parrot on his shoulder and his four teeth, he is
an awesome character. Even his ginger tabby cat has a matching
patch. What adventures await his four child crew?
Author Mark Sperring's amusing rollicking rhymes are great to read
aloud, filled with pirate vernacular and direct questioning speech.
Each page demands a response; children will enjoy engaging with the
story and predicting the rhyming words.
'Are you good with a spade? Do you complain if you're hot? Can you
dig for long hours while others CANNOT?'
Ed Eaves brings Captain McGrew and his young crew to life, with a
broad range of emotive facial expressions, as they complete their
duties. Colourful settings of the sea, sand and aboard ship are
amusing; look for the cat licking the dishes and cleaning the hull
in a snorkel and mask. Captain McGrew wants you for his crew is an entertaining
picture book, filled with all the delights of a pirate's life.
Rhyllis Bignell
The everywhere bear by Julia Donaldson
Ill. by Rebecca Cobb. Macmillan, 2017. ISBN 9781447280736
(Age: 4+) Highly recommended. Bears, Loss, Adventure. When the
everywhere Bear falls from a child's backpack on the way back to
school after being taken home for the night, his adventures begin.
Readers will love the Bear, and his class, Class One and their
teacher, Mrs McAllister, who allows each child to take home Bear
after school.
But readers will be dismayed when he falls into the street to be run
over by a line marking machine, and then fall into a street drain.
His yellow stripe standing out, he is then flushed out to sea.
Readers will follow his adventure keenly, wanting to know whether he
makes it home again, concerned that he might not make it. But of
course he does. He takes a most circuitous route, floating in the
sea, being picked up in a fishing net by a trawler, sold on the
jetty to a woman fish and chip shop owner. Once she deems him
inedible, he is tossed out of her window onto a garbage truck.
Transported to the tip, all seems lost until a somewhat short
sighted seagull picks him up thinking he is a fish. The gull drops
him to the ground where he is rescued by a woman called Bethany on
her way to work. And where does she work? At the library of course,
where Class One is about to begin their day. All is resolved, a
cycle has taken place which will intrigue younger readers, and Bear
is back to where he started.
This absolutely charming tale is told in rhyming stanzas and I can
imagine many children being able to recite sections of it soon after
it is read.
Julia Donaldson also wrote the hugely popular Gruffalo and
Rebecca Cobb has illustrated several of her recent books and in this
one has created a soft edged pictorial style most suited to the
story of the lost Bear. And the range of transport used in the
endpapers adds another level of understanding to the story of the
lost bear, asking readers to recognise which forms of transport Bear
used.
Fran Knight
City of friends by Joanna Trollope
Pan Macmillan, 2017. ISBN 9781509846757
(Age: Senior secondary - Adult) Well, I have put down this book, so
reluctantly, having just finished reading it, dragging myself out of
Trollope's London. This is the story of four women friends, their
attachments, relationships, marriages, children, and work. Trollope
situates the characters at a crisis point, for each but of varying
severity, where each faces a redefining of what it means to be a
mother, to be married, to work, to strive to be the best, to be
successful. All of this erupts before us in a vitality, this
credible story of 'real women' taking place in an authentic reality,
one that we can envisage, where each women needs to find a way to
manage their work and personal lives. All are eager to keep the
friendship, that has sustained them, and which allows them to be
frank and supportive over so many years.
While acknowledging that Trollope created this story, it seems that
she has constructed the world of the narrative, the characters, and
their situations, as a reflection on the shared experience of modern
women striving to be the best at every single thing they do and
indeed, in the many roles they are expected to play. This is about
work, as much as it is about modern families, our different ways of
being family, our choices, our many kinds of love. It is also about
learning how to handle success and failure in work and life.
Reading this book is like chatting with women friends, hearing about
their lives and joining in their joys and successes, their losses
and pain. Each chapter is narrated by one woman, telling us, it
seems, in this very personal narrative style, about their
interactions, their fears, and the importance of support and love.
I was captivated from the opening chapter, and I felt that strange
sense of being vitally interested in these women, their children,
their joys, sorrows and challenges, as well, of course, as knowing
and understanding their emotions, even while acknowledging that this
is actually a work of fiction! It did not feel like fiction - it
felt like real life, and of course, her construction of plot, her
choice of characters, and her depiction of their choices and
actions, seemed so true-to-life.
Trollope has created, as she does so well, a story of the demands of
modern life, for men and women, of work, friendship, children,
education, raising families, and of the modern ways that we are
expected to support the ill and elderly. She elicits a powerful
emotional response in the reader to these challenges, creating a
strong sense of the poignancy of the demands of modern life, where
we all face the challenge of striving to be the best at what we do,
of wanting to achieve success in so many areas, particularly the
specific demands that modern parents face. Trollope has embedded the
narrative in the bedrock of respect for the set of values that
ground us: that of loving and accepting friends, children and
partners, for whom they are, and this is grounded soundly in the
absolute values of love, honesty and friendship.
This novel explodes with the joy of life, it bubbles with humour,
dry wit at times, and evokes a strong sense of understanding the
sheer impossibility of having it all under control, despite our best
efforts.
Liz Bondar
Cast iron by Peter May
Hachette, 2017. ISBN 9781784299774
(Age: Senior secondary-adult) Highly recommended. Crime, Thriller,
Cold case. Forensic expert, Enzo Macleod opens a can of worms as he
investigates the second to last murder in a book of unsolved crimes,
published by the journalist, Raffin. A girl's body was found on the
edge of a lake some years ago when a widespread drought caused the
lake to shrink. The girl had been murdered fourteen years before,
and it is her murder, that Enzo is to reinvestigate, one of the
unsolved crimes listed in Raffin's book, and the subject of a bet
between the two men. But he is ambushed at her parent's house by
another group of parents, called the Bordeaux Six, who are also keen
to find out what happened to their daughters. Enzo is unwilling to
take on their cases, as he sees them as insoluble, but when his
daughter and her partner are kidnapped, things change.
The Bordeaux Six remain a constant thread within the story, leading
Enzo and Dominique to the hiding place of one of the missing girls,
hidden within plain sight.
I have not read the previous Enzo stories so felt a little
disadvantaged, but the story was enough to tempt me to continue
reading and eventually find out just whose cast iron alibi would
crack.
Set in southern France the feel of the area is decidedly real, with
chateaux, villages, forests and motorways in the background. Enzo
picks away at his investigations, uncovering details left unsaid,
stories left unreported and things hidden from the original
investigations. He visits a murderer in prison, the man jailed for
killing some of the other girls, but this only adds to another
thread in his detailed investigation.
There are leads all over the place, connections and secrets
unwilling to be revealed. May cleverly insinuates people around
Enzo, even his daughter's lover, causing them to come under
suspicion, so the reader will like me be mesmerised until the truth
is revealed at the end.
Fran Knight
A quiet kind of thunder by Sara Barnard
Macmillan, 2017. ISBN 9781509810987
(Age: 14+) Highly recommended. Opposites attract, but sometimes
kindred spirits with shared challenges, are more likely bedfellows.
In this YA romance, the narrator is an elective mute. Stephi has
recently been making progress for her ongoing anxiety, particularly
at school, with the help of medication. Enter Rhys, who cannot hear
at all. When Mr Stafford, the head of year level, asks Steffi to
take the deaf boy under her wing because she does know a little BSL
(British Sign Language), Rhys' outgoing nature inspires Steffi to be
louder and more present in the world. At first they complement each
other. Interestingly, her other relationships evolve too - with her
best friend Tem, her parents, her classmates. The one constant is
her part-time job working with dogs, where she has always been
communicative and content.
Steffi grapples with university aspirations not shared by her
parents. After a misadventure with Rhys, she too starts to question
whether her world isn't in fact shrinking because of a romance that
is too intense, too quickly. A quiet kind of thunder is a
thoroughly readable cross between YA Romance and the Bildungsroman
genre, but sprinkled with insights about our ubiquitous challenges:
grief, broken families, mental health, adolescent sexuality, our
affinity with dogs; not to mention the revelational insularity of
the deaf community.
The text plays with alternate texts - mostly in the form of chat
exchanges and SMS messages. Sara Barnard is one of those writers who
knows you and explores her character's feelings and thoughts in ways
you never imagined anyone else could understand. Her debut novel, Beautiful
broken things, is likewise cathartic for most teenagers, who
are by default engaged in self-discovery. Many youtube vloggers have
reviewed A quiet kind of thunder. Xina Hailey, for example,
melds review and personal recount with artistic flair in her book trailer.
Deborah Robins
Me and you by Deborah Kelly and Karen Blair
Penguin Viking, 2017. ISBN 9780670079247
(Age: 4+) Recommended. Family. Self awareness. With soft pastel
illustrations full of warmth and humour, the family goes about its
everyday events, each offering interaction between family members
all done with lots of wit and love. The arty-crafty days sees Dad
sit with the kids on the floor, having fun with paint and glue,
while the next page shows the result of their glueing, a pirate
costume. Yummy-scrummy days sees them in the kitchen with Mum, and
pedal-pushing days sees them riding their bikes to the park, where
more adventure happens. On sandy-sandwich days they are all at the
beach, slippery-slidy days at the playground, grubby-garden days
outdoors with the grandparents, leading through the days to
stretchy-yawny days where all the family wants is to relax and read
a book.
In funny rhyming stanzas the activities are shown with a lot of
movement and adventure.
All types of activities involving the family are offered, things
kids will easily recognise, others needing more explanation. Each
page underlines the family doing things together, the warmth that a
family offers, the closeness that comes with being together. Reading
aloud will add fun to the activity of the book.
Fran Knight
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Puffin, 2016 (1988). ISBN 9780141369365
(Age: 10+) Highly recommended. School, Family, Humour. With dad a
used car dealer, not averse to putting sawdust in the engine to stop
it being noisy, or winding back the odometer, Matilda finds it hard
to understand just where she fits in. Her brother is the apple of
everyone's eye, destined to follow in dad's footsteps. When Matilda
offers opinions or heaven forbid, answers arithmetical problems, she
is derided. Mum cannot abide a clever girl and tells her she will
not be able to get a husband. But Matilda is determined to think for
herself. Making use of mum's afternoon absences at bingo, she finds
the library where a helpful librarian feeds her with books, allowing
her, after she has read all the children's book, to read her way
through the adult library as well despite being only five years old.
Going to school means that Matilda is way ahead of all other
students, and kindly teacher, Miss Honey, suggests to the
headmistress, that she should be advanced from grade one. The woman
in charge, the redoubtable Miss Trunchbull already enamoured of Mr
Wormwood who has sold her an excellent car, takes an instant dislike
to Matilda, and is determined to make her life at school as
unpleasant as possible.
So follows a very funny account of how their lives interact, and how
Matilda with the help of meek Miss Honey and several other students
who have felt Trunchbull's wrath, eke out their revenge.
This wonderful tale has been in print since its first appearance in
1988, and with the stage show open around the world, will be sought
after again.
Fran Knight
A rising man by Abir Mukherjee
Random House, 2016. ISBN 9781910701898
(Age: Senior secondary-adult) Highly recommended. Crime fiction.
India. Calcutta. British Raj. When former Scotland Yard detective
Sam Wyndham is given a job by his old commander, he is happy to be
leaving post war Britain. But on his first day as Detective a high
ranking British official, MacAuley, is found dead in the Indian
suburb of Calcutta, dressed in formal attire. A note stuffed in his
mouth implies that this is a political murder by one of the Quit
India terrorists. Only just beginning his investigations, he is
astonished when summoned to his boss' office to find he already
knows of the death. Sam sees that other forces are at work, and is
torn between the secret service, the Lieutenant General and
commercial interests. When he is told to investigate the murder of a
train guard as well, his offsider, Digby, is more than dismissive,
wondering why they have been called to the murder of an Indian when
they have such an important murder of a British man to solve.
But Sam eventually links the two cases, intervening when the secret
service seems to have found the culprit, Sam trying to keep the man
alive and in his custody.
Sam is a flawed character: an opium addict after leaving a field
hospital at the end of the First Word War, he arrived home to find
his beloved wife had died during the influenza outbreak. Being
offered work in the new CID in Calcutta seems to promise a new
start, but he quickly finds his way to an opium den.
The writing reflects the times in 1920's India, where a sign on the
door to the Bengal Club states that Indians are not allowed, where
being Anglo-Indian means not being welcomed by either group, where
Sam's sergeant, Banerjee, educated in Cambridge, is treated with
little respect by those he works with, particularly Sam's second in
command, Digby.
But romance appears in the guise of MacAuley's secretary, an
Anglo-Indian girl called Annie. The mix of weather, the arrogance of
the British Raj and the fight for independence shows India at a time
of change and the shock of the Amritsar Massacre of 1919, occurring
in the midst of their investigations, reflects the turmoil the
country is in.
Mukherjee's time in Scotland has served him well. He writes nuanced
characters from Scottish backgrounds with panache, and his depiction
of Calcutta is so intense that many like me will resort to Wikipedia
to gain a visual understanding of the wonderful descriptions
presented in the book.
This book is the winner of the Harvill Secker/Daily Telegraph crime
writing competition, and is the first in a series with Captain Sam
Wyndham.
Fran Knight
The fever code by James Dashner
Maze runner bk 5. Chicken House, 2016. ISBN 9781911077169
(Age: Year 7-9) Utopian fiction. Lies and deceit. Science
fiction. Special abilities. Science experiments. Relationships. If
you are a Maze runner junkie, then you will enjoy this next
instalment. Following on with the theme of the end of the world,
children are snatched from their families and tested on their
abilities to solve complex problems. Then they are asked to build or
run through an impenetrable maze.
The hero of the story, Thomas (aka Stephen), is taken from his
family when he was four. He is conditioned to use a new name to go
with the identity he has within Wicked, this newest adult
organisation. During the story Thomas matures and begins to
recognise that the clean and calm world in which he lives is not all
that it seems. He meets a girl, Teresa, whose bravery leads Thomas
on a journey of discovery. He uncovers a master plan to help save
the world but in the process he finds that the work he is
undertaking is destroying young lives. As he grows up he is asked to
do more and more complex tasks and his relationship with Teresa and
Dr Leavitt changes with dire consequences.
Wendy Rutten
Girl out of water by Nat Luurtsema
Walker Books, 2016. ISBN 9781406366525
(Age: 11+) Friendship. Humour. Swimming. Teens. Lou Brown
and her friend Hannah have been best friends since they were 6; they
are both tall with frizzy hair and are competitive swimmers. The 15
year olds are focused on representing Britain at the Olympics but
when Lou comes last at the National Time Trials and Hannah makes it
into the High Performance Training camp Lou has to face going back
to school as a failed swimmer without her best friend. Lou's family
is very supportive; older sister Lavender asserts that no one at
school will care one way or another; her parents are separated but
her dad moved back in when he lost his job so he says he knows how
she feels; her mum, who teaches creative writing, keeps the family
on track, comforting Lou while enjoying her own life. Lou
reluctantly goes to school vowing to make new friends but she is
subject to bullying by a nasty group of girls and feels clumsy and
out of touch with normal school interactions after spending so much
time focusing on swim training. She finds refuge in the school
library 'home of the introverted and people too quiet to say 'no Lou
I don't want to be your friend''. She finds an old book in the
sports section called 'Swimming for women and the infirm'
which makes her laugh with its emphasis on making 'ladylike shapes'
in the water. It comes in useful when a group of boys who want to
get on 'Britain's Got Talent' ask her to train them in a cross
between dancing and synchronized swimming and Lou becomes too busy
to worry about making friends or keeping in touch with Hannah at
training camp. Hilarious escapades ensue as the group pursues their
dream but when her friend needs her Lou bravely goes to her rescue.
Skillfully blending the emotional drama of modern teenage life with
self-deprecating humour and a positive message about friendships and
finding your place in the world this book will appeal to middle
school girls.
Sue Speck
