story time books

I liked Fleur Beale’s Juno of Taris very much, and was delighted when it won the Esther Glen Award in 2009. Now there’s a sequel, which takes up the story where the last book finished, and after raving about the first book I’m left with nowhere to go other than to say this is, if anything, even better. I’ve said before that Fleur is one of those writers who was always good, but gets better with each book and I think that is still true. This is a wise, wonderfully written book with great characters and themes and on top of all that, there are links at the end of each chapter to blogs which add to the emotional heft of the story. Juno and the other Taris inhabitants are rescued at the beginning of this volume, and after withstanding all that the southern Pacific can throw at them, arrive in Aotearoa, in Wellington. Juno’s sister, Hera, senses something wrong as the arrive, and there is a bomb on the wharf, quickly setting the scene for a hate campaign against them. I won’t spoil the many twists of the plot, just say that it all seems scarily plausible. I had thought I’d just read the book, without the blog add-ons, but once I decided to try one I was hooked. The hate and antagonism of parts of the blogosphere is superbly created and the multiple perspectives add quite a lot to the story, so I would recommend incorporating the blogs into your reading of the novel. This is another terrific reading experience, and I struggle to recommend it highly enough.

Text Publishing is a small Aussie publishing house which seems to do rather well at selecting good books to publish. This one is by Steph Bowe, who, according to the information inside the front cover, was born in 1994 and lives in Melbourne.  It’s an astonishingly accomplished novel from one so young, with dual narrators and enough issues to disable many a more experienced author. Unusually, the blurb on the back of this paperback tells it very well, so I’ll just quote it: “Sacha Thomas has a problem or three. He has a terminal disease. His mother’s dead. And his father has hooked up with his art teacher. It’s all too much. But a boy wanting to drown himself doesn’t know what he’s in for when a girl named Jewel Valentine fishes him out. Jewel? She has her own troubles, but from the moment this girl saves that boy, life means something different for the pair of them, something funny and sad and always unextpected, not too far away from falling in love.”   What that doesn’t tell you is that the story is beautifully written, so that I had to read it aloud to hear the sound of the first chapter. Clever, wise, and beautiful, and an astounding achievement for a teenager. A teenage / young adult read.

I’ve liked both of Susan Brocker’s previous novels for Kiwi kids, Restless Spirit and Saving Sam, and this is also a very good read with lots of thinking provoked. Bella’s father is overseas fighting in the war, and Bella is left with the responsibility for a lot of the farm work. There are cows to milk and a scary bad-tempered racehorse called Gypsy, her father’s dream. As if that’s not enough, there’s a neighbour who will try almost anything to get their piece of land to add to his own. The setting is Featherston, so there’s also a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp nearby. Help with the horse comes from two unexpected places, and Bella learns a lot about horses, people and cultural difference in the process of understanding Gypsy. Great characterisation, and this is another horse book which has more than the common girl meets horse and falls in love scenario, with another wonderfully feisty female protagonist in combination with an animal story. Although Bella is fourteen, there’s no content to prevent the story being read by anyone from ten up.

A short novel for children, by the acclaimed Margaret Mahy, published by the acclaimed Gecko Press. It’s only just over 90 pages long, with a largish font, but as usual this author fits more into fewer pages than most. David, who enjoys inventing words, and his mate Harley, who surprisingly likes classical music and is less inventive but more impulsive, get into a car in a rough area of town and go joyriding. Very quickly things take a turn for the mysterious, as the car proves to be self-driving and takes them deep into the forest. The plot has to remain secret after that, but it is a ripping yarn, with, as the back cover tells us, danger, ghosts and secret experiments. Margaret Mahy’s outrageous inventiveness is on display and this is certainly an exciting read, added to by a wonderful cover illustration by Gavin Bishop which makes scary sense once the book is read and the usual impeccable presentation of Gecko Press. Senior primary, intermediate and secondary students should enjoy, and as well as carrying them along with the plot, the book should make them think as well.

This picture book by Susannah Corbett with illustrations by Lynne Chapman is a variation on the theme of small and cunning beating big and ferocious. Dragon wakes in his cave and goes looking for food, terrifying a bear, a fox and a cat, who run frantically away. But when he tries to turn a mouse into a barbecue treat he meets his match. The mouse climbs aboard, jumps into the dragon’s ear and begins squeaking, until the dragon runs away. Then when the cat sneers about how puny the mouse is, the mouse whispers, “Squeak,” the others run away too. Then the mouse settles down and writes us the story. Rhyming text and vibrant illustrations make this a great read for children who like a bit of excitement with a happy ending.

The original Six Dinner Sid, by Inga Moore, was published ten years ago, so Sid must be getting into middle age at the very least. but in this sequel he’s still as agile as ever, leaping and climbing around Pythagorus Place. One year all Sid’s six families go on holiday at the same time, so they decide to go together and to take Sid with them.  They rent cabins in the Scottish highlands, and once Sid has established his presence there, he goes off exploring.  In the forest he meets Jock, a Scottish wildcat who tells him he can have as many meals as he likes there, but he has to catch them. After encounters with a fish, a lobster and rabbits,  Sid has established himself as a bit of a city cat, but then in an encounter with an eagle he proves himself to Jock. Then it’s home for six dinners, and at the end Sid is eyeing up a seventh, his exploits having created an even bigger appetite than usual. Sid has always been one of my favourite picture book felines, so it’s nice to have another of his stories.

The fifth and apparently penultimate volume of The Laws of Magic is here, and as with the fourth volume, Michael Pryor’s writing has had me reading when I should have been busy with other things. War is declared at the beginning of the book, and Aubrey and George go off to enlist. They are diverted to the Group W bench (I suspect Michael Pryor knows Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant) and drafted into an intelligence unit. It has the same wonderful characterisation which again leaves this reader wishing the writer and publisher would just get on with it and give him the last volume now; the same running gag about Aubrey’s clever use of words which becomes babbling and bumbling incompetence in Caroline’s presence; very real minor characters like Aubrey’s parents and grandmother; the villanous Dr Tremaine still after immortality; and the same alternate early 20th century world which feels almost as real after five books as the “real real” one. There’s excitement aplenty, and the romantic interest is still there between Aubrey and Caroline, but always put on hold by more serious matters. A great read, and I’m impatient for the final volume.

I loved Amy & Louis, a picture book by Libby Gleeson and Freya Blackwood, and this picture book has these two teamed again to great effect. Clancy has moved house.His mother lkoves her new house, his father thinks it “a very fine dwelling,” but Clancy thinks it’s too big. Feeling rather disconcerted, (and we’re shown that, not told it)  he goes outside and discovers the packing boxes. Soon he’s palying with them, and Millie from next door climbs over the fence to help. They build towers and trains, little pigs’ houses which they blow down, and then one they can’t, and when Millie says “It’s the best house,” Clancy responds with, “It’s a very fine dwelling,” and they go inside. Beautifully understated, lovely clouds, and a rare cooperation between writer and illustrator that means  things that are shown by the pictures aren’t repeated in the text. I love this one too.

A sumptuous visual and verbal feast, this hardback picture book by Wallace Edwards  is as much for adults as children. The first page gives a definition of idiom: “a group of words whose meaning cannot be understood from the meaning of the individual words; an expression, peculiar to a specific language, that cannot be translated literally.” The pages which follow illustrate this with amazing colourful animal portraits of literal translations of idioms we normally take for granted. The first shows Mr Katz ( a mouse), suspended by his tail from a button, sewing on a lower button, with the caption, ” The more Mr Katz sewed, the more he got the hang of it.”  There are further visual puns in each picture, and an artfully concealed cat also on each page.  For instance, one page has Sir William, a goat, showing Anita (an anteater) his new painting (of a guitar-playing ant) holding her tongue (literally) with the caption, “The sight of Sir William’s new painting made Anita hold her tongue.” There’s a huge amount to be discovered within each painting (apart from the hidden cat), with hours of pleasure here for an observant person, child or adult. A wonderful gift book, showcasing the artist’s talent and our terrifically tricky language. The last page, called “Letting the Cat out of the Bag” explains each idiom, so this would also be a great resource in the classroom for illustrating the concept.

Jane Smiley’s writing for adults has been much admired, with a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics’ Circle Award for A Thousand Acres, but this is, as far as I know, her first foray into writing for younger readers. With recommendations on the cover from Meg Rosoff: “Passion for horses shines out of every page,” and Hilary McKay: “Wonderful storytelling,” it was almost guaranteed to be a great read, but as I’ve mentioned before, books can evoke very different responses in different readers. In this case I’m happy to concur with their enthusiasm. There are lots of books which feel as if they are almost exploiting the love of horses that exists in many a young reader, but this has a lot more to it.  Abby has troubles at school, and her father, a horse-trading / farming born-again Christian who is very loving, but can be rather dogmatic, as her older brother has found. Danny now lives elsewhere. Abby loves the horse work on the farm, and is very good with horses, but there’s one gelding who won’t let her be friends and bucks her off as often as he can. Then Jem Jarrow turns up, a man who has a different way of looking at horses from Abby’s Dad, or her uncle, who makes things worse by attempting to dominate the horse. This book has the best horse scenes I’ve read since Silverhorse and its sequel, beautifully drawn characters and the “wonderful storytelling” Hilary McKay identified. Suitable for anyone who can read it, probably nine or ten up.