story time books

The second book by Philip Caveney about Sebastian, Max and Cornelius, following on from Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools, is just as exciting and amusing as the first. I reviewed the first here on 6 March last year. The main characters are an elfling (half man, half elf) a buffalope who talks, considers himself above other animals, and moans constantly, and a Golmiran warrior who is tiny and totally fearless. The running gag in this book is that Sebastian is somehow rather irresistable to women, first a very nasty witch who enchants him so he can think of little else even while he acknowledges some of her faults, and later a feisty pirate captain. Just as many chuckles as the previous book, and another rollicking good narrative where the characters aren’t subordinate to the plot. Intermediate age and above.

This is another life-after-death fantasy, and an exceptional one. Until now Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere has been my undisputed favourite in this sub-genre, but this novel by Neal Shusterman is right up there with it. Everlost is a sort of limbo between life and death. When a child (and only a child) dies, if s/he contacts anything between life and death, in the tunnel with light at the end, s/he hurtles into Everlost, sleeps for nine months, then wakes. Like any place, this one has rules, and when Allie and Nick die in a head-on car crash (they were in separate cars, but collide in the tunnel) they wake with a boy looking at them. Gradually they (and the reader) learn what he knows of Everlost. This book certainly has the wow factor in terms of character, plot, and the world it creates, and the struggles between long-term inhabitants of Everlost are every bit as exciting as those of the living world. Shusterman resists the temptation to tell us too much about the world he creates, and lets us find out with his characters. I found it a wonderful read. For 10 or 11 and over, and good for any age above this.

According to Todd Strasser, the author of Boot Camp, there are between four and ten thousand teenagers in boot camps in the United States. That’s one of the shocking figures in an afterword to this book explaining that while it’s a work of fiction, the reality of boot camps exists. “You don’t have to be found guilty of a crime to be placed in one of these prisons, also known as boot camps. You do not even have to be accused of committing a crime. All you have to do is be under the age of eighteen.” Garrett is sent to boot camp by his parents who don’t like his relationship with an older woman, once his teacher. Once there he is subjected to physical and psychological abuse from the minders and other inmates. He has to decide whether to conform to the rules or attempt to escape. Interesting, exciting, scary stuff, and not for the squeamish, this is a teenage read. Less complex than Louis Sachar’s Holes, which has several interlacing stories, but perhaps closer to the reality for some US teenagers.

This is the second book about Boobela the female giant and her friend Worm. The first, Boobela and Worm, by the same pair, writer Joe Friedman and illustrator Sam Childs, established the unlikely friendship. This one, like its predecessor, has several stories and some interludes, like Worm’s instructions for making compost. They are both very gentle books, and anyone who liked the first will like this one too. The first was so popular with some children that people kept asking when the next would arrive. It’s here now, and I think there’s a third coming later in the year as well. They are ideal first chapter books for 6-9-year-olds, with good size print, colour pictures and interesting characters and plots.

This is the third in the series of The Adventures of Sam Witchall by Paul Dowswell, after Powder Monkey and Prison Ship. Sam and his American friend Richard have been pardoned after their framing and transportation, and are on their way back to England on a merchant ship. They have plenty of adventures on the way, pirates being only slightly more dangerous than their fellow crew members. When they get back they set about spending their wages, but eventually Sam realises that he needs the sea, and accepts an offer from another friend’s father to sponsor him into a midshipman’s position in the navy. Sam and Robert are posted to the Victory, Nelson’s flagship, and sail for Trafalgar in 1805. The rest, as the cliche goes, is history, or based on it. Exciting stuff which will appeal to any with a taste for historical fiction, especially boys from about 11 upwards.

Jenny Valentine wrote Finding Violet Park which I read and reviewed here last April. I liked that book, and I like this one even better. Broken Soup is the story  of Rowan, starting with a boy giving her a photographic negative. (Will many people know what that is any more?) He says she’s dropped it, she’s sure she hasn’t, but when she gets it developed by a friend with a darkroom, it’s a picture of her dead brother. Since his death her father has left home and her mother is deeply depressed, leaving Rowan to look after the house and her little sister. Beautifully written, with interesting characters, it’s a very good read, with the story developing in unexpected ways. It’s part mystery, part grief study, another quirky take on what it means to be young and human.  A Teenage/young adult.

Another fantasy novel (by Matt Haig) with trolls, pixies, witches and other creatures, and one of the ones I particularly like, where the action starts in the real world, moves into (in this case) the forest, so that the characters are grounded in the real world, and we as readers identify more with them because of that. Samuel Blink is a boy with annoying parents and a very annoying sister (a very normal boy), but his life changes forever when a log falls off a truck and onto their car, killing both his parents. He and Martha go to live in Norway with their mother’s sister, a slightly mysterious figure who becomes more so as they (and we) get to know her. Things get much stranger when they get to Aunt Eda’s house. The story is exciting and funny, well-written and perceptive, always an interesting combination. Oh, and a wonderful villain too. A great read for anyone who likes this kind of fantasy, and it may persuade a few who haven’t yet succumbed to the genre. 10-years and up.

Julia Jarman, well-known for the Time-Travelling Cat series, has written this powerful book about bullying and peer pressure and a lot else besides. And it’s not just an issues book, but a rattling good read as well. Toby is worried when his mother tells him Danny is coming back to the local school. Danny is different, and gets picked on, and Toby has to choose whether to be his friend and be bullied too, or reject Danny to save his own skin. On a school trip to France the bullies close ranks and Danny is in real danger. Although it is totally different in many ways it reminds me slightly of Morton Rhue’s The Wave in its message to beware of the fascist within. Some websites say it’s for 7-9 -year-olds, but they obviously haven’t read it. I’d say 11 and up, especially as the boys (and girls) are secondary students and there are some moral choices here, and historical references, that younger readers won’t understand. Jarman is a very good writer and her skill pulled me along so that I read this very quickly in one sitting just to find out what happened. The historical aspect surfaces when the action moves to a Normandy beach with a French veteran of the war there. A recommended read, but not for the squeamish. I loved the ending, with no simple answers and more moral ambiguities to come. Great cover too.

By (wait for it):Eoin Colfer, Linda Sue Park, Ruth Ozeki, Nick Hornby,Tim Wynne-Jones, David Almond, Gregory Maguire, Deborah Ellis, Margo Lanagan and Roddy Doyle, and written for Amnesty International, who get all the royalties, this is a very interesting book. Each of the ten authors has taken a different perspective on a basic outline story and extrapolated, so that it’s like ten short stories, all related to the characters somehow. Maggie and Jason’s grandfather has died and left them each something: for Jason his camera and photographs (probably valuable as he’s been a famous photographer) and for Maggie a box of shells and a puzzle to solve. By the end of the book we have a whole lot of clues which, like real life, don’t add up to the whole picture. There’s some wonderful writing and characterisation here and it reads very well. Secondary level because of its sophisticated nature.