story time books

This is a wonderfully accomplished book, another of those that have everything I want in a read: a rattling plot, great characters, including the nastiest magician villain since Voldemort, lovely writing and an emotional quotient that almost insists the reader feel along with the characters. Some reviewers have called it a debut novel, but Amazon uk thinks she’s written others and I’d be very surprised if this is a first.  Our story is set in Venice in 1899 but it’s not Venice as a real traveller in that year would have seen it;  it’s an alternate historical fantasy Venice, complete with a mayor who portrays the chaos the city is falling into as no problem,  a troop of feisty mermaids who have learnt human speech from sailors and who are rather prone to salty curses,  who run a subversive printing press, and want to see Hopscotch played, an archivist who is a cat (several hundred years old), and other interesting inhabitants. Teodora is visiting Venice with her adoptive parents who are scientists called in to help with Venice’s problems, but she immediately feels she belongs in Venice. The plot thickens quickly and convincingly, and it really is a wonderfully told tale. Many who loved Harry Potter will enjoy this, and others too. A lovely book, and I’ll be eager to read more from this author. None of the teen angst of the later Potter books so suitable for anyone who is a good enough reader and who doesn’t mind a scary villain.

Another picture book, this time by Norbert Landa, illustrated by Tim Warnes, with a chinese whispers theme, or the variation thereof where the story doesn’t just change subtly each time, but enlarges or expands. Duck hears a noise under her bed, which sounds like pshh, pshh. By the time pig, bear,wolf and owl have each added to the noise it has become “pshh, pshh, grrr, bang bang, pam pam, growl and ooooooooooeeeeee!” and clever owl has determined that it is a monster. When they finally look, armed with all sorts of tools to capture or subdue the monster, the noise is revealed as the quiet snoring of a tiny mouse and the friends realise that the great threat to Duck’s safety has been over-estimated somewhat. A lovely story about fears magnified.

Diana Boles and Aki Fukoaka have made a picture book about another aging and presbyopic witch (one who needs reading glasses). Witchy wakes and remembers that it is her birthday, perhaps her 577th or even 775th. She examines her reflection in the mirror (without her glasses) and thinks she’s looking pretty good. She goes to her spell cupboard, finds it bare and then can’t remember the magic word (which most children will be able to help her with. So she decides to try the supermarket she’s heard about and makes a list (with her glasses on). Unfortunately she leaves the glasses behind and makes all sorts of mistakes selecting the ingredients. She discovers her mistake when she puts her spectacles on but realises she has the ingredients for a party instead. So Witch and friends have a lovely party, and as she gets ready for bed she remembers the magic word. Children will love the silliness and forgetfulness.

Also available in a Maori language edition, Te Haere Hokohoko a Witiwitipu, translated by Katerina te Heikoko Mataira.

This latest offering from Gecko Press, by Blexbolix crept up on me slightly. I took a brief flick through the pages and  it didn’t immediately grab my attention, though the illustrations are certainly beautiful. But when I returned to it and looked more carefully I appreciated it much more.  Then I found this on Gecko Press’s website from Julia Marshall, and I agree.   ‘At first glance, this is a beautiful art book reminiscent of the children’s book illustration of the 1960s.

‘The most striking thing about it for me is that it forces you to slow down and to reflect on the associations within, which are not always immediately obvious. When you read the book as a whole, you really do get the sense that the world is both changing and unchanging. It’s a meditation.

‘The more times you read this book, the more you get out of it.’

It is a large book, almost A4-sized, which allows the pictures to have more impact, and it certainly repays closer looking. It would make an ideal resource for classrooms talking about seasons, and each illustration is a starting point for writing, or art work, or just thinking about the connections, within each picture and within the book as a whole. There are very few words, just a brief caption on each page: “Winter”, or “Thirst”, or “A Prune.” A great stimulant for the senses and the imagination, and as Julia’s comment says, one which forces the reader to slow down and look properly. Definitely a book to share.

Kevin Crossley-Holland is a writer whose artistry turns places and times into characters. The Arthur Trilogy and Gatty’s Tale made crusade-era England and the Middle East dance through the pages, and now he’s set this story in 1950s East Anglia, with  echos from the time of Oliver Cromwell. It plays with ideas of religious intolerance and the effects of the past on the present, but also facts like the marriages of 30,000 Norfolk girls to American servicemen during and after WWII. The characters feel very real, even when some of the events are somewhat unreal, like the appearances of Smasher Dowsing’s men to Annie several hundred years later. The places and buildings are also described in a way which allows readers to make their own pictures, something which is less common with many modern writers. This is another book which reminds us of how much richer childhood is (and was) without the seduction of electronic media, when children entertained themselves, rather than having entertainment handed to them ready digested on a screen. An excellent stimulant for an imaginative child. Good readers of eight or nine up will enjoy this, and older readers will get even more from it..

Verse novels aren’t exactly common in any genre, and certrainly not in children’s books. Sally Murphy wrote Pearl Verses the World, which I wrote about here in May last year. This one has illustrations by Rhian Nest James. If you have a problem with the idea of verse, read it as if it’s prose. It’ll lose a little of its effect, but it will still be a great read. John tells the story, and he’s a domino toppler, setting up hundreds, or thousands, of dominos in order to topple them. But it’s his world that starts to topple when his best mate Dominic becomes ill. It’s a lovely story of a boy coming to terms with what life can throw at him, beautifully told, and the illustrations add to the effect as well. The characters are year six pupils, so suitable for upper primary and intermediate, but great above that too. Once again it’s a slight book at under 130 pages, but it packs an emotional punch many longer books struggle to achieve.

Melina Marchetta’s  Saving Francesca is one of my favourite young adult books, with its sassy and intelligent heroine, and now here’s a sequel (sort of, not really). Tom Mackee was one of the characters in the earlier book, and now five years have passed, years that haven’t been kind to Tom. His family has exploded after the sudden violent death of his uncle in a terrorist attack: his mother has gone to Queensland to escape his father’s drinking; his father’s twin sister is pregnant to the man she left after he fathered a child with someone else during a separation; Tara Finke, the woman Tom thinks he might love is in Timor, and appears to hate him; and at the start of the book his flatmates have thrown him out. I’ve read a few books which are about the effect of grief on the lives of those left behind after tragedy, but none as good as this one. The only question is whether it is a teenage/young adult book, since the main characters are all in their twenties. And the answer is, who cares? With characters as good as these, writing as crisp and true, and knowledge of the human condition to burn, it’s a great read for anyone, teenage or adult. I loved Finnikin of the Rock, which I reviewed in October 2008, and this just proves that Melina is one of those writers who start out very good and keep getting better. A very, very good read indeed. I could say a lot more, but it would be difficult to do that without spoiling the effect for the reader, and I’d hate to do that. It’s a sad, funny, wise, wonderful book.

Jack Lasenby’s latest is as good as Old Drumble, which I loved, though it is completely different in some ways and has similarities in others. The exaggerated  stories of the drover’s dog have gone, with some of the humour, but the feel of a community (no, not a community, the specific Waharoa community)  is there again, and this feels like another glimpse at the earlier New Zealand that Jack is so good at portraying. It’s a reminder of how much good has been lost along with the gains in instant communications. As a character in another book I’m about to review says, “We don’t live in a society anymore…We live in an economy. We’re not citizens. We’re customers.” [The Piper's Son by Melina Marchetta]. But in 1930s Waharoa, Maggie lives with her father, and is brought up by him and the proverbial village. Some of their tender care borders on, or crosses into interference, but most of it is lovingly gentle. Maggie and her father are wonderfully rounded characters, giving the lie to the impression some have of absolute blandness of our society before we acquired cafes and consumerism, and they are surrounded by other wonderful characters of whom we catch glimpses. There’s an acute sense of the time (1930s, depression) conveyed by the everyday lives in a dairy factory town and passing comments about politics. Wonderfully human, and the story gives a better sense of that earlier New Zealand than shelves full of history books. Highly recommended for anyone eight-years-old and over.

Yay, another dog-loving picture book, another twist on the oldie but goodie story of the stray who somehow inveigles its way into the heart of a family, almost inevitably starting with the children and eventually persuading the last of the parents. This one, by Katrina Germein and Tamsin Ainslie has the added twist that the family is on holiday at the beach when Littledog turns up. It could almost be New Zealand until the dog is discovered under the lounge, which we’d call a couch, sofa or settee; the room’s the lounge in this part of Downunder. Beautifully told and illustrated, with a refrain that says “Littledog wagged his tail. His whole bottom wagged too.” The essential novel in 32 pages picture book, with a beginning: “Littledog found us one holiday evening. He was waiting at the shack when we came back from the beach.”, a middle in which the plot thickens and the dog runs barks and eats, as dogs do, and an end: “And that’s how Littledog became part of our family.”

When it comes to picture book author/ illustrators Jan Fearnley is one of my personal favourites. I read her Watch Out, Wilf! at least 15 times to one granddaughter in one weekend and have recommended it to many customers since. This one is  destined to be a favourite too. Tallulah wants a pink fluffy rabbit for her birthday, but one can’t be found. So  Gran decides to help, finds some fuzzy pink yarn and begins knitting. She runs out of pink and adds in scraps of other colours, but gets in a bit of a muddle, and the pink fluffy rabbit becomes a mostly pink Armadillo, christened Milo by Gran, who quite likes the result. But although he and Tallulah have lots of adventures together, Milo is always being unfavourably compared with the desired rabbit. He tries several possible solutions, none of which work, and he runs away to Gran’s to ask her to unravel him and start again to make a proper pink fluffy rabbit. When Tallulah comes home from school, full of things to tell Milo,  she realises that she’s grown rather fond of a certain soft toy which is not a  pink fluffy rabbit. Then she spots a thread of unravelling wool, follows it and is reunited with Milo. Gran darns his tail and when the reader turns the page to happily ever after (no, not really), there’s a knitting pattern to make a wonderful woollen armadillo. Pure magic.