Tag: Age 10 – 12

Blog 23

Pax by Sara Penny Packer

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“I had a fox. I have a fox… We left him on the side of the road. My dad said we had to, but I should never have done it.”

This is a beautiful story and a compelling one.

One story is about Peter, who has been forced by his father to abandon his fox that he had rescued as a cub. Peter seems to be living in the modern world that is torn apart by war. It seems to be set in the USA or Canada but it could be any country that is calling men to arms. The consequence of the fighting means Peter is shipped off to live with his grandfather away from the frontline, where his father has decided to volunteer. The poor boy is full of guilt that he has left a tame fox to fend for itself in the wild. He feels he has left it to die. So he packs his backpack with essentials and runs away back to his home, in the vain hope he can find his beloved pet and save him.

Of course, as in all good stories, it’s not as simple as that. Peter breaks his foot and finds himself at the mercy of the wild. He stumbles into a barn and is himself, ‘rescued’ by Vola, an army veteran who has withdrawn from the modern world and lives off the land. Her harsh care and ability to make Peter confront his own weaknesses are what he has been lacking from his father. She is a tough woman. But she teaches Peter the harsh realities of nature and that he is much stronger than he could ever imagine.

The other story belongs to Pax. His initial confusion as to why his ‘boy’ would abandon him is heart breaking. He waits patiently for Peter to return. His loyalty is profound. However, his instincts draw him to his own kind and even though he stinks of humans, he is eventually accepted by the local fox population. Even so, his fight for survival becomes more than just finding food. As he tries to find his way back to the home he once had, he puts himself in terrible danger, as he is journeying towards where men are fighting the war. He suffers terrible loss and faces impossible odds but you will him to survive.

At the heart of the story is the rite of passage that both Peter and Pax must go through in order to survive in a world that is essentially falling apart. It’s a hard read and it does not give you the pithy resolution of a Disney film. I felt this was a moral tale for today that should make all of us reflect on our relationship with nature and each other. There’s an intense loneliness in this story and a need for humans to reconnect with one another and the world around them. It rather drew me back to the world of Steinbeck and certainly had the delicate nature imagery of stories like Of Mice and Men.

Who should read this book?

This is a lovely book and would make a wonderful partner to the Book of Lost Words, carrying the same sort of messages. I think Years 5 – 8 would enjoy this and there are plenty of opportunities to link with some powerful poetry or even Blackbird by The Beatles. As I mentioned earlier, schools will have hundreds of copies of Of Mice ad Men lying around and Pax would be a good partner text for older readers. Highly recommended, emotionally charged read.

You can buy this book here: https://amzn.to/2uZxxRk

Blog 20

Sky Song by Abi Elphinstone

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“This is a story about an eagle huntress, an inventor and an organ made of icicles.”

This is a book EVERYONE should read. I haven’t loved a book like this for a very, very long time. Of course, there had been a huge buzz around it and I was unusually sceptical, perhaps because of my love of the Northern Lights trilogy, and I had only just read the Polar Bears Explorers Club. So I had resisted this particular text. However, I was absolutely gripped from the start to the finish and in fact, I slowed down to saviour every chapter as I simply did not want it to end. I was both uplifted and saddened that I had come to the final pages. I feel I am mourning the loss of Eska and Flint … I want them back!

So what was it about this novel that I loved? Firstly, the landscape. If ever there was a story that demonstrated how far the landscape becomes a character in the story this was it. The hostile environment that envelops you at the start is so beautifully captured and really I was there. I was on the ice, watching the stars, in the caves, in the forests. I was lost to the mood of the environment. Secondly, the three leading characters: Eska, Flint and Blu. Eska starts the story a captive of the evil Ice Queen who has her locked in a music box. The Ice Queen tortures her and wants to steal Eska’s voice before the rising of the midnight sun because, if she does that, she will rule not only Erkenwald (where the story is set) but she will bring down the Sky Gods who have overseen the land and the tribes for centuries. It’s a classic story of good versus evil but Eska can’t remember her life before being taken prisoner. She has no idea why her voice is important or how she has been touched by the Sky Gods.

Flint is the inventor and, despite everything that has happened, he is enchanted by the long lost magic that the tribes abandoned under the rule of the evil Ice Queen. He knows the old ways and invents clever machines and gives power to objects throughout their adventures. He is also mesmerised by Eska. Something about her gets inside him and it is thanks to Flint that Eska escapes the clutches of the Queen. However, without Eska, Flint would never have believed that his inventions would work, so they need each other. But I am not telling you anything else, as that will give away the fantastic story that unfolds as Eska and Flint journey across Erkenwald to save themselves, their parents and their tribes. Blu is Flint’s little sister. She is a delight.  Both intuitive and clever in ways that even her brother doesn’t realise until it’s in front of him. Blu recognises Eska’s goodness the moment she meets her and instantly embraces her as a friend. Where others dismiss her, Eska listens and Flint will defend Blu to end of the world.

I was overwhelmed by the feelings brought about by this text. Whether it was the idea that we need to remember to protect our environment or that nature is a powerful or that community is far more powerful than one dictator, I was so taken aback that I am still emotionally there with Eska. I want to be her. I want an eagle as a friend and I really, really want to meet an Erkenbear! They must be real, as I read them here and believed. Truly wonderful. There is so much more to this story but I don’t want to spoil it’s twists and turns. I just want you all to go out and read it.

who should read this Book?

Well in my humble opinion: EVERYONE! I guess it’s aimed at the middle grade audience of 8 – 12. It would be a wonderful Year 6 text. It will stretch vocabulary, enchant both girls and boys and I am sure most of the teachers will enjoy it too. There is a fantastic opportunity to explore the arctic and the peoples who live there. Some lovely work could be done across the curriculum with Geography and considering climate change. But maybe look at the Inuit people too or some of the reindeer herders of Finland etc. There are fantastic opportunities to talk about voice  and who has the most power: the quiet and thoughtful one or the loud dictator. Finally, diversity and difference and why we should not judge people because of their differences through talking about Blu.

Honestly, I am not going to be moved by a text like this again for a very long time.

You can buy this book here: https://amzn.to/2vnnVCE

 

Blog 19

A Place Called Perfect by Helena Duggan

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“Who wants to live in a town where everyone has to wear glasses to stop them going blind?”

This is a fantastically creepy story! Violet is a bright and clever girl who moves to the town of Perfect, when her Dad is given a seemingly fantastic new job. However, anywhere called Perfect is bound to be an illusion right?

Violet quickly finds herself blind after spending just one night in the town. Given a pair of spectacles she can then see her surroundings and its inhabitants again but something is not quite right and she knows it. Everything seems just too ‘perfect’, immaculate houses, streets and the people seem to be possessed by a false kindness. Violet also has a sense that she is being moulded into a different kind of person, someone who is submissive and does what everyone else does in Perfect. Violet is also aware that someone seems to be watching her and eventually she meets with the mysterious, “Boy”. Boy lives within the town but in an area called No-Man’s land. No-Man’s Land is populated by all those who did not fit the ideal model citizen of the main town and somehow they have been forgotten and lost.

The tension builds incredibly quickly in this story, as Violet finds her world falling apart. Her mother becomes more and more consumed by making cakes and book groups, something that she had never done before. She starts trying to turn Violet into a model citizen by drugging her with concoctions given to her by the brothers who run the town’s opticians, the Archers. And her father … he has vanished and her mother doesn’t seem to realise. However, Violet can see that behaving just like anyone else and not being an individual is wrong and with the help of Boy, she starts to unravel the goings on in the town.

This is such a clever mystery. There are so many twists and turns and the brilliant linking together of the characters is superb and had me gripped. There’s also some really disturbing dystopian features, eyeball plants and stolen memory jars that are right out of a John Wyndam novel. How are they pulled together? Well you will just have to wait and read the story yourself but needless to say, the Archers are not what they seem and the mysterious lady in the ghost village is far more important than she initially seems!

Who should read this book?

This is a cracking text for Years 5 – 7. With appealing central characters in a world that seems not too remote from our own, I think it will intrigue boys and girls alike. Violet’s strong character is a delight and she will appeal to young girls and boys, as she shows both her determination but also her fear. In terms of using this in a classroom, I think there’s some fantastic opportunities for exploring the idea of ‘rose tinted spectacles’ and imaginative writing. There’s also some great stereotyping here and questions around why women bake cakes and men go to work. Definitely something you could use to challenge perceptions in Years 6 and 7.

Loved it! Sure you will too.

You can buy this book here: https://amzn.to/2JMyBgY

Blog 14

The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club by Alex Bell

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When Stella joins the polar bear Explorers on an expedition to the icelands, her eyes are opened to a world of danger, adventure and snow pirates!

Oh what an adventure! Stella is an orphan who has been adopted by her explorer father, Felix. She has a pet polar bear and a house full of miniature dinosaurs. However, what she wants more than anything else is to be an explorer herself but there is one tiny problem, she is a girl. Everyone in her world knows that girls cannot be explorers, except it seems Stella. Even her wonderful father feels it would be better to leave her with her awful Aunt than take Stella along on his latest expedition. But that quickly changes when the Aunt suggests that Stella should be sent off to finishing school and there is no way Felix is about to let that happen.

Stella’s adventure begins the moment she arrives at the Explorers’ Club. Whilst Felix is in explaining to the president why his daughter should be allowed on the expedition, Stella goes in search of the map room, although ironically she can’t find it, she does find the Hall of Flags and a boy called Ethan. Ethan is very hard to like, but like all good books, you should never judge a character when you first meet them although I am not going to reveal how he changes. But he has had a rough time and has faced some dangers himself. Stella is feisty and determined. She’s also a loyal friend to Beanie, who she supports and understands even when he is saying just the wrong thing at just the wrong moment and generally this is when he speaks to Ethan. Importantly, Beanie’s character exposes some of the difficulties children with autism face when they see the world one way and other people see it another. The three of them are destined to spend the rest of the book together, facing all sorts of dangers, however, there is one more character to introduce, Shay. I loved Shay, he is a ‘wolf whisperer’ and looks after the wolves that will take the sleds across the frozen lands they are going to explore. Generally, he is calm in the face of danger and, like Stella, he has a can do attitude to overcoming the obstacles that are flung in their path.

The main part of the novel sees the children separated from their parents the moment they land on the Icelands. They have to survive first but they are also true explorers as they want to take back things they find on their adventure and show that they can do as well as the adults. They are constantly thwarted by a variety of dangers: fairies that turn out not to be the sort of ‘Tinkerbell’ like things we expect in fairy tales (it was rather more Artemis Fowl than Disney!), they meet some pirates who don’t want to be found, savage cabbages, and stone trolls. They use quick thinking and find some unusual solutions to their problems. We learn that they all have a special talent (read the book to find out what) but the person who finds out most about herself is Stella.

This is such a wonderful novel of twists and turns. Just when you think things can’t get any worse they do! It’s so imaginative and as I’ve said before, I love a good fantasy novel and this is perfect in it’s execution. It’s not too far from our world but far enough to have some scary creatures and some absolutely laugh out loud moments. We are often left wondering how the children can escape but as with all good ensemble stories, it takes all their talents to overcome disaster. I couldn’t put this down! I must also mention the illustrations which are absolutely stunning and I loved the symbols for each explorers club: I choose Polar Bears. As for the end, Alex Bell left me totally dangling … I am now waiting for the story of the witch and I’d quite like it soon, if that’s possible.

Who should read this book?

I heartily recommend this for adventurous Year 4s, definitely for Years 5 -7. There’s plenty that could be done in the classroom with extracts from this story; you could easily teach the art of the cliff hanger using some of this. A fantastic creative writing project would be to take an ordinary vegetable and turn it into a mad killer vegetable in an unusual place. I think you could use the illustrations too to stimulate creative writing and there would be some great cross curricular links with history and perhaps to look at women explorers.

On a personal note, I really learnt something about how to write a really gripping novel with a strong female lead, who does not need to be a boy to succeed.

Cracking!

Buy from Amazon here: http://amzn.to/2EAUEHI

Blog10

Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll

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“February, 1941 A Bomb Blast … a chance encounter… her mother’s coat”

Best reads

Fabulous!

There are some books that you put in your basket, as you wander around the local book shop, that you had no intention of buying. When I picked up Letters from the Lighthouse, I wasn’t sure where I’d heard about Emma Carroll but I must admit that a lighthouse in the title was a draw. I am from the south west of the UK; there’s always a lighthouse and for me they evoke romantic images of a time before GPS, when rocks were life threatening to boats, and children dreamt of being lighthouse keepers.

When you start reading this book, you are immediately thrown back into World War 2. The opening, with it’s bombing and terrifying scenes of buildings being blown apart, is described with such vivid accuracy that I felt my heart rate go up and I feared for our lead character, Olive. Olive and her brother, Cliff, are then evacuated by their mother to Devon (again, how at home did I feel in this book), where there is an intriguing connection to the Post Mistress, Queenie. The journey doesn’t start well and it seems as if Olive has met her nemesis in Esther Jenkins, who superficially seems vile and a bully. There is, of course, much more to Esther than her outward nastiness.

The lighthouse is vital to the story and I learnt a great deal about the way the Germans used lighthouses for navigation into Plymouth. In fact, one of the wonderful elements of this gripping story is the history. There’s so much I didn’t know (and I am about to show my ignorance here) about the “Kindertransport” or that those children arrived and settled into the UK without knowing if their parents were alive or dead. I also had no idea that Jewish refugees were smuggled out of France to the UK. The book seemed to resonate with overtones of the current political state of the world, as one particular idea that runs through the story is that of humanity and what makes us human.

“Beneath our race, our religion, we are all human beings. We all hurt in the same ways.”

This seemed incredibly poignant to me and I am sure younger readers would appreciate the importance of recognising the humanity in everyone, even if we dislike them, or in this case were the enemy. It was such a powerful message.

As for Olive, she is a complex leading lady, naturally intelligent, curious and fearless, she drives the story forward with her unwavering determination to find the truth out about her wayward sister, Sukie. She shows her intolerance of Esther and then her kindness, she is unwavering in her devotion to her family, and her loyalty to the small village that she comes to love is to be commended. She also shows us how hard it was to be in a country torn apart by war. I felt physically sick when her and Cliff didn’t have enough to eat and equally, I was delighted for them when they ended up living in the lighthouse.

The story reminded me of The Railway Children, evoking the same emotional roller coaster as I journeyed through it. I was caught from the very start. It took me all of 4 nights to read it (much to my husband’s consternation, as I wouldn’t turn the light off!). It’s not often that you read a book where you really want to know the end but at the same time don’t want it to end. I wanted to know the rest of Olive’s story and Esther’s too.  Wonderful.

who should read this book?

Actually, if I had my way this would be a Year 6 class reader. It is so thoughtful, covering things like friendship, race, history and more. It’s a masterclass in historical fiction for kids. I would think linking it to some war poetry and some wonderful research on the period would be fantastic. There’s plenty of writing opportunities too, as you could teach the lost art of letter writing and how they really create bonds between people. It’s a cracking read for adults too, as I can honestly say it’s one of the best books I’ve read for a long time!

To Be A Cat by Matt Haig – Review

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A Good Read

“Cats are magic.
That’s right.
Cats. They’re magic.”

If you had any doubts about the way cats behave when you see them on the street or when  lying on a radiator at home, then this book confirms your worst fears, cats are sometimes evil!

Matt Haig has an interesting style when he writes, actually interrupting reading the novel to interject. It would be a good book to use with students to talk about narrative voice as it shifts between the ‘author’ and Barney Willow, throughout the text. The book starts quite slowly, setting up Barney’s rather dysfunctional home life, as his Dad has gone missing and seems to be presumed dead. He can’t escape his misery at school, as he experiences the wrath of Miss Whipmire, the Headmistress, who seems determined to ensure that he is expelled from his secondary school in the first term in Year 7. As if to make things even worse, he’s also at the mercy of the school bully, Gavin. Poor Barney really does seem to have the rough end of the stick.

There are some good characters in the novel. It’s not all doom and gloom. Rissa, Barney’s best friend is the kind of girl that will appeal to those who are determined to be individual and she has some top tips for coping with an otherwise brutal world. She’s strong and clever and ‘marmalade’ works well for her (and not in a Paddington Bear type way). She is a complete contrast to Barney, in that nothing seems to worry her and her parents are settled and happy. They also live on a barge and are vegetarian, so Mr Haig does dip into every stereotype going. Perhaps my favourite character is Guster, Barney’s pet King Charles Spaniel. He speaks like a king and clearly has ideas above his station, oh and he hates cats, of course. But Guster’s inner musings are fabulous.

Now I don’t want to tell you what happens to Barney, as that would really spoil the story. But needless to say there are many cats in this tale (hahahaha) and, just like people, cats seem to have their fair share of problems.

Who Should Read This?

I wasn’t sure about this book at the start but by the end I was gripped and couldn’t put it down. The narrative rushes to it’s conclusion and it’s not clear until the very last minute who is going to win the day. The novel is an easy read with plot and characters easy to follow, even with the interruptions from the author! I think Years 5, 6 & 7 would enjoy this and even some reluctant readers would find the illustrations helpful in conveying the narrative meaning. It would appeal to both genders too and adults, who are very suspicious about cats.