Moonfleet: A classic tale of smuggling, based on the novel by J.M Falkner (Usborne Young Readers series)

This dark tale explores the 18th century world of Britain's seaside smugglers. Adapted to form a chapter book for young readers, the book is illustrated with charming pencil sketches by Alan Marks. I don't make a habit of reading chapter books as they fall into that middle ground between easy-to-read picture books and all-too-easy-to-love young adult fiction. But something about the whimsical title and the muted style of this cover caught my eye.

The story features the young John Trenchard and describes his foray into the secret world of smuggling. Whilst not naturally crooked, circumstances contrive to lead John into a life of crime and he is soon forced to take to sea to avoid capture.

I can remember as a child being spellbound by the incredible tales set around the sea, like the famous five's smuggling adventure and that Swallows and Amazons where the children sailed out to sea by mistake. It was as if there was something about the incessant pull of the sea that attracted adventure. For a landlocked child, the sea will always represent freedom and the danger it presents only increases its appeal.

Rob Lloyd Jones has made Moonfleet accessible without attempting to update the tale. By staying true to the original the book retains an air of archaic charm, gently drawing the reader in to that period. There's enough intrigue, crime and danger to spark the interest of even reluctant young readers, although the strong moral running through the tale could offset this. Against the strong plot, the young narrator fades away somewhat, probably due to his indistinct personality and unquestioning acceptance of the bizarre situations he finds himself in. To be fair, the age of the intended audience does explain the simplification of John's character but even so, his actions and thoughts sometimes came across as wooden and illogical. This is nothing compared to the one-dimensional representation of his love interest, the ever-patient and forgiving Grace, who is barely able to speak for herself at all.

Although this tale does have charm, I thought the narrative style could have been much more engaging and the dialogue more natural. However, the illustration style felt refreshing - perhaps because I'm new to the age range - but I felt that the sketches made for intriguing character representations with hazy, hard-to-read expressions.  I'm sure the smuggling theme would hold appeal for young readers and there are twists and turns enough keep competent readers interested.

StoryCloud: The Hoopoe Bird by Emma King and Ross Collins

Illustration by Ross Collins

 Browsing through the Discover Children's Centre website tonight I happened upon the StoryCloud project, an online interactive library created especially for the London Festival 2012.

Here's the site's description: 

StoryCloud is an online story library featuring twelve brand new exclusive stories from award winning and up-and-coming authors and children. Each story is accompanied by a brilliant illustration. A new story will be released each Monday of the Cultural Olympiad until 3 September. The ninth story is now live, The Hoopoe Bird by Emma King and illustrated by Ross Collins.

The Hoopoe Bird is a simple little tale about a cruel magician and an exotic bird that he holds captive. Caught by the magician after a bold rescue mission during which some half-starved dolls are set free, the Hoopoe is chosen to star in the magician's performance show. But the Hoopoe bird has other ideas, and refuses to sing. What follows is a battle of wills between the man and bird.

It's a short and to-the-point tale with few major twist or turns and a strong overall moral. But what really sets this story about is its method of telling.

The story comes to life in the mouths of the fantastic child narrators on the available audio track. They bring warmth and depth to the tale with their tone and timing, and humour through the emphasis on words like 'dark' in the opening line, 'there was once a evil magician who did dark magic.' Whilst the style and tone of their delivery mimics traditional storytelling, the simplicity of the story kept the experience fresh.

I say they because I found it difficult to tell how many different voices I was hearing. There's something automated about the audio production that echoes the text-to-speech Kindle voice, and it certainly sounds like the recording has been heavily edited.

But there was still something about the actual process of being read to that really captivated me. It reminded me of Dr Jane Davis' essay 'The Reading Revolution' in the Stop What You're Going and Read This Vintage collection, where she describes The Reader Organisation's Get Into Reading programme as a 'read-aloud' group. In this essay, Davis describes how magical the process of reading literature aloud can be. She recalls being unexpectedly handed an emotive poem to read in a meeting, 'John had handed me some sad powerful magic, and I'd set it off by reading it aloud, a sort of spell.' It's a beautiful way of pointing out what we lose when we stop being read to as children. 

The Get Into Reading read-aloud groups are primarily focused on bringing the restorative aspect of communal reading to children, the elderly, youth groups, office workers, the mentally ill and many more. (You can find out more here: http://thereader.org.uk/get-into-reading/) 

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

'There's just no such thing as silence. Not here, not nowhere. Not when your asleep, not when yer by yerself,  never. 

I am Todd Hewitt, I think to myself with my eyes closed. I am twelve years and twelve months old. I live in Prentisstown on New World. I will be a man in one month's time exactly.'

Tired of their broken and warring planet, a band of religious settlers travel through space in search of a simple life. Despite their best intentions, things don't exactly get off to a great start when they arrive. Because this new planet has the uncomfortable effect of making your thoughts audible and this doesn't exactly make for harmonious living. 

Todd is born into this New World in a cruel dead-end town full of bitter and broken men thinking bitter and broken thoughts. The women and girls of the town were killed off by the same virus that revealed their thoughts and the only bright spots in Todd's life are his two guardians Ben and Cillian and his daft dog Manchee. On a relatively quiet farm outside the town, the family of three scrape out a bearable living until the day that Todd discovers a mysterious patch of silence. Suddenly, everything changes. The town's sinister elders come for him with rifles and Todd has no choice but to flee. But why won't Ben and Cillian tell him where he needs to go? And how come they already had a bag packed for his departure? What does the silence mean?

**********************

Warning: this book becomes incredibly hard to put down just after the mid-way point. It's a beast of a YA novel, almost 500 pages, and the pace initially took me some getting used to, especially with the cyclical nature of Manchee and Todd's speech. Patrick Ness has positioned Todd's internal dialogue as the narrative voice, and his efforts to represent natural thought processes makes for some repetition and slow going at first. But Ness is also incredibly skilled at creating separate distinct voices which he then weaves into the narrative. And Todd's thoughts naturally quicken alongside fast paced action, in a way that brings the reader right into the thick of the story. The sights and sounds he experiences are vividly described in what feels like real-time, and as the pace built I was truly sucked into the story.

I loved how immersed I became in this book, largely down to the unpredictable action. At one point I was literally repeating 'no!' out loud and committed the sin of skipping ahead pages to make sure I wasn't reading a dream sequence.

Ness clearly has a love of delving into the psyche of dark and creepy characters and some of the most chilling parts of the novel feature Todd attempting to do the same. But at the same time, he has also created other characters that manage to be both likable and multi-dimensional. It's clear that even in the New World, nobody's perfect. I love the fact that there are no perfect heroes in this book as it feels like a much more realistic representation of human nature. In the end, it is hope and affection that sets the characters apart, rather than plain good morals.

So the plot is unpredictable, engaging and shocking enough to satisfy the most blood-thirsty of young readers. It's hard to tell whether the unusual narrative style would put hesitant readers off or engage them. I've been a fan of kooky typography since first reading Jonathan Safran Foer so perhaps I'm biased. But it's definitely well worth a read - I'll certainly be getting my mits on the sequel.

Under the influence

I've been thinking about mind-altering drugs a lot recently. The workings of the brain have always fascinated me and as I've gotten older I've started to think a lot more about how we use our brains. That statistic about only using 10% of your brain has always freaked the frack out of me. I guess I hate feeling like I might not be making the most of what I have. When you're still in full time education your brain is constantly receiving new information and making connections but once you leave I think it's much harder to keep intellectually stimulated, especially if your job doesn't challenge you enough.

I read an article in the New Scientist recently about creativity. Basically the premise was that original thought is linked to daydreaming. The author argued that people who have been wholly focused on an intricate task, during which their mind isn't free to wander, score much lower in creativity tests than others. In the study that backed this, all participates were initially asked to think up creative uses for a brick. After this, they were then spilt into two groups; one of which was given a mindless, repetitive task to do, whilst the other was doing something more complicated requiring full concentration. The interesting part of the findings was that the people who had been carrying out the mindless task and been able to daydream were then able to come up with far more uses for a brick than the other group, despite many of those individuals reporting that they hadn't consciously been thinking about the task. The article concluded that it's the process of daydreaming itself, and the way that the thoughts are left free to meander, that is vital to our creative ability, rather than the content of our thoughts.

If single-minded concentration hampers creativity, the author reasoned, caffeine must act against creativity because it causes most people to focus and concentrate. But does it really? I sometimes find it harder to concentrate on one particular task after having a strong coffee, especially if the task doesn't particularly interest me. My thought processes seem to speed up and dart around, meaning that I get often get distracted easier from the task in hand but am also more able to come up with fresh ideas. If I applied my own experience to this article's findings then I'd say that coffee aids my creative thought process. As a read-a-holic English graduate and a bit of a day dreamer I'd count myself as a fairly creative person. So does caffeine literally just give the brain an indeterminate energy boast like a scattergun effect or does it actually encourage creativity itself? And if it doesn't, surely there must be other chemicals that can? *mind suddenly wanders off into futuristic world where authors are tested for banned substances like modern day athletes*.
------------------

A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin

I've just finished this book and it's left me wanting more. I think this was Chris Mullin's intention. He's created a warped snapshot of what the 1980's could have been. A lefter than left-back Labour government have been flung into office in a landslide victory. Downing Street nervously prepares to welcome an unorthodox crowd. Plans to destroy all American bases on British soil, do away with Nuclear weapons and enforce public control of finance and media are soon rolled into action.

As quick as the new Prime Minister, ideological ex-steel worker Harry Perkins, is to react to this shock win; the 'Establishment' are faster. The city-slickened wheels gather pace and pressure builds from all sides as the the mighty banking, civil service, media, religious and military worlds oppose the government's plans. Once the post-election celebrations die down it's clear that the British public have no control over the information forming their opinions, and they soon turn against Perkins.

First published in 1982 but set in 1989, A Very British Coup feels somewhat topical in light of the Levinson Inquiry, public mistrust of the banks and politicians, unemployment, social inequality and public sector strikes. *insert intelligent comment here on it being set in a future which is now in the past* Depending on your level of cynicism, it could be described as a fantasy or satire. Perhaps it's a mix of the two. Mullin documents Perkin's rise to power but the voting public themselves barely make an appearance. Barring the Cabinet and the trade leaders, you'd be hard pressed to find many Labour voters.  This reiterates the sense that real political power is concentrated into an impenetrable world where a privileged minority control an unsuspecting majority.

The novel weaves between political worlds, circling back less frequently to Perkin's office as his influence dwindles. A frustrated love affair, infidelity and a traitor in the Cabinet combine to threaten his party's ideological fervor. Ultimately I wanted more from this book. The problem is, I still can't decide if was the whole point.

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece by Annabel Pitcher

Jamie's older sister Rose haunts the family from the mantelpiece in this hard-hitting children's novel. She lives there. She's spoken to, she's offered food and she even manages to buy her family gifts. But Rose is dead. In fact, she was killed in a terrorist attack 5 years previously and Jamie can barely remember her - let alone cry for her. In contrast, Jamie's parents' inability to let her go eventually tears the family apart. Mum walks out, Dad drinks to forget and Jamie and Rose's remaining twin Jasmine are left desperately trying to patch their lives back together.

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece is an honest and unsentimental portrayal of an imperfect family struggling to come to terms with the death of a child. It's telling that this children's book feels more authentic than the majority of popular adult 'tragic lit' titles (or whatever Waterstones are labelling them as this year). Far from featuring stock, dependable adult characters, in Pitcher's world grief has made children out of the adults and adults of the children.

Jamie is an unselfconscious narrator and he paints a brutally clear picture of the children's neglected state. The faith that he relentlessly places in his mother could distress some adult readers. But the success of this book suggests that children respond well to such a honest representation of a dysfunctional family. And why shouldn't they? Children are on the whole much more honest than adults. And their response to death is usually way more pragmatic than an adult's. In short, Jamie's parents could stand to learn a lot from him.

The book has its sweet moments as Jamie interacts with his sister and his only friend Sunya, (a friendship that Jamie's Dad would definitely NOT approve of). It's clear early on that his chance for happiness rests on these two young pairs of shoulders. I was a little disappointed that the author has made both of the only 2 nurturing/supportive figures in the novel female. I suppose it just felt predictable, especially as the school bully was male, for the parenting void in his live to be filled by two females.

Also the romantic aspect of Jamie and Sunya's relationship didn't really ring true for me. His infatuation seemed to devalue their friendship in the way that it served as a convenient motivation for his continued resistance to his Dad's tyranny. It would have been way cooler if Sunya's personality (which did rock) was the main instigator for Jamie's loyalty rather than an attraction which seemed to border on a fetishness for Sunya's cultural differences. It felt like the crush had been added mainly for the benefit of the adult cute factor and removing it could have opened up the book to more young male readers.

Those issue aside there's a lot to like about this book. I always like books that hand the reins to kids in difficult situations and I really value the honesty surrounding this difficult topic. It's also a pretty funny read too. 3/5 stars.
------------------