I keep saying that with Michael Morpurgo, you can't go wrong. Once more, with Listen to the Moon, I realised the truth of that. Had it been almost any other writer, I would have been daunted by the thickness of the book and the idea of beginning to read it when I know I'm busy. But Michael Morpurgo? Any day.Another World War I novel, Listen to the Moon is set on the Isles of Scilly. We move from one time frame to another, and the two are just a few months apart. Merry MacIntyre tells part of the story. He father, a Canadian, is wounded in the war, and Merry and her mother are determined to travel across the Atlantic to be with him.Through a third person narrator, though, we also discover Lucy Lost, a young girl who seems traumatised into silence, wet and shivering by herself on St. Helen's Island. Who is Lucy Lost and why won't she speak? With anti-German sentiment on the rise, … [Read more...]
Ink
More often than not, fantasy serves as an allegory of the world we live in. Sometimes, the allegory is clearer than at other times, and I suppose part of that is cultural. For instance, when I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for the first time, I didn't know enough to make the obvious connections.With Ink, it was different. Especially with the right wing on the rise all around us, the links between the the protagonist Leora's world and our world assault us. In the fantastic world of Ink, every important event is marked on your skin. Your name, your family, your qualifications. And then, you choose marks of your own that you would like to add to your skin - and having marks there is a sign of your integrity, for what to you have to hide? Let the world see you for what you are! Those who hide are likely to be untrustworthy, cheats, thieves.Long ago, there were blanks who … [Read more...]
Secrets of a Sun King
The first book I read by Emma Carroll was The Girl Who Walked on Air, and I loved it enough for it to have been one of the top ten middle-grade books I read in 2018. As a child, I devoured Galliano's Circus and I picked up the book with nothing in mind other than the fun of exploring another, different circus.When I saw Secrets of a Sun King at Lightroom, a delightful children's bookstore in Bengaluru, I recognised Emma Carroll's name and after a very slight hesitation, I decided to pick it up. I'm glad I did.In the Q&A section at the end of the book, Emma Carroll talks of the challenges of writing a book about Tutankhamen. The boy king is shrouded in intrigue, and countless stories have been written about and around him. The young pharaoh's tomb revealed unimaginable treasures, and incredibly, the boy's heart is missing. That forms the seed of all kinds of stories, doesn't … [Read more...]
Books I Read in January 2020
I wrote already about the three hOle books I read, as well as about The Lilliputians. But there's so much more, as always, especially as I was travelling! Instead of doing one post per book, here's a list of books I read and loved.Neel on WheelsNeel on Wheels is a lovely picture book written by Lavanya Karthik (who also created the cover of The Prophecy of Rasphora) and illustrated by Habib Ali. I love picture books that play with rhyme and rhythm! In this delightfully imaginative book, Neel's wheelchair becomes his superpower. It can fight dragons and can scare monsters away!TitleNeel on WheelsRating (out of 5)5GenrePicture bookBoo! When My Sister DiedStories about dealing with grief are so important! I remember attending a session on death, divorce and other difficult subjects at the AFCC 2017 and thinking that we needed more books … [Read more...]
The Lilliputians
Street-smart Tilly ropes Poesy in to audition for the Lilliputians, a children's theatre group that is to travel to America. Poesy qualifies, only to discover that the world of acting and singing is rather different from everything she had dreamed it would be. For one, it seems that everyone cannot be friends with everyone else. There is more backbiting than she had ever imagined, and suddenly, she needs to grow up. Nothing is the way it seems on the surface. Being naive is going to get her nowhere.The reader is sucked into this world of gossip, rumour and drama that is not restricted to the theatre. Through Tilly and Poesy, we learn that even the idea of their childhood seems to be a farce. Tilly pretends to be innocent - because it works. But the thrill of being a Lilliputian comes from much more - from temptation, adoration and secrecy.The Lilliputians starts slowly, but grips … [Read more...]
Three hOle Books
Who doesn't love a hole in a book? I love the idea of the hole, and I do wish it were possible to make the holes part of every illustration! I'm sure the illustrator would probably find that rather restrictive, but even so, I delighted in each picture that used the hole in some way.Petu Pumpkin: Tooth TroublesWhat if you really need a football and the only person who can get you one is the tooth fairy? And then, what if the tooth fairy bargains with you and says that a football is worth at least two teeth and not just one?I chuckled as I read Petu Pumpkin: Tooth Troubles and could picture so much of it as the kind of cartoon I would have watched as a child! The very correct, very polite letters to the tooth fairy; the joy of a fallen tooth; the conviction that a tooth deserves some sort of payment ... What fun the book was!TitlePetu Pumpkin: Tooth … [Read more...]
Top Ten: Young Adult Books
Being a young adult is to inhabit a complex and confusing world. When books address this phase of life beautifully, they can be breathtaking. Here are my top ten YA books of 2019.StargirlWriter: Jerry SpinelliPublisher: Laurel LeafThinking about Stargirl makes me smile, for the character of Stargirl is impossibly sweet, impossibly wonderful. Leo loves her, but unlike her, he is bound by this world. He seeks the approval and acceptance of people around him and he wants Stargirl to be normal, even though he assures her that he loves how not-normal she is.For a while, Stargirl tries, for she loves Leo too. But that is not who she is. How can Stargirl be normal? In a different context, I could ask, how do you keep a wave upon the sand?Read my review of StargirlBuy StargirlWolf CryWriter: Julia GoldingPublisher: Frost WolfFrom an author I love comes … [Read more...]
Top Ten: Middle-Grade Books
Narrowing down to my top ten middle-grade books is always the hardest of all! Some of these books are younger than others, as always, because age ranges are hard to define. A few of these would be borderline chapter books; a few would be borderline young adult.The Racehorse Who Wouldn't GallopWriter: Clare BaldingIllustrator: Tony RossPublisher: Penguin UKAs a child, I loved the Animal Ark series so much that I longed to be a vet. When I learned that studying medicine involved cutting things up, I balked. Yet, animals were special to me, and I would go as far as to say that they are special to most children.The Racehorse Who Wouldn't Gallop is a charming story of love for animals. It is a tale of friendship and grit: friendship among animals, people, and animals and people. Once more, it is a story that explores the idea that children can do … [Read more...]
Top Ten: Chapter Books
Calling all the books that I've listed here 'chapter books' is perhaps unfair. Some are quite a bit longer than others. I'm uncomfortable defining books on the basis of age too, as reading levels differ widely even within one school, let alone across schools, areas and countries. I think, broadly, this list comprises books that I enjoyed reading as an adult and would probably have loved when I was eight or nine.Me and Mister PWriter: Maria Farrer Illustrator: Daniel RieleyPublisher: Oxford University PressWhat can I say about the delightful Mister P? Though I read Me and Mister P almost a year ago, it is one of those timeless books that stay with you, a classic.When Arthur discovers a polar bear at his doorstep, the warmest of friendships begins to blossom. Mister P does not say a word, but something special is born out of those wonderful bear hugs and the … [Read more...]
The Racehorse Who Wouldn’t Gallop
Ooh! That's Polly! Let me wave out to her!Oops. I'm at an auction and I just ended up buying a horse for a thousand pounds.No, I'm not quoting, but this is the lovely premise of a heart-warming story of a racehorse who refuses to gallop.Ten-year-old Charlie Bass loves horses, but she has only ever ridden a cow on her farm. When she accidentally bids for a racehorse that her father must now buy, Charlie is determined to make the purchase of Noble Warrior the best decision ever, even if it means additional expenses on Folly Farm for a while. Charlie ropes her brothers Harry and Larry in and, as a team, they begin to train Noble Warrior, aka Noddy, to become the next winner of the Derby.The Racehorse Who Wouldn't Gallop is a story about friendship - between a horse and a palomino pony, and among the humans in the story. Most of all, though, more than all the … [Read more...]