July 2019 – Julia's books

#KeepKidsReading: Book review – “What not to do if you turn invisible” by Ross Welford

This is my third Ross Welford novel. I loved the two others that I have read – Time Travelling with a Hamster and The 1,000 Year Old Boy – and have recommended them widely. What not to do if you turn invisible explores some similar themes to the other books – a child who has lost a parent and who feels slightly set apart from their peers, childhood fears and worries, dealing with bullies, and choosing to be brave. It is also set in the same north east England neighbourhoods of Whitley Bay and Tynemouth (an area I know well as I lived there for a few years) and the made-up town on Culvercot (sounds rather like real-life Cullercoats to me!).

What not to do if you turn invisible img The main character in the book is a girl this time – 12 year-old Ethel Leatherhead; yes, it is an unusually old-fashioned name, but that is significant. Ethel lives with her ‘Gram’, a very conservative, very proper lady who has strong views about things that are ‘common’ or undesirable. We learn that Ethel’s mother died when she was young, and that she is not aware of her father. Ethel also has a great-grandmother, who turns 100 in the course of the novel. Great-gram lives in a nursing home and speaks very little until one day, after Ethel visits her, she grabs her by the arm and says to Ethel, rather mysteriously, “Tiger. Pussycat.”

Something else we learn about Ethel from the outset is that she suffers from severe acne. That fact is key to the story as it is her search for a cure that leads her to try a mysterious Chinese medicine she buys from the internet and an old sunbed. It is the combination of these two potent remedies that causes her to experience bouts of temporary invisibility. Once she discovers this, and comes to terms with it, she and her friend Elliot Boyd (another school outsider, who is teased because he is from the South and because he is overweight) seek to use the invisibility, firstly, to help Elliot in the school talent competition and, secondly, as a means of exposing the bad behaviour of school bullies Jarrow and Jesmond Knight, boy and girl twins who have been kidnapping local dogs and demanding ransoms for their return.

The scene is set for a number of interwoven plot threads – how will Ethel cope with her invisibility and will it have any long term physical effects? Will Ethel and Elliot succeed in getting the incriminating video evidence back from the Knight twins, who become aware of Ethel’s ‘power’? What did Great-gram mean when she said “Tiger. Pussycat.” to Ethel? And who is Great-gram’s mysterious visitor? Finally, what has the late pop-singer Felina, who apparently died from the pressures of fame, the paparazzi and alcohol problems, to do with Ethel?

There is a great deal going on in this novel, and some of it does not seem relevant at the beginning, but things start to come together towards the end, so it rewards patience. There are some brilliantly tense moments of adventure and peril, for example, when invisible Ethel breaks into the home of the Knight twins while they and their father are there, in order to wipe their computer hard drives and mobile phones (to destroy the video), but I found this book a much slower burn than the other two I have read. For that reason, I would recommend it more for the older end of the target age group (11-12 years) rather than say 9-10 year-olds. Also, the themes are quite mature – the problems of growing up, the loss of a parent (there is no miraculous ‘happy ending’ like in Hamster, but there is acceptance and reconciliation, and discovery of her Dad), the nature of true friendship and possible romance.

This is quite a long book, but a relatively quick read, thanks to the shortish chapters. A nice one for travelling with, I would say.

Recommended for 11-12 year olds.

I love having an excuse to read kids’ books – what about you?

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#KeepKidsReading week – book recommendations for summer

As is my seasonal habit, I’ve been scouring publishers’ lists, bookshelves and indeed my local library to come up with a few recommendations that your kids might be interested in. Yesterday, I posted about the Summer Reading Challenge launched this week which is an encouragement to mainly primary school age children to read six books over the summer. Much is made of so-called ‘summer learning loss’, when children get so out of the habit of schoolwork that teachers notice a decline in their performance when they return in September. I don’t hold much truck with this myself; true, anything you don’t do for six weeks is going to become rusty, but the benefits of down-time, family time, play and outdoor time outweigh keeping the times tables tip top! If you are worried about it, however, keeping your kids reading (for pure pleasure!) over the long summer holiday can help maintain their literacy standards as well as help them wind down after day-long playing, and help them relax and sleep when it’s light until late and routines go to the wall.

So, here are some great titles I have spotted that I think your kids might like. I’ve broken down into age groups, but these are broad and can be a bit arbitrary, as you know. Much will depend on not just reading aptitude, but also maturity.

7-10 year olds

Two Sides by Polly Ho-Yen and Binny Talib

A beautifully illustrated book about Lula and Lenka, who are best friends and complete opposites. One day they have a falling out and they seem irreconcilable. The story is about how they come together again through patience, listening and empathy. Perfect!

Milton the Mighty by Emma Read

A great story for our time. Milton is a spider who discovers that he has been branded as deadly on social media and is being hunted by pest killers. He and his two best friends, fellow spiders Ralph and Audrey, must fight to restore Milton’s true reputation, but they will need the help of Zoe and her arachnophobic Dad, the humans in whose home they reside.

Mr Penguin and the Fortress of Secrets by Alex T Smith

Really fun illustrations in this book. A nice easy adventure, the second in Alex T Smith’s series about Mr Penguin (a third is due in the autumn). Action and adventure with slapstick humour. Shades of Tin Tin, Captain Underpants and Hercules Poirot! A great introduction to mystery series.

10-13 year olds

The Dog Who Saved the World by Ross Welford

I have frequently declared my admiration for Ross Welford and this is another cracking title! Welford has an uncanny ability to blend adventure and peril, with wonderful sensitive and empathic characters who defy stereotypes. In this his 2019 novel, eleven year-old Georgie and her dog, Mr Mash, must save all the dogs on earth when they are threatened by a deadly virus.

Pog by Padraig Kenny

I loved Padraig Kenny’s first novel Tin and his second looks great too. Brother and sister David and Penny move to their mother’s childhood home after she dies. It is situated in the middle of a forest and they soon discover that they are not alone – Pog is a tiny magical creature who protects the boundary between the human and his own world. Tempted by the prospect of seeing his mother on ‘the other side’ David is drawn to a dark place and Pog has to help save him.

The Umbrella Mouse by Anna Fargher

The lady in the bookshop told me this had her in tears! It has been very highly praised since its publication in May. Set in London during World War Two, Pip, a young mouse, finds herself homeless and an orphan when the shop in which she lives is bombed. She must find safety and a new home if she is to survive. Pass the hankies!

Older teens and young adults

Meat Market by Juno Dawson

A must-read author for this age group, Juno Dawson’s topics are hard-hitting but reflective of the world our young people inhabit today. This book is about the fashion industry and one young woman’s experience of it. Perfect for the #MeToo era.

On The Come Up by Angie Thomas

I have recently read The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas’s first novel. If this one is half as good it will be well worth a read. The author returns to the neighbourhood of Garden Heights, the volatile setting of her first novel, but her central character this time is a teenage rapper who finds viral success online. It is a story about how getting what you wish for might not necessarily be what you need.

Killer T by Robert Muchamore

This looks like a highly ambitious novel, imagining a disturbing future where science has run amok and is being misused. The Killer T of the title is in fact a deadly virus which terrorists are threatening to release onto the world unless they are paid a huge ransom. Harry and Charlie are two teenagers attending a Las Vegas high school who become caught up in the effects of the impending catastrophe. Against a background of potential disaster, supposed technological advance and rapid social change, friendship and love are the forces that truly underpin the human condition.

Now that must have whetted your appetite – I want to go and read all of these right now! I hope you will find something for your kids here. As always, the golden rule with kids reading is support whatever it is they want to read (parental guidance notwithstanding), show an interest and discuss it with them.

Happy summer reading, kids!

Are there any titles for kids that have caught your eye this summer?

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#KeepKidsReading week – the Summer Reading Challenge

I’m bursting with excitement this week – I seem to have got back into a good reading groove at last, and I’ve started another book by children’s author Ross Welford. I try to read at least one YA or children’s book a month and they are always such a treat. Ross Welford is one of my favourite authors; I loved both Time Travelling with a Hamster and The 1,000 Year Old Boy and I’ve now started on on What Not To Do If You Turn Invisible. I’ll be posting my review of it later in the week.

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This week also sees the launch of the kids Summer Reading Challenge 2019 by The Reading Agency in association with libraries up and down the country. The theme this year is Space Chase, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Children joining the reading challenge are encouraged to read up to six books. When they join they get a ‘mission folder’ so they can keep a record of their achievements, they get stickers and rewards for each book read, and, on completing the challenge, will receive a certificate. It’s aimed at primary school children and there is also a fantastic website with games, book recommendations, competitions and the chance to write reviews. I got my kids into this every year when they were younger and it also gave me something to do with them – a weekly trip to library certainly helped to fill the long summer holidays. It’s a win-win!

“It’s on in almost every locality, it’s a delight for the children to take part in and…it’s one of the few things where you’re delighted and it does you good! What could be better?”

Michael Rosen, Author and former Children’s Laureate on the Summer Reading Challenge

I’ll be posting tomorrow with some book recommendations for your kids for this summer, so look out for that if you’d like some ideas to get started.

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Is Netflix killing the novel?

woman-945427_1920 — Image by Free Photos from Pixabay

There was a bit of alarm in the book world recently when the Publishers Association in the UK announced a 7% decline in revenue from sales of fiction (physical formats) in 2018. There was a rise in sales of digital formats but not enough to offset fully the drop in sales of actual books. In contrast, non-fiction sales were up and are now worth almost £1bn! Audiobooks have also enjoyed big increases in the last couple of years.

Those of us who feel strongly about books may find this rather worrying and publishers have identified fiction as most vulnerable as there are now so many other things competing for a slice of our leisure time. In my household, I have three teenagers and whilst they do all read (some more than others!) it is undoubtedly Netflix that commands more of their attention. They will quite literally walk around with their earphones on watching their mobile phone screens! (As I wrote that I chuckled to myself, thinking about Anna Burns’s central character in Milkman who got such a hard time for “reading whilst walking around”!)

Don’t get me wrong, I do watch Netflix and am working my way through a couple of box sets at the moment. I seldom watch more than one episode per sitting, though; I know some people will watch several episodes back to back, and suddenly your evening is gone. ‘On demand’ television is great, but I do feel you have to have balance in life – I also have on-demand coffee and chocolate in my house but I wouldn’t dream of drinking three consecutive cups per evening! The reasons are obvious. And whilst Netflix, Amazon, computer games or social media are probably not going to make you really wired and stop you sleeping (though they might!) it is still important to be able to stop and switch off, to know that there are other things in life that deserve your attention and may be better for you.

Some might argue that it’s all just entertainment and it’s not doing us any harm, and, indeed, that there is high quality television out there. The Handmaid’s Tale, for example, has made an extraordinarily successful transition from novel to Netflix and this will no doubt drive an increase in sales of Margaret Atwood’s follow-up book The Testaments, due for publication this Autumn. However, it’s not the blockbusters, the big-name, already rich and famous authors who need our support, it’s all the other writers, striving to get their books noticed. My worry is that the links between on-demand television and online book retailers, and the time-pressed, mobile phone-dependent consumer will create a perfect storm where the choice of reading we have available is gradually narrowed and homogenised.

I am pleased to see non-fiction is thriving; there are some wonderful history, philosophy and political books out there. And I do believe the trends in children’s books are more encouraging, less linked as they are to television and film.

All I can say is we must keep reading widely, keep campaigning to ensure our libraries stay open and use our bookshops before we lose them, particularly independents. Oh, and go to a literary festival or an author talk.

Do you worry about the future of the novel?

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Book review – “An American Marriage” by Tayari Jones

2019-06-14 10.49.53 This book has been on my to-read list for some time now, ever since it caught my eye over a year ago when it was published. I recommended it as a hot new read for Spring last year, in fact! Following in my footsteps (he must have read my blog post!) Barack Obama recommended it as one of his Summer reads last year and he is quoted on the cover as saying this is “A moving portrayal of the effects of a wrongful conviction on a young African-American couple.” Notably, it also won the Women’s Prize for Fiction in June.

Let me get my cards on the table straight away – I loved this book, and it completely lived up to the hype it has had. It is such an interesting topic for a novel and yet one in which very little actually ‘happens’. It is a tender account of a relationship and the effect that one single event has upon them. It does not once get sentimental, does not set out actively to campaign about the injustice of the one event, and does not take sides. It just lays everything bare for the reader to draw their own conclusions. It will break your heart and fill you with hope at the same time.

Roy and Celestial are a young African-American couple, living in Atlanta, Georgia and their lives are on the up. They come from rather different backgrounds: Celestial is the daughter of a teacher and an academic, and is hoping to forge a career as an artist. Roy is the only son of Olive and Big Roy (who is not his biological father), decidedly more blue-collar but with strong values, pride, and deep Christian faith. They met through a mutual friend, Andre, who has lived next door to Celestial’s parents since they were children. Roy and Celestial are very much in love, but it is still early days in their marriage and they have their ups and downs.

They visit Roy’s parents in Louisiana one weekend and decide to stay in a motel; Olive has a slight suspicion about her daughter-in-law’s commitment to her son and it is more comfortable for both women if the couple do not stay in the family home. Roy and Celestial have an argument and Roy storms out of their motel room. He meets with a white woman whilst fetching ice and the two get talking. He tells her about the argument with his wife. Later that night, the police storm Roy and Celestial’s room whilst they are sleeping and arrest Roy on suspicion of rape of the woman he had chatted with earlier in the evening. At the trial, the woman testifies with certainty against Roy and it is quite apparent that Roy has little chance of escaping a guilty verdict, even though his innocence is clear to all who know him. Roy is sentenced to twelve years in prison.

The early chapters set the scene, switching between first person accounts by Roy and Celestial of their backgrounds, how they met and their recollections of the fateful night. The following chapters are an exchange of letters between the couple whilst Roy is in jail. Although Celestial visits him every month from Atlanta, the letters are an important way for them to keep their love alive. Just a couple of years into Roy’s sentence, however (and only 80 pages into the book), Celestial tells Roy that she can no longer go on being his wife, that they have spent longer apart than they were together, and that the situation is intolerable for her. We learn that Celestial was pregnant at the time of Roy’s trial but that they decided she should have an abortion as neither wanted their child to grow up with its father in prison. It is a metaphor for the doomed future of their marriage. Their correspondence ceases, and the remaining letters in this section are between Roy and his lawyer, Robert Banks, a family friend of Celestial’s parents, both about Roy’s appeal, which seems futile at this stage, and the status of his marriage.

This might seem the like the end of the thing. What we know about the couple at this stage is that Celestial is a strong-willed, independent woman who knows her own mind, and that Roy is proud, stubborn and conservative. The situation seems hopeless.

Roy spends five years in jail altogether, during which time he learns things about the status of African-Americans in the penal system he had no concept of before. He also, by chance, meets and shares a cell with his biological father, Walter. Also, Roy’s mother, Olive dies of lung cancer, never to see her son walk free. Eventually, Roy’s appeal succeeds and he is released, but he is by now broken, alone, his career in ruins. The remainder of the book is about Roy’s reunion with his old life, his hometown, Big Roy, and most importantly, with Celestial. Can their relationship be salvaged?

I don’t want to give any spoilers here, but I would just suggest that if you are looking for a romantic ending this book, thankfully, chooses not go (entirely!) down that route. It is a fine and up-close examination of the real human impact of judicial complacency, institutional racism, social prejudice and how some sectors of American society just get fewer life chances. It is also about a clash of values, between the more conservative older generation and the younger, educated, more metropolitan groups who assume there is equality.

This book is fascinating, beautiful, gripping and challenging and I recommend it highly.

If you have already read this book I would love to know your thoughts.

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Facebook Reading Challenge July – “Fear of Falling” by Cath Staincliffe

The start of the month is rolling around with alarming regularity! It does not seem four weeks since I was setting June’s title (Tayari Jones’s “An American Marriage”) – which I still haven’t finished by the way. I’ve had a very busy few months and this has seriously curtailed my reading time. I try to read for an hour every day, which means I get through one and a bit books a week, and I find this is by far the best way for me to relax and re-energise. It also gets me out of ‘doing’ mode and into ‘creative thinking’ mode – a must for the writing side of my life. The focus of recent weeks, however, has been very much about ‘doing’ and early summer is usually a time when I know I’m not going to have much writing time. This blog has suffered too….

However, the full diary will be emptying out a little as this month progresses, so I’m hopeful I’ll be able to restore my daily reading hour. My selection for the Facebook Reading Challenge this month will also help. The theme is contemporary crime fiction and I’ve chosen the latest book by north-west (England) crime writer Cath Staincliffe, Fear of Fallling, which was published last year. I met Cath at a writer’s conference a couple of years ago and she was such a lovely, warm, down to earth person that she really inspired me to think that I too might be able to pursue a writing life. Crime is not usually my genre of choice, but I read a couple of her books, including The Girl in the Green Dress, which I reviewed on this blog, and was gripped. Cath tackles major contemporary issues fearlessly and her writing style draws you subtly into the world she creates.

Fear of Falling is about the friendship between two women Lydia and Bel who have known each other for many years. As mothers, both face challenges – Bel has a difficult relationship with her daughter Freya, while Lydia and her partner adopt after she is unable to conceive. Lydia’s daughter Chloe’s actions as a teenager place immense pressures on the relationship between the two friends.

I’m really looking forward to getting into this; recent titles I have set on the Reading Challenge have been hard-going. I’m not expecting this to be ‘light’ but I’m hoping for a page-turner to get lost in and get me back on my reading track!

I would love for you to join us on the reading challenge. The book is available on Kindle if you can’t get hold of a copy.

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