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Reviews - Children's Books

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Reviews

Waves
by Sharon Dogar
Chicken House

Philip Pullman was Sharon Dogar’s English teacher, and the great man has endorsed her debut novel, calling it ‘remarkable . . . sensuous and sinister’. And it is certainly a compelling read. ‘Waves’ is a hard book to pin down. With a fifteen year old protagonist, Hal Ditton, it’s certainly teenage fiction, but is it a love story, a thriller or an examination of the super-sensory? In fact it’s all three and all the better for it.

At the opening of the book Hal’s older sister, Charley, is lying in a coma, the result of a freak surfing accident on a Cornish beach. Hal and his family have returned to Cornwall for the summer, leaving Charley behind. They must decide whether to turn off her life support machine or not. Hal meets a local girl, Jackie, and begins to suspect that there was more to Charley’s accident that meets the eye. He starts to poke around, unearthing some unsavoury secrets about another local girl, Am, and her obsession with Charley’s boyfriend, Pete, a talented surfer. Did Am have something to do with Charley’s death?

Throughout the book Hal’s narrative is interspersed with Charley’s voice, as she relives memories from her hospital bed. In places Hal and Charley’s voices intermingle and their thoughts mesh. In the hands of a lesser author, this could be confusing, but Dogar handles these scenes skilfully and deftly, and her work as a counsellor for teenagers clearly informs and gives depth to her characters.

There is plenty of drama to offset the more introspective passages, from Hal’s burgeoning relationship with Jackie, to the race to discover the truth about Charley’s accident. Only by solving the mystery surrounding the ‘accident’ can Hal and his family put the past behind them and move on with their lives.

Dogar’s writing is superb. Her dialogue is perfectly pitched and zings with teenage energy. Her use of language is exceptional and makes this book a pleasure to read: a surfer ‘sings the board up the waves’, Am’s hair is ‘like a soothed lion’s’. Some of the slang seems somewhat dated at times and her incessant use of nick names, ‘Em’, ‘Am’, ‘Sarz’ is a little grating. But these are minor quibbles.

Overall Waves is a brave, original book with deserves to be read by older teenagers or adults. Pullman should be proud.

Skulduggery Pleasant
by Derek Landy
HarperCollins

Until his headline grabbing contract with Harpercollins, Derek Landy was a cauliflower farmer on his parents’ farm in Lusk, North Co Dublin. Now he’s one of Ireland’s richest children’s writers, on par with Eoin Colfer and Darren Shan.

So it’s hard to read Skulduggery Pleasant, his first fantasy adventure novel, without wondering is it worthy of all the hype. And is a skeleton detective romp for children worth the reputed million?

Set in modern day Dublin, from the very first sentence: ‘Gordon Edgley’s sudden death came as a shock to everyone - not least himself’, Landy’s snappy, concise writing style sets him apart from most of his contemporaries. Gordon’s niece, Stephanie, attends the funeral and sees Skulduggery for the first time. For the feisty, stubborn teenager, fate is sealed. Together Stephanie and Skulduggery uncover the mystery of Gordon’s death, encountering flocks of wonderfully larger than life evil characters along the way.

Landy wrote the screenplay for the Samantha Mumba zombie flick, Boy Eats Girl and his love of schlock horror comes across in his vividly blood-splattering yet funny set pieces. Landy is a black belt in karate and his fight scenes are perfectly pitched. His secondary characters are exceptionally well drawn and delightfully colourful, from the hideously evil, Nefarian Serpine, to the Lara Croft like warrior, Tanith Low, and my favourite, the enigmatic and rather slippery China Sorrows (one look and you’re in love).

What makes this book stand out from the many adventure novels published for children every month is Landy’s characterisation. Skulduggery is a tour de force of imagination, a man with a shady past, which gives him real depth and motivation. ‘My nature, it is a dark and twisted thing,’ he says.

But Landy has really hit pay dirt with Stephanie, a highly likable girl all readers, both male and female will identify with. Stephanie and Skulduggery fire one liners at each other, like a modern day Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, and their mutual respect and affection is charmingly old fashioned.

The attention to detail also makes his writing ring with authenticity. Skulduggery doesn’t drive any old car, he owns a ‘1954 Bentley R-Type Continental’. The action skits around real places in Dublin, from Christ Church Cathedral to the Olympia and the Waxwork Museum, and this name checking makes it great fun for Irish readers.

The last quarter of the book thrills along at warp speed, every carefully crafted sentence feeding into the next. Reading it is like riding a roller coaster, and I haven’t experienced anything quite like it since whipping through the last Artemis Fowl book by the master of break-neck plotting, Eoin Colfer.

Skulduggery Pleasant is taut, full of zippy dialogue and fantastically visual and it will come as no surprise to readers that Landy is currently in negotiations with some of the top names in Hollywood. The book is crying out to be filmed and the Skulduggery series has an excellent shot at being the ‘next’ Harry Potter.

So is it worth a million? Yes, and the rest!

Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
John Boyne
David Fickling Books, €13.99 stg

Teenage Book Review (2006)

‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ by Dublin writer, John Boyne still haunts me. Ostensibly a book for older teenagers, it should be read by anyone who cares about modern Irish fiction, young or old because it’s that very rare thing: a book so simple, so seemingly effortless that it’s almost perfect.

A difficult book to review without giving away too much of the multi-layered story, I can reveal it’s set in Germany and deals with an appalling part of European history that shouldn’t be forgotten. The main character, a young boy called Bruno, moves to a new house in the country because of his father’s job and he’s not at all happy at leaving his familiar life behind him. But when he meets a new friend, a boy from the other side of the fence who shares his birthday, and they become close despite the odds, Bruno’s life changes forever.

The main characters are realistically drawn in sparse yet telling language. The book is told through nine-year-old Bruno’s eyes and his voice is perfectly judged, a charming mix of naive child and precocious pre-teen. Bruno’s father is a powerful Commandant who plays his soldiers ‘as if he was the conductor of a barbershop quartet’. Bruno’s sister, Gretel, who Bruno refers to as the ‘Hopeless Case’ is more concerned with her ‘civilisation of dolls’ than anything else. And ‘Mother’, probably the most complex of all the characters, and not a wholly likable woman, just wants an easy life and rails against her husband’s blinding ambition which forced her to leave her comfortable, sociable life behind her in Berlin.

Unsurprisingly it has already been optioned by film director Mark Harmon of ‘Little Voice’ fame, been snapped up by fourteen different publishing houses worldwide, and is on the shortlist for the Ottaker’s Children’s Book Prize in the UK. All the more amazing, considering it’s John’s first book for children. An ex-Waterstone’s bookseller turned full time writer his previous adult books, ‘The Congress of Rough Riders’, ‘The Thief of Time’ and ‘Crippen’ have all been well received but none have made the trade and the media sit up to attention like ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’.

The book packs quite an emotional punch and the ending, involving the two boys, is horribly inevitable, predictable even, yet when it arrived I was still left floundering, tears running down my cheeks, wishing I’d never picked the damn book up, but at the same time not regretting one minute I’d spent reading it.

Billed as ‘a fable’ ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas’ is a stark reminder of man’s inhumanity to man but be warned, it may provoke a younger reader to ask questions which you must be willing to answer. So I urge you to read it first before handing it over. Yes, you’ll regret it, but in a good way.

This review First appeared in the Irish Independent

Follow Me Down
by Julie Hearn (2003)
Oxford University Press, Age 11+

'Follow Me Down' is the debut novel from Julie Hearn, formerly a journalist and one of Philip Pullman's creative writing pupils. This book deserves attention - it is quite simply one of the most original and compelling books from a new author since Nicky Singer's 'Feather Boy'.

'Follow Me Down' is the story of Tom, a well rounded and articulate teenage boy who, along with his sick mother, goes to stay with his gran, a troubled, private woman. Here, following disembodied voices that lead him to his gran's dingy basement, he stumbles across a gap in time, a way into the past. And what a past it is - 18th century England in all its glory - a time when grave robbers abound and punters pay good money to see 'monsters' like 'The Changeling Child' and 'The Gorilla Woman' in the subterranean freak shows; a violent, brutal world where appearances are everything and being different is not tolerated.

Hearn weaves a disturbing yet compelling tale and her plot races along at breakneck speed, keeping the reader enthralled. Her writing is so good you often forget you are reading, you get so caught up in her strange, freaky world. As the tale unfolds, Tom forges a close relationship with Astra, the ethereal 'Changeling Child' and the other 'monsters', and by helping them learns a lot about himself and his own life.

I found the ending of the book somewhat disappointing, the complex relationship between Tom's mother and his gran is never really dealt with, and the influence of his grandad, a shadowy character, on the family history is too easily explained away.

However, in Tom, Hearn has created a strong, thoughtful and realistic hero, her ultimate triumph. Highly recommended.

Big Mouth and Ugly Girl
Joyce Carol Oates
Collins Flamingo, £4.99 stg

Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates

'Son, you know why we're here.' When Matt Donagh, wise guy and class clown, is escorted out of class by two detectives for questioning, the Rocky River High School rumour mill goes into overdrive. He's eventually accused of conspiring to blow up the school and massacre all its pupils, a charge which he vehemently denies. Only Ursula Riggs, loner and school outcast, recognises the ludicrous nature of the accusation and sees it for what it really is - 'suburban hysteria'. She alone of all his friends and peers stands up for Matt and so begins their unusual friendship. The characters of Matt and Ursula are exceptionally well drawn and their sparky, hyper-realistic dialogue is spot on. The debut teenage novel from this acclaimed author, Big Mouth and Ugly Girl is timely, provocative and deserves critical attention from teens and adults alike. It's a cracking read and I consumed it in one awestruck sitting. I can't recommend it highly enough.

This review first appeared in The Irish Times 2003.

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