Various dystopias

Image: waterstones.com

The Hunger Games film is a box office success, apparently grossing £290 million world wide. This has been similarly good news for book sales, with Amazon's top 3 sellers this week being The Hunger Games and sequels. However, the books are not universally popular; they are back on the "most challenged" list of books complained about in US schools and public libraries, accused among other things of being anti-family (bizarrely, since Katniss's main concern is with protecting her sister) and "satanic". I have also noted tweets and media comments along the lines of this one from the Wall Street Journal of last year wondering why Young Adult fiction has become too dark, and whether there is too much dystopian young adult fiction. 

Putting to one side the eye rolling and sighing comments that previously there have been complaints that ALL YA/ children's books were about young wizards, or ALL about romantic vampires- whereas of course there as many genres of young adult books as there are for adults- thriller, romance, contemporary drama, historical fiction etc- I find it very interesting that dystopian fiction appears to be so popular in recent years. The first dystopian novel I remember reading was Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien. First published in the 1970s, I remember reading it in the early 80s. People who didn't grow up in the 1980s may not realise how very real the threat of nuclear war seemed to us; as well as news stories about nuclear proliferation and the cold war, there were TV dramas such as Threads on TV- bear in mind that in 1984 there were only 4 channels on UK TV, and practically everybody in my class watched the drama and discussed it at length. Z for Zachariah is the story of a young girl, Ann, who survives a nuclear war in a remote valley in the USA. As far as she knows, she is the only survivor, until one day a man arrives in her valley. He is suffering from radiation sickness, and she nurses him back to health. They agree to live and work together, but he betrays her. Like many contemporary YA dystopian novels, it is told in the first person, in this case through Ann's diaries. I urge you to seek it out if you have read and enjoyed The Hunger Games. 

Within a few years of reading Z for Zachariah I read a large number of dystopian novels: Brave New World, 1984, The Handmaid's Tale and Ender's Game. As a young woman growing up in an era with very real concerns about war, peace, human rights and women's reproductive rights, it was clear to me that, while these novels may be set in the future or in alternative worlds, the authors were writing about concerns that were not only contemporary, but timeless- after all, Huxley in 1931 was writing about behavioural conditioning, class distinctions and corporate control, still issues of concern today.

I think that it is clear that thoughtful, intelligent teenagers (the kind that are likely to be reading!) will of course identify with novels writing about war and tyranny, like The Hunger Games. Other dystopian novels that I would recommend are:

Noughts and Crosses  by Malorie Blackman (2001). Set in a world where people are categorised as Noughts and Crosses, Nought Callum and Cross Sephy are at first friends, then fall in love. But when Crosses are the ruling elite and Noughts are the downtrodden minority, how can they find a way to be together? This is a remarkable novel, chapters told in turn from Sephy and Callum's points of view. Blackman has stated that it was inspired by the Stephen Lawrence murder. The Radio 4 Bookclub podcast interview with her is brilliant, but beware of spoilers!

Incarceron by Catherine Fisher (2007) was the Times children's book of the year. Claudia is growing up in a world where the whimsy of the ruling family has declared that time must stop in a version of the 18th Century. Clothes, manners and food are stuck in this time, which ironically is supported by a sophisticated technology. This world should be a paradise, as after a period of strife Incarceron was created: a prison world where criminals were sent forever. However, Incarceron is in fact a nightmare world of factions and violence, which the reader (and Finn, a young prisoner), discovers is horribly sentient. Claudia and Finn realise that they are connected. Can they escape their own prisons, and be together? Written in a beautifully poetic style, this novel has a sequel, Sapphique, which I haven't yet read, but fully intend to.

The Declaration (2008) (and sequels) by Gemma Malley is set far in the future, in a world where there is no more death, due to the development of a drug called Longevity. Anna is a "Surplus"- a child born unnecessarily (after all, if there is no more death, why do children need to be born?) Anna is living in Grange Hall, when a mysterious boy arrives. Can they break free from the punitive conditions at Grange Hall? I really enjoyed this series. The ethics and unforeseen consequences of drug research, population control and food instability are sensitively discussed, and the plot twists are exciting and unexpected.

Gone series by Michael Grant (2009 onwards). Disclaimer: I have only read Fear (2012). This series is set in the fictional town of Perdido Beach, California. One day, the town awakes to discover that all the adults over the age of 15 have disappeared. At the same time, the children and young people have developed special powers, such as great physical strength and psychic perception. Two factions develop, centred on half brothers Sam and Caine, but as readers of Lord of the Flies will be unsurprised to discover, power struggles become violent. There is also a threat from a psychopathic boy named Drake, who is increasingly identified with the mysterious event causing the adults to disappear. This is the novel I enjoyed least of the YA dystopian novels I read, but with an endorsement from Stephen King and a pacy narrative, I am prepared to read the rest of the series. 

Delirium (2011) and Pandemonium (2012) by Lauren Oliver is set in an alternate version of USA. Love has been declared a disease, amor deliria nervosa, which can be cured by an operation on the brain, performed on 18 year olds. People who refuse to have the operation are known as Invalids. In the city of Portland, a 17 year old girl named Lena has been awaiting her operation for years, convinced by the repressive government that love is at the bottom of all strife and misery in her country's past. Then she meets an Invalid boy named Alex, and falls in love. These are fantastically thought-provoking books, which I read shortly after Nadine Dorries' abstinence-only sex education bill was withdrawn and the defeat to her proposals to change the abortion bill. 

Lorna Bradbury in the Telegraph has suggested other YA dystopian  novels. I would like to be very clear here that these are novels that I would recommend for 13+, as they have content that I don't feel younger children would be able to understand. Please let me know what you think, or whether you have any other suggestions!

As well as drawing your attention to the Radio 4 bookclub site which I mentioned above, where you can download podcasts of interviews and question and answer sessions with children and young adult novelists such as Benjamin Zephaniah, JK Rowling and Malorie Blackman amongst others, I would like to mention the UKYA blog. It is a great site reviewing YA novels by British novelists. Enjoy it!

Doing the Time Warp

I recently came across this blogpost by @Miss_Alaynius this week (via the very lovely tweeter and blogger @PrincessofVP), and it sent me to revisit Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce.

Image: amazon.co.uk

Widely regarded as a classic (John Rowe Townsend termed it a "masterpiece" in his book Written for Children) it was one of CILIP's Carnegie Medal top ten , chosen to celebrate the Carnegie Medal's 70 years' celebration. The novel won the medal in 1958.

Tom's brother Peter has measles, so Tom is sent to stay with his childless aunt and uncle. They live in a large house now converted into flats, and Tom is disappointed to learn that there is no garden that he could play in alone- since he is in quarantine he can't mix with other children. Mrs Bartholomew, who owns the house, lives upstairs, but a grandfather clock remains on the landing from before the house conversion, as it is screwed to the wall. The clock still keeps good time, but is prone to strike hours at random. His aunt and uncle are kind, but his aunt is inclined to fuss and his uncle is rather pedantic. Due to his lack of exercise, since he is not allowed to play outside, Tom finds it hard to sleep, and when he hears the clock striking thirteen he gets up to investigate. Rationalising his disobedience to his aunt and uncle by explaining to himself that a thirteenth hour is not a real hour, Tom slips outside and discovers not a back yard with bins, but a sunlit garden with children playing: the house before it was converted to flats. Here he meets an unhappy, lonely little girl named Hatty wearing odd clothes, who becomes his friend. Tom returns every night to play with her, but strangely she seems to be growing up much faster than him, eventually becoming a young woman, and in my favourite section, it is no longer summer, but winter with a frozen river. Tom and Hatty skate to Ely and climb the cathedral tower, something he had been unable to do on his journey to his aunt and uncle. When the mystery is solved at the end of the book, there is a connection between the emotional states of Tom and Hatty; two children feeling isolated and misunderstood, longing for a friend, and the clock and its motto connects them both.

This beautifully written book is more than just a time-slip adventure; it is also a meditation on the nature of time and memory. An angel on the grandfather clock is holding a Bible with the motto "Time no Longer", which Tom and Hatty learn is from the Book of Revelations. Re-reading Tom's Midnight Garden has made me reflect on other books with time-slip and time travel themes. I have already written about Charlotte Sometimes, a book that I find profoundly disquieting. The History Keepers: The Storm Begins by Damien Dibben is a much more straightforward adventure story, and highly enjoyable it is.

Image: thehistorykeepers.com

Fifteen year old Jake Djones lives with his mother and father in Greenwich, where they run a bathroom fitting business. The firm isn't very successful, so Jake is surprised when they are called away suddenly on business, but very concerned when they don't return at the appointed time. Then Jake is kidnapped by a mysterious man dressed in a morning suit and top hat, and he discovers that his parents, and missing brother, are secret time travelling agents whose job is to protect history from rogue agents who would manipulate it for their own ends. Jake must travel through time to join them, rescue his parents, who have become trapped in history, and thwart the plot that the rogue agents are hatching.

This book has had favourable comparisons with Harry Potter, since it has a young hero and an action packed plot. For me this is overstating it a bit; it is certainly engrossing and a page turner, but it lacks the world building of Harry Potter. I couldn't imagine the History Keeper's HQ at Mont St Michel, the ship or the rogue agent's castle as well as I can Hogwarts. However, maybe this will come with later books. I would say that The Storm Begins is likely to appeal to fans of Charlie Higson's Young James Bond, Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider or Mark Walden's H.I.V.E. series.

I knew Mary Hoffman from her wonderful Amazing Grace picture books, rightly staples of UK classrooms, but was unaware of her books for older readers, until I spotted the cover of Stravaganza: City of Masks in a charity shop.

Image: maryhoffman.co.uk

The first in a series partly set in present day Islington and partly in an alternate version of renaissance Italy (Talia), the book opens with fifteen-year-old Lucien, who has cancer. His father buys him a beautiful notebook to write in as his throat is too sore to speak. His father tells him about Venice, where the notebook originated. Lucien falls asleep holding the notebook, and wakes up in Bellezza, an alternate version of Vanice. He discovers that he is a Stravagante, a time traveller, who can travel through the possession of a talisman: his notebook. 

In Bellezza Lucien is not ill. His dark curls, which fell out through his cancer treatment, have grown back. He becomes involved in the intrigue of Bellezza, through friendship with a girl named Arianna, Rodolfo, the advisor to the Duchessa who rules the city state of Bellezza, and the Duchessa herself, under threat from the powerful di Chimini family. His life in Bellezza, with Arianna, increasingly seems more "real" than his life in London. This wonderful book is very similar in many ways to Tom's Midnight Garden in theme- an unhappy child or young person can be transported to another time by means of an object connecting their two worlds. 

I would recommend Tom's Midnight Garden to confident readers of 8+, though it works well as a read-aloud to 7+. The History Keepers and Stravaganza are aimed at older readers: 10+, though Stravaganza's thematically may be more suited to 12+. 

Other Countries

As a child, one of my favourite TV programmes was Jackanory. Incredibly, in the 1970s 15 minutes of primetime children's TV was not cartoons or drama, but an adult (often a respected actor) reading a story to children, supported with illustrations. One of my favourites was Bernard Cribbins reading Arabel's Raven by Joan Aiken, a prolific, gifted and witty author of novels and stories both for children and adults (Jane Austen fans, I suggest you investigate both her Austen novels and historical fiction; in Aiken captures Austen's detatchment and sardonic tone far better than the rather sugary sequels written by Emma Tennant; and fans of both Austen and zombies: this is just brilliant; almost as good as Jane Slayre).

The Wolves series contains some of her best known work. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was Aiken's first full length novel. Set in an imagined history where James II was not defeated in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, and the Stewart dynasty is still on the throne in the early 19th century. James III is on the throne, and Britain is threatened both by wolves who have migrated through the newly-opened Channel Tunnel and by rogue Hanoverians who want to establish "Bonnie Prince Georgie" on the throne.

This first novel introduces some characters that reoccur in later novels (Simon, Miss Slighcarp, Mr Grimshaw) but is very much a stand alone novel. I far prefer the novels featuring Dido Twite: Black Hearts in Battersea, Nightbirds on Nantucket, The Stolen Lake, The Cuckoo Tree and Dido and Pa. Dido is around 8 years old in the first novel: neglected by her appalling family, who it transpires are wicked Hanoverian revolutionaries, Simon (an art student lodging with the family) takes care of her, at first reluctantly, then with a certain amount of affection. Dido then rescues Simon, and as Aiken explains, she initially meant her to drown. However there were anguished letters from children, so she allowed Dido to be picked up by a whaler and taken to Nantucket, where she encounters Miss Slighcarp, the evil governess from the first novel.

Dido is a great child character, who becomes a protagonist in the later books. She has a difficult childhood and an interestingly ambiguous moral sense Black Hearts in Battersea, but develops into a resourceful, brave hero figure. As novelist and critic Amanda Craig explains in this BBC Radio 4 interview following Aiken's death, without Dido there would be no Lyra, and I would suggest, no Mosca.

Mosca is the protagonist of the fantastically mysterious Frances Hardinge's Fly By Night. Set in an alternative historical period known as the Fractured Realm (which struck me as being 18th Century, imagining an England where after the Civil War the Republican Protectorate had not lasted, and the land is locked in an ongoing war between the monarchists and parliamentarians. In this struggle the Guilds have become the de facto power of the country, and the system of government is of city states nominally ruled over by their own Duke or Duchess, with their own patron "saints", the Beloved.

Mosca is the daughter of Quilliam Mye, a writer. She was born on the day of Goodman  Palptittle (the Beloved known as "He who keeps flies out of jam"). Names are very important in the Fractured Realm, as is propitiating the Beloved. She is an author brought up by her mill-owning aunt and uncle. At the time the books starts she is 12, and printed works that are not created by the Guild of Scriveners has been outlawed. All her father's books have been burnt, and perhaps because of this Mosca is drawn to interesting words. She is drawn to a verbose conman, Eponymous Clent, and after accidentally burning down her uncle's mill, rescues him from the stocks and escapes in the company of a vicious goose. Of course, she becomes embroiled with highwaymen, the Guild wars, spying and gun-smuggling.

Mosca is slightly older than Dido, and is another resourceful, brave heroine. Eponymous Clent is a very unreliable mentor figure, and the reader does not get the impression that she is ever truely safe. In comparison, Simon is a wholly good character and the reader feels that he will come to Dido's rescue until the end of Black Hearts in Battersea.

The use of alternative history is very interesting. There is a fascinating section on it through the amazing To The Best Of Our Knowledge programme via Wisconsin Public Radio (oh the joy of the internet!), where authors consider the internal logic of such histories- if one aspect of history is changed, how does it affect others? Hardinge's alternate history may seem far-fetched until one considers the city states of pre-late 19th Century Italy, the intrigues, assassinations, guilds and political alliances and marriages; and in early 19th Century there were incredible progresses in technology; balloon launches were a popular attractions and the first proposals for channel tunnels were indeed made during that era.

The delight of both of these books for me is not only the characters of Mosca and Dido and the fast paced adventurous plots, but also the inventive language both authors use, with elements of thieves' cant, Dickensian low-life characters and of course the authors' own inventiveness. The names are wonderful in both novels as well- again, with some of the joy of Dickens. All in all, both novels are highly recommended- Aiken's to 8 +, Hardinge's may need a reader with a little more stamina. I imagine that both would be a joy to read aloud- I've read The Wolves Of Willoughby Chase to 7 and 8 year olds who loved it. I'm really looking forward to reading the sequel to Fly By Night: Twilight Robbery (Fly Trap in the US).