The Lewis chessmen

Image: britishmuseum.org

As a girl, one of my favourite things to do was to visit the British Museum. I loved the slightly creepy horror of the Egypt room (too many illicit viewings of horror films!) but my heart has always belonged to small things- Japanese netsuke, for example or the Lewis chessmen. Museums were far less interactive and child friendly in the 70s, but the Lewis chessmen were perfect- at child eye height, you could see things that adults couldn't- the pompous expression on the Bishop's face, the tired droop of the Knight; the Queen with her hand to her face. They're wonderful objects. I could almost feel their smooth weight in the palm of my hand.

So I was delighted when two books recently featured the chessmen. The wonderful Francesca Simon of Horrid Henry fame's Sleeping Army is the story of Freya, living in an alternate version of Britain, where Christianity is a minor cult, and Viking beliefs are the mainstream religion.

Image: Francescasimon.com

Freya is caught between her warring, divorced parents: her mother is a priestess of the Viking religion, and her father, who has lost his job, is a security guard at the British Museum. Owing to a mix up, one night he has to take Freya to the museum with him, where, bored, she blows Heimdall's horn, and brings the statues to life. A brother and sister, Alfi and Roskva, Snot the Berserker and Sleipnir the eight legged horse. Together they end up in Asgard, only to find it horribly altered: the gods are dying, and Freya must go on a journey to save them. If she fails, she will be turned into a chess piece herself. On the way they meet giants, Loki the trickster god and travels to the Underworld. Freya is a believable protagonist: hardly heroic at times, she is definitely not the outdoor type, but grows into her role as the leader of a quest. I really enjoyed this, and recommend it to children 8+.

Image: foyles.co.uk

All the Doctor wanted was a game of chess. But he arrives on an island at the top of Scotland just at the wrong time: a mysterious fire that burns on top of the water is coming closer to the island, and a ship full of Vikings is transporting a princess to an unwilling marriage with a very unattractive King, and an island people with no way of defending themselves from either. And to top it all, the salt water seems to be playing havoc with the TARDIS.

This is a great adventure. If you know Jenny Colgan's romance novels, you'll know that she's a very funny writer with a great talent for deft characterisation, and she captures the whimsical and capricious nature of the Eleventh Doctor, as well as his love affair with humanity. Here he is without Amy and Rory, and rather lonely- and in keeping with the television series, has an affinity with a child. The Princess and Viking subplot is great too, and balances nicely with the Doctor's lone state. Although this is not marketed for children, I think a confident Who fan of 11+ would love this book.

Review: Michelle Paver's Gods and Warriors

Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series is one of the best recent children's series, so I was very much looking forward to reading this one, based in bronze-age Greece, pre-classical period. And I wasn't disappointed. Her ability to conjure up the cold and dangers of ancient Scandinavia translates to Greece, with the dangers from sea, sun and volcanoes to her protagonists Hylas and Pirra.

Hylas is an Outsider in Lyconia- he and his sister Issi are blonde haired, and therefore heard goats in return for limited protection of the villagers. Then one day black armoured warriors known as Crows arrive, attacking the goatherds, killing one, and Issi vanishes. Hylas runs away, seeking help from the chieftain's son, Telemon. 

On his journey to find Issi, Hylas makes an unexpected friend in Pirra, a priestess's daughter, and together they must prevent the Crows from regaining a precious artefact, despite betrayal. A wonderfully exciting read for confident readers of 9+.
This post previously appeared on goodreads.com

Image: Foyles.co.uk

Seasonal reading 5: Hogfather by Terry Pratchett

It was the night before Hogswatch. All through the house...
... one creature stirred. It was a mouse.

Image: hive.co.uk

In the city of Ankh Morpork, the chief of the Assassin's Guild, Lord Downey, has a visitor from the Auditors of Reality, who manage the Universe. They dislike humanity, because humans' unpredictability and illogicality interfere with their smooth bureaucracy. The epitome if the illogical nature of humans is their irrational belief; and this is exemplified in the Hogfather, Discworld's Father Christmas. The Auditors want the Hogfather done away with. Lord Downey can only think of one assassin who would do such a terrible thing: Mr Teatime (pronounced Te-ah Tim-eh). 

Meanwhile, Susan Sto Helit, Death's granddaughter, is working as a governess to a rather pretentious Ankh Morpork family. Their former governess has tried to discipline the children (Gawain and Twyla) by telling them that monsters would come for them if they weren't good, and Susan knows that it is futile to tell them otherwise. The children believe in the Hogfather, the Soul Cake Tuesday Duck and the Tooth Fairy, so why would they not believe in the Bogeyman, the Scissor Man who cuts the thumbs off thumb suckers and the step-on-the-crack bears? Instead, Susan kills them with the nursery poker.

The Hogfather disappears, and Death, always fascinated by humans, decides to take his role, with a cushion stuffed up his robe and riding the Hogfather's boar-pulled sleigh instead of his white horse, Binky. Death understands that since the Hogfather is the personification of Hogswatch rather than a living being, he cannot die, but if children stop believing in him he will disappear. He persuades Susan to find the Hogfather. Along the way she meets Bilious, the Oh God of hangovers, and together they travel to the land of the tooth fairy to confront Mr Teatime and his companions from the Guild of Thieves.

At the same time in the Unseen University, many strange Small Gods and personifications (such as the Verruca Gnome and the Cheerful Fairy) are being created due to the superfluous belief that has come about due to lack of belief in the Hogfather. Can Susan rescue the Hogfather, and can Death's rather over-literal interpretation of "it is better to give than to receive" save the day?

This is one of my favourite Discworld books, and is a staple of my Seasonal Reading. It is an adult book in the Discworld series (younger readers might prefer Wintersmith) but is perfectly accessible to confident readers of 12+. A TV dramatisation is available on DVD, as well. Enjoy it!

And don't forget to leave a pork pie for the Hogfather and turnips for the pigs.,

Maps and ponies

On Friday, I went to an excellent British Library event celebrating The Hobbit's 75th birthday. One of the speakers was David Brawn, who spoke about Tolkein's illustrations for the book, including his maps, and again I was reminded of my love for stories with an epic journey and maps in books.

Image: amazon.co.uk

Anne McCaffrey is probably best known for her Dragons of Pern series of fantasy novels for young adults and adults, and I had never heard of this novel until I saw it in the wonderful Pulp Fiction Books in Edinburgh. It's the story of Lord Artos (later King Arthur) travelling to France to buy warhorses strong enough to carry a man and armour. Galwyn, a Romanised Celt with a facility with languages, travels with Artos and his band to France to help to translate. Galwyn's pony is the only one that stops the most valuable horse from injuring the other horses and men, so he gains a privileged position, more so when he learns the developing trade of the farrier, and this puts Galwyn, Artos and the horses in danger.

This was a great read, combining horses, a "quest" and convincing evocation of history, and a useful map of Galwyn's journey with Roman names for British towns. I really enjoyed it. However, the climactic scene (much like in the Hobbit!) Galwyn is injured and takes no part in, which for me is a little less than satisfactory. However, I highly recommend it for anyone 10+ who loves horses.

Image: amazon.co.uk

Robin McKinley's  The Blue Sword, winner of the 1983 Newberry Honor award, is the story of Anghared (Harry) Crewe, an orphan in a period that feels like 19th Century. In a sort of fantasy version of colonial India (Daria) Harry does not fit in. She is not a dainty, demure girl; she is a strapping young woman who loves riding and is unfashionably enthusiastic about the history and culture of Daria and the part of the country called Damar, which is uncolonised.  One evening the army station where Harry is living is visited by Corlath, leader of the Hillfolk (a tribe of Damarians) warning of an impending invasion from the North, a land of evil magic. Corlath spots Harry, and feels that her destiny is linked to the future Damar, so he kidnaps her.

As is the way in much epic fantasy, Harry's failings as a colonial miss are advantages for life with the Hillfolk- she is strong, brave, a good horsewoman and quick to learn sword fighting. She discovers that she has a "kelar" (magical second sight linked to Corlath's royal bloodline) and in a vision sees Lady Aerin, an ancestor of the royal family. She enters a tournament to become a Kings' Rider, succeeds and becomes Harimad-Sol. Her destiny is linked to the future of Damar in ways she could never have foreseen.

I enjoyed this book greatly, although there are some implications of the colonial theme which now (after two Gulf wars and other post-colonial legacy in the Indian subcontinent) seem rather uncomfortable. Personally I found the journey of Harry and Corlath rather hard to visualise; I would have liked to have had a map to follow. Having said that, I'm sure I'd have loved this book as an 11 year old, and would have loved the horsey aspects as well as the sword fighting and magic.

Sadly it seems that both these books are out of print, but there are plenty of second hand copies on most of the common second hand book sites. 

Grown up books for children's literature lovers

Most of my reading is children's and young adult literature, mostly fantasy and SF. However, I do read literature for grown ups too! So, here are some suggestions for books that in my opinion have the strong narrative and vivid characterisation I love in literature for young people.

Image: hive.co.uk

If you love Harry Potter and Chronicles of Narnia, then Lev Grossman's The Magicians may be for you. New York high school senior Quentin Coldwater is a gifted student, but is miserable, still obsessed with a series of English children's fantasy novels about a magical land called Fillory and infatuated with his best friend's girlfriend, Julia. Quentin and his best friend, James, arrive at the venue of their Princeton interview only to find the interviewer dead. A paramedic gives him an envelope: in it is the manuscript for a final, unpublished Fillory novel. On his way home, chasing a page of the manuscript, Quentin finds himself at Brakebills, a very private, very secret university for magicians, where he learns magic alongside having the other sort of education that students have: in sex, alcohol, friendship, betrayal and an insufferable sense of superiority. Upon graduation, Quentin and his friends discover the challenge of living with their gifts: if you are able to obtain by magic anything you need (a cool New York apartment, money from the cash point whenever you need it, admittance to all the best bars and clubs) then what do you do to fill your hours? Then a former Brakebills student arrives, with some unbelievable news: Fillory is real, and they can travel there. This is a wonderful mixture of Harry Potter, Narnia and Donna Tartt's The Secret History. I found it an enjoyable, engrossing read. You can hear an interview with Lev Grossman about the book on the wonderful Wisconsin Public Radio programme To The Best Of Our Knowledge here. I thoroughly recommend subscribing to podcasts of this fantastic show.

Image: sarahhallauthor.com

If you enjoyed Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, then you may enjoy Sarah Hall's The Carhullan Army. It is Britain in the near future. After catastrophic floods, much of the country is under water. There is a fuel crisis, the country is committed to costly wars overseas and reliant on relief supplies from the USA. A repressive government, the Authority, has forced people to live in closely monitored urban areas, to hand in all weapons, and women are compulsorily fitted with contraceptive devices. The story is narrated by a woman known only as Sister, and the narrative is her confession from a prison cell. Sister tells how she leaves her husband and home in the Cumbrian town of Rith, and journeys to a remote farm in the fells to join a group of women living outside the law. The group is led by a charismatic woman called Jackie, and as Sister's story progresses, the reader is left to wonder whether this is a group, a commune or a cult? and is Jackie a rebel or a cult leader? and ultimately, is she any better than the Authority? I found this a thought-provoking read, by no means without flaws: I found the ending a little unsatisfying- but then, that is partly what makes it troubling. You can hear Sarah Hall talking about it on the BBC book club here.

image: hive.co.uk

If you enjoyed Patrick Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go, then you may enjoy Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker. Set in a post-apocalyptic Kent, it is the story of Riddley, who has just turned 12- the age of maturity in Riddley's world. Shortly after Riddley's naming day, three significant things happen: his father dies in a work accident, a wild dog seems to willingly die on Riddley's spear, and when the travelling puppet show telling a mix of the story of St Eustace (Eusa), the history of the nuclear catastrophe and government propaganda arrives in Riddley's settlement, he discovers that the government of Inland (England) is on the verge of rediscovering the technology that could create nuclear fission. Then Riddley finds a Punch puppet in the landfill site he is mining, and refuses to give it up. He is forced to run from the authorities, through Kent, accompanied by the pack of dogs whose leader he has killed. Told in Riddley's voice, in the language of a people who are "post literate", this is an astonishing book. I'm now on (I think) my fourth copy, since nobody I have loaned it to has ever returned it! You can hear Russell Hoban talking about the book to the Guardian book club audience here.

A Face Like Glass- Frances Hardinge

Image: panmacmillan.com

I am a big fan of Frances Hardinge. There are links to my interview with her for Playing By The Book and a review of Fly By Night here . It is always with trepidation that I pick up a new book by an author whose work I've admired so much, but I'm very grateful that I managed to get a review copy at the Federation of Children's Book Groups conference last month.

After a cataclysmic war and climate change, a city has retreated underground to the caverns where they have stored food, and developed a new city, Caverna. At the beginning of the novel, Master Grandible the cheese maker is tending his cheeses when a small girl pops up in a barrel of curds. Since it is the name of the cheese he is making, he calls her Neverfell and looks after her, but there is something so strange about her face that he makes her wear a velvet mask- unlike all the other residents of Caverna, whose faces are blank unless they buy expressions from a Facesmith, Neverfell is incapable of dissembling. Not only does her face show everything she is feeling, she blunders about court telling people what she thinks as soon as it comes into her head.

Caverna, we learn, is ruled by the Grand Steward, who is preserved by the True Delicacies- food with almost magical properties (cheeses that are hallucinogens amongst other things)- and an army of food tasters. After Neverfell runs away from Master Grandible's tunnels, she becomes involve with the Childersin family, master vintners, and particularly Zouelle who creates the alchemy involved in mixing the True Wines. There are wines that help you forget or remember, and Zouelle carries one with her at all times. The Childersins take her in after she is released from arrest on suspicion of being an assassin, and after an accident at a state banquet, she is taken on by the Grand Steward as a foodtaster. However, beneath the factions at court and the daring exploits of master thief the Kleptomancer, there is something else going on- is it a plot to take control of Caverna? and can Neverfell survive?

This novel is as rich and perfumed as the food and court life it describes. When I started reading it I found it almost too rich, being able to only read a couple of pages at a time. But this morning I have read half the book at one sitting, greedily gulping down Hardinge's opulent prose. I highly recommend it for readers of 11+, as I do her other novels. She's a fantastic writer.

Diversity in fantasy fiction 2: Huntress by Malinda Lo

Recently, a representative from gay rights organisation Stonewall came to my University to talk to my teaching students about combating homophobic bullying.

Homosexuality was only decriminalised the year before I was born, and the whole time I was teaching in schools Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 was in place. As a teacher it was illegal for me to "promote homosexuality" or to "promote the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family unit". The viciousness of this wording made it very difficult for teachers to challenge homophobic language, bullying or exclusion of children in schools due to their perceived sexuality or the real or perceived sexuality of parents or family members. I could not, for example, have imagery of successful, happy gay people in my classroom the way I could of people of different religious or cultural backgrounds. I taught children who had gay parents or siblings and children who were quite clear that they were gay (and one boy who was insistent that he was going to grow up to be a girl) and as a young teacher it was very challenging for me that I couldn't reflect their lives in my classroom. As I became more senior and confident as a teacher, I did more to actively challenge gender stereotyping and "heteronormativity" (clumsy and awful word!) by reading stories such as Babette Cole's Prince Cinders and Anne Fine's Bill's New Frock.

Thankfully, Section 28 was repealed in 2003, but sadly some teachers still worry about the legality of challenging homophobic language and bullying in schools- under the 2010 Equalities Act teachers in fact have a duty to do so. Stonewall have some fantastic age appropriate resources (their primary resources are all about different images of families), and they have some brilliant booklists for primary classrooms.

Image: malindalo.com

Inspired by the Stonewall presentation I sought out Malinda Lo's Huntress. In a fantasy world where fairies and humans have lived alongside each other in truce for centuries, something is wrong. There has been no summer for years, crops are failing, there is hunger and discontent in the land, and there are tales of strange creatures in the Forest.

In the iron fortress of the sages, Taisin, a trainee sage, has had a vision. As a result, she and another trainee, Kaede, must travel with a small band to the land of the fairies to ask the Fairy Queen to bring back the Sun. But first they must go through the Forest, where dangers in the shape of strange creatures but also malignant magic lurk. Can Kaede and Taisin fight the feelings that they are developing for each other? and what does Taisin's vision of Kaede travelling alone to face danger mean?

This is a wonderful fantasy book, with Chinese mythological background- as I've said before, I believe that it is vitally important that young people see themselves in the books that they read. I found the relationship between Taisin and Kaede really positive: the difficulty in their relationship is not that they are two girls, but because Kaede's wealthy family want her to marry for political reasons, and Taisin must be celibate to be a sage. It's great that being a lesbian is not remarkable in their world, and I think that this would be a very positive message for any young person reading this book, whether they were gay or not. There is passionate kissing, but no explicit sex in this book. My one criticism is that there's an awful lot of crying. I'd have liked Kaede and Taisin to have had some laughter and happiness! Recommended to young adult readers of 12+.

Here's Rob Bryden reading another great Babette Cole fairy tale, Princess Smartypants.

Happy 50th birthday, The Phantom Tollbooth

Image: harpercollins.co.uk

Last year Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth turned 50. It is the story of Milo, a normal boy who discovers a mysterious package in his bedroom. Milo is not interested in anything. When he is in, he wants to be out; when he is out, he wants to be in. But he summons up the energy to open the package. Inside, he finds a toy tollbooth. He gets into his toy electric car (of which he is bored) and drives through the tollbooth, and is transported to a magical land: the Kingdom of Wisdom, through which he travels with Tock, the watchdog

Image: carlemuseum.org

to rescue the princesses Rhyme and Reason from the Castle in the Air. 

The comical characters (my favourite is Faintly Macabre, the Not-So Wicked Which), word play and literal exemplifications of idioms- for example, Tock can carry Milo through the air, since "time flies"- is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll, and also the recent China Mieville  Young Adult novel Un Lun Dun. 

Image: Norton Juster at Foyles, 26th April 2012 (photo by me)

I went to hear Norton Juster talk about The Phantom Tollbooth with author and journalist Nicolette Jones at the famous London bookshop Foyles. He was a superb raconteur, who explained that his love of wordplay came from his father. He said that he was much like Milo as a child, often bored at home and uninterested at school. However, he said that he felt that the need to entertain himself as a child made him creative (he was an architect as well as an author) and stated his concerns about today's over-scheduled children, who rarely have time to play freely. Interestingly, Juster also stated that he is synaesthesic, associating colours with numbers. One of the characters that Milo encounters is Chroma the Great, the conductor of an orchestra that plays the colours of sunset.

I have loved this book since I was 9. I bought my third copy yesterday, as my previous two copies have fallen apart. I don't think I fully understood all the puns and wordplay then, but I loved the strange characters and the map at the beginning of the book! (All fantasy books should have maps, in my opinion). I hope that you read it and discover it yourself. The 50th anniversary Harper Collins edition that I bought has an introduction by the late Diana Wynne Jones, which was a lovely discovery.

Guest Post: Ravana, the Ultimate Bad Guy by Sarwat Chadda

I am delighted that Sarwat Chadda, author of the fabulous Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress, has agreed to write a guest post about the ultimate bad guy, Ravana. I wrote about it here. 

Image: students.ou.edu

Ravana is the biggest villain of Indian mythology. He’s Satan, he’s Loki, he’s Hades all rolled into one. I love him.

                Indian mythology is quite unlike what’s available in the West. The boundaries between good and evil, morality, are bound by the notions of dharma, of right living. A warrior’s dharma is to kill his enemies so can achieved Heaven through war, through committing what we would view as evil deeds. One of the greatest epics of India, the Mahabharata, has a central moment when the hero Arjuna faces his enemy, made up of his own kin. Before him are cousins and friends and grand-parents that he must slay and he hesitates. It is only when his charioteer, the god Krishna, explains the nature of dharma does he resolve to fight.

                So it is with Ravana. It is his destiny to fight, to terrorise and to make war. And he relishes it. There is no doubt, not angsty whining about how unfair the world is. He seizes the world and shakes it by the throat. He has all the ambition and blood-lust and ruthlessness of any Roman emperor. He is villain writ large, writ epic.

                I love the larger than life villains because their excesses, their love of chaos, we enjoy, albeit perhaps with a frown of disapproval while secretly wishing we could be so free. They allow us, humanity, to indulge in our darkest dreams.Who wouldn’t want to be Dracula, to have power over death itself? Or the grandeur of Darth Vader? The Devil has the best tunes and the best lines. Just ask Milton.

                Heroes are measured by their bad guys. The tougher the better. They define them. The Batman and the Joker. Holmes and Moriarty (who, if you recall, only appeared in one story ever. Now name me any other of Holmes’s opponents. Not so easy, is it?).

                Ravana is the demon king. He kidnaps the princess Sita and unleashes a war with Sita’s husband, Prince Rama. The pair are destined to face each other and their story, the epic the Ramayana is one of my favourites. It’s wildly magical as gods and monkeys and demons and the king of the birds aid or hinder Rama in his search for his wife. The story ends, of course, with a massive battle. The city of demons, Lanka, burns and Ravana defies the gods, fate and Rama ‘till the bitter end, unrepentant up to the moment of his death. His colossal evil and colossal charisma dominates the tale. He has ten heads, twenty arms and once enslaved the gods themselves. Rama has his work cut out for him.

                I’ve taken the legend of the Ramayana as the basis of my new book, Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress. Fundamental to Hinduism is the concept of rebirth. From that idea it was a simple one to imagine that now, thousands of years after his death, Ravana is about to be reborn. But as villains come back, then so do heroes. Ash Mistry thinks he’s just a normal 13 year old boy. A bit lazy, a bit chubby and, if we’ll be honest, a bit cowardly. But it falls to him to stop Ravana and he’ll need the aid of the gods to do it. He’ll have to become more than he is and discover his destiny. His lessons will be harsh and there will be blood along the way, a lot of blood. So, if you’re interested in a tale beyond the boundaries of the west and the familiar myths and monsters of Europe, I might just have something for you.

Image: welovethisbook.com

Thank you so much Sarwat! Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress was published on 1st March, and is available from Waterstones, Amazon  and of course independent bookshops! If you would like to win a signed copy, please leave a comment letting me know who your favourite villain is and leave an email address where you can be contacted. A winner will be chosen on 19th March.

Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress by Sarwat Chadda

Image: welovethisbook.com

Ash Mistry is your average thirteen year old: into computer games, with an eye for a pretty girl and not as fit as he could be. He and his sister Lucky are on holiday, visiting their aunt and uncle in the holy city of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh at the beginning of the novel. Their uncle is a lecturer in ancient Indian history at the University, but even Ash's fascination with weapons and legends isn't making up for the heat, flies and missing his friends in London. 

Then at a party hosted by the mysterious Lord Savage, Ash witnesses some very strange events. Could it be that Lord Savage is more than just an eccentric, old and very wealthy aristocrat? Could it be that he plans to open the Iron Gates that hold the demon king Ravana? and could it be that Ash is the only person who can stop him?

Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress is the first in a new series for 8+. Annoyingly marketed as being "for boys" (why? because girls don't enjoy reading fast paced, exciting adventures set in India?) it's the latest novel from Sarwat Chadda. I'm delighted to be part of the Ash Mistry blog hop: more information soon! And, as I said here, I'm delighted that there is a fantasy novel with a British Asian protagonist.

Do check out Sarwat's Billi SanGreal series, fantastic adventure novels for 12+ about Billi, a teenager inducted into the Knights Templars in contemporary London. Billi's father is Master of the Knights Templars; her mother was Pakistani. Billi (Bilqis) and the Knights Templars battle fallen angels, vampires and werewolves, and Billi has to come to terms with her separateness from other teenagers- as well as getting into trouble for falling asleep in Geography. I hope that there are more Billi novels in the future.

Ash Mistry is published on 1st March.

Diversity in fantasy fiction

Image: laurenbeukes.bookslive.co.za

I am currently reading the wonderful adult speculative fiction novel Zoo City by South African writer Lauren Beukes. Set in an alternative version of Johannesburg, it is the story of Zinzi Lelethu December, former journalist and junkie, now a finder of lost things and 419 scammer. In Zinzi's world people who have killed are "animalled", carrying around an animal familiar as a manifestation of their guilt. Being animalled also confers special powers. This the result of a plague that spread from Afghanistan in the 1980s.

It's a truly wonderful book, I strongly recommend it, and one of the aspects I enjoy the most is the clearly identifiable African setting. The ingenuity, creativity and resourcefulness that Zinzi needs to survive  as well as the use of African languages: Nigerian pidgeon as well as a variety of South African languages and African French make the fantastical seem plausible.

The image above is created by a South African artist, and I think captures the spirit of the book perfectly. Zinzi's Sloth is not like Lyra Belacqua's daemon (visible soul) Pantalaimon from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials; he is a permanent embodiment of her guilt, and like guilt, is a heavy load to carry around.

I have been thinking a lot about diversity in children's literature recently. It is something that has always been important to me since I started teaching nearly 20 years ago (wow! How did that happen?). It re-appeared on my radar firstly due to reading the forthcoming novel by Sarwat Chadda, Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress. It was so heartening to read a fantasy featuring a British Asian protagonist with fantasy derived from Indian mythology rather than European, and made me wonder why US-based authors Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (author of The Conch Bearer) and Nnedi Okorafor (author of, amongst other books, Akata Witch) are not published in Britain, where we have so many children with Indian and African heritage. I wrote about them here. More of Ash Mistry next week.

Secondly, someone tweeted a link to this blog post on the shocked reaction of fans of the forthcoming Hunger Games film to the casting of an African American actress to play Rue. One of the contestants in the Hunger Games, Rue, is clearly described in the novel as a black girl, so it is depressing that so many (white) readers assumed that she is a white character. Rock star Lenny Kravitz has been cast as Cinna. Cinna's description in the novel is less precise than Rue's but there is no reason why a character described as having close-cropped dark hair and golden-brown eyes should be automatically be played by a white actor. I have often wondered why in post-apocalytic novels and films, both British and American, it should be assumed that only white people survived.

And then I heard Trish Cooke, British author of So Much and actress of Dominican heritage, speaking on Radio 3's The Essay on her experiences of learning to read from books only featuring suburban white families, such as in the Peter and Jane books. None of the books she read featured children growing up in  families such as hers; black, working class, with 8 children and living on a council estate in Bradford (coincidentally, the same estate as the one featured in the film Rita, Sue and Bob Too (sweary clip, watch out if small people are around!). Tricia explained in the radio programme that after a while, she started to feel that there was something wrong with her family, and it changed her from being a lively, confident girl to being quiet and unwilling to contribute in lessons at school. She was determined that her son should not have the same experience, leading her to write picture books featuring families like theirs. They are beautiful, warm stories featuring loving families; I adore them.

It seems to me that we are fortunate to have so many amazing picture books showing diverse families, including culturally diverse backgrounds, single parents, children living with grandparents- but this not being the central point of the story. However, it is disappointing that in fantasy fiction for the age range known as "middle grade" in the US (roughly 8-12) which has been a best selling genre, when minority ethnic characters appear at all, they often appear as colourful backgrounds rather than as active participants in the story- for example, Parvati Patil and Lee Jordan in the Harry Potter series who are so under-developed as characters that I struggle to name them. The only non white character developed to any degree is Cho, Harry's first girlfriend, who is mainly noticeable for her drippiness.

Does it matter? Well, as I see it, if we are concerned about the number of books that children read, then we really need to ensure that there are books that children want to read, books that reflect them and their experiences- and books from a variety of genres. Novels with diverse characters need not always be social realist. Also, white children need to see positive representations of children from other cultures, particularly children growing up in fairly mono-cultural environments. There are of course wonderful publishers such as Frances Lincoln and companies such as Letterbox Library that celebrate diversity and seek out authors to write books doing so, but more needs to be done. Perhaps the advent of digital publishing will mean that there will be more opportunities for more variety of stories to be told.

The exception to the paucity of fantasy novels published in Britain with minority ethnic characters are of course Malorie Blackman's amazing Noughts and Crosses, which is due to be dramatised on Radio 4 next Saturday. The excellent comic book blog New Readers... Start Here has a series of great posts about diversity in comics, including some great ones about Characters of Colour.

EDIT: I have realised that I left out Salman Rushdie's amazing Haroun and the Sea of Stories and Luka and the Fire of Life, both wonderful, fantastical stories using references from the Arabian Nights and Indian mythology, but with a warmth and playfulness that I find missing from his novels for adults.

Four Fantastic Libraries

Tomorrow is National Library Day, marking a year of protest against library closures. Interestingly enough children's borrowing from public libraries is growing, with Julia Donaldson's The Gruffalo as the most borrowed title for the second year in a row.

In order to celebrate libraries, I will be outlining my favourite fictional libraries.

1. Sunnydale High library
As all Buffy fans know, Sunnydale High was built over the mouth of hell, hence why it is plagued by vampires and demons. Buffy's creator Joss Whedon is primarily a fan of fantasy and horror, and one of the joys of the series for me is his clever inversion of their tropes. In most horror series Buffy would be the girl at whom the viewer is shouting "No! call the police! Don't go to the cellar to investigate the strange noises!" instead of the vampire slayer. If the subtext of Buffy is that growing up, and specifically high school, is hell, then the library is the safe zone. Librarian Rupert Giles, the Watcher, keeps the Scooby gang safe, and shy, bookish Willow is frequently the character whose reading and discussion with Giles leads to discovery of the monster that Buffy is battling that week.

Image: oldkingdom.com.au

2. The Clayr's Library

Lirael is the second in Garth Nix's amazing Old Kingdom series. The Old Kingdom is separated from the New Kingdom by a wall, which I picture as a complete Hadrian's Wall. Lirael is growing up in the Old Kingdom. Her mother has abandoned her with her cousins, the Clayr, and she has never known her father. Lirael is pale, dark haired and brown eyed among the fair haired, tanned skinned Clayr, but her lack of identification goes beyond the way she looks: the Clayr women have the Sight, which generally awakens at the age of 11, although some develop it as young as seven. At the beginning of the novel, Lirael is fourteen and still hasn't developed it. Instead she is sent to be a Third Assistant Librarian in the Clayr library, housed deep inside the glacier on which the Clayr live. Inside it is housed an archive of both magical writings and objects, and in exploring these, Lirael begins to understand that maybe her destiny is very different from what she had imagined.

Image: en.wikipedia.org

3. The Unseen University library

I have written about Terry Pratchett several times in this blog, mostly about Tiffany Aching. This is not one of his children's novels, however, as Juliette from the wonderful Pop Classics has pointed out, many people do start reading these books in late childhood/ early adolescence. The witches arc is beyond doubt my favourite, and this is the first novel to feature them. As a baby, Eskarina (Esk) Smith (eighth child of an eighth child) is accidentally identified as a wizard. In Discworld, women can be witches and men can be wizards, and there is no possibility of Esk training as a wizard. Initially, Granny Weatherwax (after Tiffany, my favourite Discworld witch) tries to train Esk as a witch, but soon it is apparent that her powers are too strong, and they travel to Ankh-Morpork to enrol Esk at the Unseen University. Initially this doesn't go to plan, and it takes all of Granny Weatherwax's deviance to get her in. 

Image: wiki.lspace.org

The library at the Unseen University is fantastic. The Librarian, an orang utan, was once a wizard, wo can travel through time and space to collect and protect books that have yet to be written. Indeed, the Library occupies L-Space in time and space, so that it contains all books on magic from the past, present and future. The books are chained, not to protect the books from the students, but to protect the students from the books: books contain knowledge, knowledge is power, which (according to Physics) can be converted to energy and matter, which could distort time and space (I long for Terry Pratchett to write an episode of Doctor Who!). Esk and a young wizard called Simon unintentionally cause chaos in the library, travelling through a hole in space to the Dungeon Dimensions. I love Esk; sadly the only other Discworld book she has appeared in so far is the latest Tiffany Aching book, I Shall Wear Midnight., and only briefly.

4. Hogwarts Library

Image: harrypotter.wikia.com

I think that this is my ideal of a magical library. In my imagination it is a cross between the Bodleian (which features in several of Gillian Avery's children's novels, particularly those featuring Maria, the Warden's Niece) and University of London's Senate House library reading room. Hogwart's Library, housed on the third floor of Hogwart's Castle, has another great magical librarian, Madam Irma Pince, for whom JK Rowling has apologised, explaining that if she helped Harry, Hermione and Ron the way she should, there would be no adventures! One of the many reasons I love the Harry Potter novels so much is that the magical books in novels are so dangerous and exciting; they can bite, help or enchant, and the reader is never quite sure which. The library is a place of mystery and danger, where Harry, Ron and Hermione must often enter by stealth, sometimes wearing Harry's invisibility cloak, and Hermione's tearing a page out of a book in The Chamber of Secrets.

So here are four fantastic libraries. I would love to hear yours! Please comment and tell me.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

I was recently sent the much-awaited sequel to Lauren Oliver's Delirium, Pandemonium. These are highly recommended, far superior to many Young Adult dystopian fantasies. In an alternate USA, where love has been classed as a disease, a repressive government insists on all young people being "cured" through a medical procedure similar to a lobotomy. A young woman named Lena has escaped the city and joined a rebel group, when she meets the son of a government official. He tells her of the banned books his father locks away. The one he describes is L Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Image: Wikipedia.org

This American classic was first published in 1900. It was a huge success, and although Baum tried to leave Oz behind in later years, his child fans insisted on more. After his death in 1919 other writers continued the series. Baum's intention was to write American fairy tales, but without what he considered the frightening aspects of those books, although Princess Langwidere from Ozma of Oz with her collection of interchangeable heads scared me as a child!

Probably most British people are more familiar with the musical film version, The Wizard of Oz (1939). As with Baum's own film version of it and those made later, Dorothy is not a little girl, but a teenager; Judy Garland was 16 when The Wizard of Oz was made. Denslow's illustrations from the Baum's books clearly show her as much younger.

Image: bygosh.com

By one of those serendipitous coincidences, two other cultural experiences have made me think about Oz this month. The first was watching the original film of True Grit (1969) with John Wayne. I am not normally a great Western fan, but I love this film, and it has a great many Oz resonances for me. 

The story of a young girl, Mattie Ross, who is on a quest: this time not to get home, but to find the murderers of her father, she must exhibit a great deal of courage and persistence, and to team up with a less than prepossessing group of companions to do so. 

Image: movieposterdb.com

While Dorothy is by far the superior of her companions in courage and intellect, Mattie has the moral superiority over her companions; her avowed aim is justice for the murder of her father, while La Boeuf and Rooster Cogburn want the reward Chaney's capture will bring. The process of the journey and achievement of "natural justice" in both The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and True Grit is redemptive to the companions: their characters are reformed. Mattie and Dorothy both get to return home. Interestingly, in Baum's book Dorothy does not stay in grey and dreary Kansas for long; soon she and Aunt Em and Uncle Frank are permanently living in beautiful, colourful Oz (which is much like Hollywood where Baum moved after the success of his Oz books); clearly novel-Dorothy doesn't subscribe to the MGM view that "there's no place like home"!

Image: fanpop.com

The second event was a trip to the theatre to see Wicked, a lovely surprise from my lovely boyfriend. Billed as the "untold story of the witches of Oz", it is based on the series of novels by Geoffrey Maguire. Events are told from before Dorothy arrives in Oz and while she is there. I haven't read the book, so please forgive me if the treatment of the story in the novel is different! Wicked is the story of Elphaba, a girl born to the governor of Munchkinland with green skin. She has a sister, Netta Rose, who is born disabled due to their father's insistence that their mother eats a herb to ensure that she is born with white skin. They are both sent to Shiz University where they meet the spoilt, shallow Galinda. Through a misunderstanding, Galinda (Glinda) and Elphaba become room-mates, and eventually, friends. Elphaba's strong sense of justice and fairness leads her to travel to the Emerald City to obtain justice for the oppressed talking animals of Oz, where she, like Dorothy before her, expects to meet the Great and Powerful Oz, and finds that he is something very different. Elphaba and Galinda's reactions to this knowledge are different, causing a rift between the friends. Will they become reunited?

It should be noted that the novel of Wicked is not aimed at children, Pandemonium is definitely Young Adult (13+) and the 2010 film of True Grit is a 15. However on the two occasions I have been to the theatre to see Wicked, children of I would guess 8+ have been in the audience. I would recommend the book of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to 7+, and of course the film can be enjoyed by all ages.

The best known song from Wicked, much murdered by the cast of Glee and American Idol contestants(!) is Defying Gravity.

Heavens Above

Last April, I visited the London Book Fair. While I browsing the Australian publishers' stand, a book caught my eye.

Image: penguin.com.au

I was lucky enough to get hold of a copy of Jen Storer's Tensy Farlow and the Home for Mislaid Children. The story of a mysterious red-haired orphan, found by truck driver Albie Gribble after she has been dumped in the River Charon. Something nasty is in the water, the evil Matron Pluckrose is after her when she is betrayed to the Home for Mislaid Children, and even worse, she has been born without a Guardian Angel. How will Tensy survive the awful Home, with its murderous crows and mysterious Watchers? And what is the evil Thing living in the cave?  But all is not what it seems, and with the help of some rather unreliable angels and some of the other orphans, Tensy can show just what a special little girl she is. This is a beautiful looking book, and would be a great read for fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I just hope that it gets a UK publication soon. There's a great trailer here.

Image: bookdepository.co.uk

"It was a dark and stormy night", begins Madeleine L'Engle's award winning fantasy/ SF novel. (For Wikipedia's round up of other books riffing on Edward Bulwer-Lytton's famously purple prose opening line, see here.) A mysterious woman turns up at Meg Murry's house, Mrs Whatsit, who is a friend of Meg's gifted little brother, Charles Wallace. After drying her feet and eating a sandwich, Mrs Whatsit tells the Meg's mother "there is such a thing as a tesseract". The following day Meg learns that the tesseract is what her scientist father was working on before he disappeared. Meg, Charles Wallace and a popular boy from Meg's school, Calvin O'Keefe, go to visit Mrs Whatsit, where they meet Mrs Who. That evening, Charles Wallace tells Meg and Calvin that they must go with Mrs Whatsit and Mrs Who to rescue their father. They meet the Mrs Whatsit's third friend, Mrs Which, and travel through the tesseract, the wrinkle in time, to the planet Uriel where they learn about the threat from the evil Black Thing. They learn that Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which are angels, who help them travel to another planet, Camazotz, controlled by an autocratic mind reader, IT, where the children must battle to save their father.

First published in 1962, A Wrinkle in Time is considered a classic in the USA. It is interesting to compare the portrayal of angels in the book with those in Tensy Farlow. The three Mrs Ws remind me strongly of Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid and Mother Carey in Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies: 

Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid by Jessie Willcox Smith

not because they are strict, didactic and punitive, but because they are they holders of knowledge and power. The children must learn from them (particularly Mrs Whatsit) to obtain their desire, as Tom must learn from the fairies in The Water Babies. The angels in Tensy Farlow are fallible beings, unreliable and confused. The power (although not the knowledge) lies with Tensy and her ability to inspire others to act for themselves. This is an interesting contrast. L'Engle was an Episcopalian, a commited Christian- however this has not stopped the books being on the American Library Association's list of the most frequently challenged books, for its unconventional approach to religion.

I would recommend A Wrinkle In Time and Tensy Farlow for 9+. A Wrinkle In Time and other books about the Murrys are still in print in the UK.

Under the sea

Image: jwwaterhouse.com

Mermaids are fascinating. They seem to symbolise both the seductive beauty and danger of the sea, the borderline nature (or liminality) of the coast- of the earth but moulded by water; and also our human condition: do we belong to the natural, animal world, or are we separate? Stories of love between humans and merpeople can be the ultimate in doomed love; how can people who live in different elements ever marry? It's a compelling story, that has been told and retold since Homer's Odyssey.

Image: Waterstones.com

I have read two books recently that retell (in different ways) Matthew Arnold's The Forsaken Merman. Firstly, Liz Kessler's The Tail of Emily Windsnap. Emily lives on a boat in a seaside town with her mother. Despite them living so close to the sea, her mother has never allowed Emily to learn to swim. During a swimming lesson, Emily finds out why: as soon as she hits the water, her legs fuse to a tail, and she becomes a mermaid! Believing that her mother is terrified of water, she doesn't tell her of her discovery; instead she puts her new tail to the test, swimming further and making a new friend. However, she discovers that merpeople are forbidden to have contact with humans, and that her mother is being betrayed dreadfully by someone who has a reason to keep it that way... A great, fun read.

Image: Waterstones.com

The EDGE: Rivets series is an exciting-looking range of books for readers who are not yet ready for the challenge of sustained reading that novels for readers 8+ can present. Katherine Langrish, a writer I really admire, has retold the story of the Forsaken Merman from the point of view of Mara, the daughter of the merman and Margaret, the human woman who has left her family and returned to land. Mara journeys to find her mother and bring her back. Told in simple yet beautiful language, it's a compelling read. Highly recommended.

I'd recommend both books for 8+,  Forsaken particularly for children who enjoy stories but find reading quite daunting. And the title of this post? The jaunty song from Disney's The Little Mermaid, of course!

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+.