Review: Ante's Inferno by Griselda Heppel

Image: femalefirst.co.uk

12 year old Ante has joined Northwell School on a music scholarship, where she discovers an old friend from Primary school, Florence. However, Florence and her friends seem to be going out of their way to be unkind to her, and one lunchtime they are chasing Ante through school to get her back for standing up to them. Ante ducks into the school hall and up into the organ loft. But Florence, following her up the stairs, lunges for Ante. There is a crack, and they both fall over the balcony.

When they come through, there is a boy wearing odd looking clothes nearby. His name is Gil, and he leads them down a dark corridor to the Underworld. Why are they there? How can they get back to Northwell? And why is Florence so convinced that Ante has stolen something from her?

I absolutely loved this gripping novel. Peopled with figures from classical mythology and following the structure of Dante's Inferno, with Gil (who has learnt stories from the classics) leading Ante and Florence in the way that Virgil leads Dante through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, it is an exciting, interesting read. It is not necessary to be familiar with either Dante or classical mythology, as Gil has to explain the stories to Ante and Florence, but readers who are familiar with Percy Jackson will be familiar with many of the figures, even if they haven't read Greek myths. A fantastic book for readers 9+. I'm glad to see that Griselda Heppel's next book, The Tragicall History of Henry Fist, is forthcoming. I hope we don't have to wait too long!

Disclosure: I received this book from the author, who kindly sent a review copy. However, this review represents my honest opinion about the book.

May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favour

On Sunday morning, I went to the cinema to watch The Hunger Games. Sunday mornings are great for going to the cinema on your own; I have a shocking concentration span for films and am ridiculously easily distracted. The emptier the cinema is the more likely I will watch the film and follow the plot.

 Image: moviespad.com

I won't say too much about the film in this post: Juliette at Pop Classics writes brilliantly (as always) about it. It differs significantly from the books in some points (as Juliette points out, the complicity of the people of Panem in the continuation of the Hunger Games, and also in the lack of mutant spy animals created by the Capitol to control the population among other aspects) but I think the adaptation was very, very good. 

The book is told in the first person by Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen year old girl living in District 12 (the former Appalachia) in Panem (what remains of the United States of America after an apocalypse). After an unsuccessful uprising 74 years before the events of the book, each district is forced to send a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 to fight to the death in a televised battle, the Hunger Games. Katniss volunteers to be District 12's Tribute after her little sister Prim's name is drawn, the first time that she is eligible to be entered into the Reaping, where the tributes' names are drawn from the lottery.

This is a rich, complex book. Suzanne Collins has said that the inspiration came from channel surfing, where she saw coverage of the Iraq war and flicked over to a reality TV show. There are also many parallels with classical myth- Theseus and the Minotaur, where the Athenians are forced to send 14 young men and women to the labyrinth to appease the Minotaur. However I was most struck by the Roman elements: the Roman names of the Capitol- dwellers (Cinna, Seneca, Caesar, Flavius, Coriolanus, Venia, Octavia), the name Capitol, and the Bread (Panem) and Circuses (Hunger Games) approach to controlling the people. 

The inequalities are stark in the book: even in a poor District like District 12, the poorest (like Katniss and her best friend Gale) have a greater chance of being selected than Madge, the mayor's daughter or baker's son Peeta, the male tribute of District 12, as the poorer young people enter their name multiple times into the lottery in exchange for a portion of grain or oil. Katniss explains several times that starvation is not uncommon in the Seam, the poorest quarter of District 12 where she lives.

On the other hand, in the richer Districts, where food is more plentiful, young people have been trained from a young age to fight in the Hunger Games, and they usually win. However, they are not used to hunger, like Katniss and little Rue, the 12 year old tribute from District 11. Katniss's prowess with bows and arrows and snares, from years of illegal hunting to supplement the meagre food her widowed mother can provide, and Rue's experience of climbing to harvest fruit, stands them in good stead.

Peeta is far more aware than Katniss of the need to play up to the Games audience's desire for narrative, but Katniss is also constantly aware of the cameras in the Arena where the Games take place. This makes for an incredibly tense read, I found. This link with our society's obsession with reality TV, fame and celebrity makes this a powerful read.

The film is fantastic, but I recommend the book as well, for readers 10+. Both are gory, but not explicitly so. It might be good to read along with your pre-teen child, to discuss any issues that crop up for them.

The title of this post comes from the slogan said by several officials of the Hunger Games. It reminded me of what gladiators reportedly said before combat: "Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you".

The District 12 scenes in the film brought this song to mind: Michelle Shocked's the L&N Don't Stop Here Any More. I think it was because the setting reminded me of the 1930s depression, and because it is the coal mining district.

Clever girls and loving mothers

Image: en.wikipedia.org

Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me is the story of sixth grader Miranda, growing up in 1979 in New York City. The story specifically mentions Amsterdam Avenue, which I believe is Upper East Side- in the 1970s this was a working class neighbourhood. She lives in a shabby apartment with her single parent working mother, and her best friend Sal lives in the same building.

One day while walking home from school, Sal is punched in the stomach without any forewarning by a boy who is a stranger. He runs away from Miranda and locks himself in his apartment. Then Miranda and her mother's spare key goes missing, and Miranda starts to receive mysterious letters from someone who seems to be wanting to warn her of something coming in the future.

This is a wonderful book, cleverly wrong-footing expectations from elements of a realist family story (Miranda's shifting friendships, the relationship between her mother and mother's boyfriend Richard, her mother's determination to appear on a game show) by the mystery and Science Fiction elements, which are foreshadowed by Miranda's refusal to read anything but Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, which I wrote about here. In fact, many expectations are wrong-footed: the troubled boy who punches Sal in the stomach is the one who understands the time travel in A Wrinkle in Time, but the girl Miranda perceives as a stuck up airhead, Julia, is the one who explains it, albeit by the use of her diamond-chip ring!

Image: mrbsemporium.com

David Almond's My Name Is Mina is the prequel and companion book to the award-winning Skellig, which I wrote about here. In Skellig, Mina is Michael's friend, who is able to see the wonder in Skellig and explain it to Michael. This novel starts:

My name is Mina and I love the night. Anything seems possible in the night when the rest of the world has gone to sleep. It's dark and silent in the house, but if I listen close, I hear the beat beat beat of my heart. I hear the creak and crack of the house. I hear my mum breathing gently in her sleep  in her room next door.

12 year old Mina tells her own story (as does Miranda) but it is not a straightforward narrative. Miranda is addressing the person sending her the mysterious letters throughout When You Reach Me, but Mina is addressing herself through her diary, story writing and poetry. Mina is an intelligent and creative thinker and a gifted writer, through which Almond (a former teacher) makes some pointed comments about the rigidity of the school curriculum and the obsession with testing, targets and results in the English education system.

Like Miranda, Mina is growing up with a single mother, but unlike Miranda, remembers her father who has died. In a passage where Mina describes running out of school where she is being teased, she goes into a tunnel under a park, into the Underworld where she is planning to seek Hades and Persephone and ask for her father back. I am not ashamed to say that this passage (written in the third person as Mina seeks to distance herself from it) drove me to tears on a packed train to Brighton. However, five minutes later some word play made me laugh out loud. 

Throughout the novel Mina, from her vantage point in her favourite tree, notes the nesting, laying eggs and hatching of baby blackbirds, heralding the coming of spring after a long north of England winter. As Spring arrives, so does a boy and his family in a house opposite, and Mina feels ready to leave the safety of her tree and choose interaction with children of her own age. 

I read these wonderful novels one after the other, and noted in both a tender and loving relationship between the girls and their mothers. The relationships are not always perfect, and in both books there is a recognition that a strong relationship between mother and daughter is not enough for either mother or child. In both cases the girls recognise that their mothers need to be more than simply parents (important though this is) and both girls eventually seek out new friends, frightening though this is. In When You Reach Me, indeed, Miranda is beginning to think about boyfriends, although this is not a big part of the novel.

These are fantastic books. Although it would not be necessary to enjoy When You Reach Me to have read A Wrinkle in Time, or My Name is Mina to have read Skellig, I hope that readers will go on to seek out those marvellous books too. Both books are suitable for readers 10+ due to their complexity.

In My Name is Mina a teacher sings the Scottish miners' lullaby Corrie Doon, which I think is a beautiful expression of love of a father for a child and also linking the ideas of death, loss, underworld and rebirth. 

Norse Code

I love books with maps, don't you? My dad to me every night before I was 11, and I remember three map- filled readings: C.S. Lewis's Narnia books, Arthur Ransome's Swallows and Amazons and sequels, and J.R.R. Tolkein's Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings series, with its fabulous maps of Middle Earth.

Image: fanpop.com

Just about the only thing that could improve Robin McKinley's amazing The Blue Sword would be a map of Damar, so the reader could follow Harry's journey with her.

By some kind of cultural serendipity, as the Guardian has pointed out, several Viking- inspired cultural events and book releases are happening, and I have recently read some amazing books inspired by Vikings, all of which involve journeys and have wonderful maps at the front.

Image: katherinelangrish.com

The very wonderful children of the Big Green Bookshop book club chose the final book in Katherine Langrish's Troll series (published both separately and in one volume as West Of The Moon), Troll Blood. Orphaned Peer Ulfsson has been taken in by his friend Hilde's family, after his adventures with trolls in the first two books has left him without a guardian or a home. One day a Viking ship arrives in the harbour, and the captain, Gunnar, his vain son Harald Silkenhair and Gunnar's strange wife Astrid come to Hilde's house. Hilde is desperate to accompany Astrid on the voyage, and Peer is desperate to be with Hilde, so they (and the house troll, the Nis- similar to a British Hob or Brownie) sail for Vinland. However, Gunnar is haunted by the man he has killed, Harald's temper is becoming more uncontrollable, and what is Astrid's secret?

Katherine Langrish draws on both Norse and Native American mythology to create a wonderful, exciting read. It helps to have read the first two books, but Peer and Hilde's characters develop further in this story, and the setting away from Trollsvik and Troll Fell mean that new readers and old fans of the series are on more of an even footing. It also has a glossary of Norse and Native American mythology and terms.The book club loved this book, and so did I.

Image: waterstones.com

I have recently discovered Kevin Crossley-Holland (I wrote about Arthur: The Seeing Stone here). This is the enthralling story of teenage Solveig, who in 1036 follows her father, the Viking mercenary Halfdan, who has travelled to Miklagard (Istanbul) to become one of the guards of Greek Empress Zoe. This is a time of transition for the Norse people, where the religion of the old Gods is being overtaken by Christianity, and this is one of the challenges that Solveig must face. Interestingly Kevin Crossley-Holland doesn't choose to disguise Solveig as a boy to avoid the inevitable dangers of a teenage girl travelling alone; Solveig must fend off unwelcome attentions; luckily she is protected by both the kindness of fellow travellers and her own intelligence (and as she pays her way by carving ornaments and jewellery, she has a sharp knife with her). Incidentally, The History Girls blog has a great series on crossdressing in historical fiction. I was totally involved in following Solveig's journey from Scandinavia through Russia to Istanbul, and every step of the way wondering whether she would arrive and how, when getting there, she would find her father. This is a magical book, just as good as the Arthur trilogy, and I can't wait to meet Solveig again in the sequel. Reading the story in the afterword of Kevin finding the rune Halfdan in the great church of Hagia Sophia is breathtaking as well.

Image: runemarks.co.uk

"Five hundred years after the End of the World, and the goblins had been at the cellar again..." is one of my favourite opening lines of books I have recently read. (My all-time favourites include "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day" and "I am writing this sitting in the kitchen sink"- if you know which books these come from, comment below, and add your own!) In the opening chapter of Runemarks by Joanne Harris, (best selling author of Chocolat and very entertaining tweeter) 14 year old Maddy is in a cellar. In her post- Ragnarok world (Ragnarok in Norse mythology meaning the end of the world, death of the Gods and rebirth of the world) dreaming, imagination and magic are suspect, mention of the Old Gods is forbidden and a new, puritanical religion, with knowledge confined to a select few, holds sway. Maddy has a mark in the shape of a rune on her hand; the people in her town call it a ruin-mark, a sign of being a witch. Then Maddy meets the traveller One-Eye, who teaches her to use her runemark to cast "glams", or spells. One-Eye, who is Odin much weakened by Ragnarok, involves Maddy in a quest which leads her to meet Loki and other Norse Gods, goblins and race against time to save the world from a second Ragnarok.

Where this books differs from the other in this post is that it is set in a fantasy world, albeit one that strongly resembles Yorkshire, and I enjoyed the incongruity of a Tolkeinesque fantasy without the High Fantasy "Forswear to be my foe, Magrin son of Bagrin" dialogue. Like the incomparable Terry Pratchett, Joanne Harris is able to make fantasy humorous without forgoing satisfying world-building and storytelling. Three great maps, a glossary and character list added to the enjoyment of this book for me.

 I was given AS Byatt's Ragnarok for my birthday, but unfortunately work pressure being what it is I haven't had time to finish it yet: more serendipitous Norse mythology reworking for me to enjoy.

I would recommend Troll Blood to 9+, Bracelet of Bones to 12+ and Runemarks to 11+.

It was the first anniversary of this blog on 12th November. Thanks for reading, and for all the encouragement fellow bloggers and commenters have given me.