~ A Book Review: Gods and Warriors, by Michelle Paver ~

I have finished reading my sixteenth novel for 2021, Gods and Warriors, by Michelle Paver. Frankly, I was curious. I kept seeing this author’s name every time I was out buying books. Paver featured in every new and secondhand book store as well as gracing our library’s shelves. Who was this new author?
I’m always looking for middle-grade fiction to read my son with special needs as part of our bedtime ritual. Man, I was not ready for Paver. I was unprepared for the shock value in the opening pages of Gods and Warriors. Paver hits the ground running. In the first five paragraphs, our protagonist, Hylas, has an arrowhead buried in his arm. We learn his sister is missing, his dog is dead, and he is running for his life. By the fifth page, the Crows hurl a boy’s body down the slope in front of Hylas, ‘it was now a terrible thing of black blood and burst blue innards like a nest of worms.’

This unexpected element of shock and gore made reading Gods and Warriors to my nineteen-year-old son, who has the equivalent mental age of a twelve-year-old, a bit awkward. I ad-libbed at random to cover the frightening parts, which seemed more suitable for an older audience. For some more sensitive middle-grade readers, I fear they would suffer nightmares for weeks. If you are an actual middle-grade reader, I warn you to read through your fingers.
Our hero, Hylas, is a 12-year-old goatherd. As an Outsider, the Crows are hunting him and his kind. The terrifying Mycenaen warriors are ‘a nightmare of stiff black rawhide armour, a thicket of spears and daggers and bows. Their long black cloaks flew behind them like the wings of crows, and beneath their helmets, their faces were grey with ash.’ While hiding from the Crows in a tomb, Hylas finds a dying man who gives him a bronze dagger (a priceless gift to a simple shepherd) and speaks in verse about his fate. Hylas takes the dagger and carries on to try to find his sister. Along the way, he meets Pirra, the daughter of a High Priestess, who is also on the run, trying to escape a forced marriage.

Hylas befriends Spirit the Dolphin, who has lost his Dolphin pack. And Hylas has a conflict with his best friend Telemon, the son of a Mycenean chieftain, who is torn between wanting to be a good friend as well as a good son.
What I liked about this novel were the Bronze Age setting and the mythological elements. Although I did feel confused at times by the mysterious “higher” powers: the Goddess, the Earthshaker, the Angry Ones, the ghosts. They were referenced, feared, placated with gifts, yet, they were never fully explained or seen. They provided a vague background threat that sometimes sprang forward to scare the pants off us. However, on the plus side, it was cool the way Paver included the different customs around the Greek Islands in the Bronze Age, depicting the unique ways people worshiped and lived. Paver evoked the time and era with ease.

What I didn’t like was the sometimes shallow feeling to the characters. I didn’t like the head-hopping, especially when we were given Spirit, the dolphin’s point of view. Though a fan of anthropomorphism, it has to be done a certain way. I found the sudden switching from Hylas into the mind of a dolphin a step too far. The other three characters showed great promise, especially Telamon, but they weren’t developed enough for my liking. The issues presented were different for each character, Hylas to find his sister, Pirra to escape her marriage, Spirit to find his pack and help Hylas, Telamon to please his father and his friend. Yet, none seemed truly compelling. At the end, none of the characters achieves their goal except for the dolphin, Spirit, who saves the life of his friend Hylas again and again then finds the other dolphins at the end. I thought the writing was competent. The problem was the story had no grand goal to get behind. It felt like eating junk food, you enjoy it for a moment but once you’re finished, you feel unsatisfied.
Michelle Paver was born in 1960 in Malawi, Central Africa, moving to the United Kingdom at the age of three. She earned a degree in Biochemistry from Oxford University and became a partner in a law firm. Paver’s books reflect her lifelong passion for animals, anthropology, and ancient history. She is most well known for her bestselling Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series.
As for Gods and Warriors, I won’t be seeking out the sequel.
My rating: One and a half stars.

Talk to you later.
Keep reading!
Yvette Carol
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A classic children’s book…superb writing. ~ Anthony Horowitz

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~ A Book Review: The Enchanted Flute, James Norcliffe ~

I’ve finished reading my thirteenth novel for 2021, The Enchanted Flute, by James Norcliffe.

‘A flute that will only play one mysterious song? A strange old man in a wheelchair somehow rejuvenated by this music? A leap from a window into a strange and often frightening world where nobody can be trusted and from which there seems to be no escape?’ So goes the promo material. The mythical base to this story and the new take by placing the protagonists in the modern day and age is solid. However, we readers can often be simple creatures, easily led. Here’s a secret some of your fantasy writers may want in on. As any fan will tell you, merely including a word like ‘enchanted’ in the title guarantees a certain amount of reader interest. I picked up this New Zealand novel purely for the word enchanted on the cover, so I congratulate Mr. Norcliffe on a wise choice.

The Enchanted Flute gives us fully realized believable urban fantasy. Norcliffe, an award-winning poet, author and lecturer in New Zealand, is an assured storyteller. I’m a sucker for anything to do with mythology, so I truly savoured the way he took mythology and more or less wove various strands together to give us a new twist. The Greek tale of Syrinx is about a chaste nymph pursued by the God Pan. Syrinx escapes by turning into some pond reeds. Pan scythes down the reeds and makes a flute to console himself. Mixed in with this key ingredient of Greek myth, the author adds parts of fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel and Jack in the beanstalk. It seemed admirable to me that Norcliffe could look at an ancient folktale in a new way and be bold enough to dare to say, What if I did this and this? I became quite fascinated as the modern story unfolded, reading about characters from mythology, and I really wanted to know what it all meant.

Close-up of a woman playing the flute. Musical concept

The flute Becky’s mother bought at a pawnshop turns out to be enchanted. Becky, herself, as the one who plays its enchanted music, becomes the focus of everyone’s needs and animosities. Because of this mythological flute, Becky Pym and Johnny Cadman literally jump from the realities of modern day life out a window into an ancient world. We experience this strange, scary, Arcadian place as they do, which makes the ride really exciting. It was seat-of-the-pants stuff. There seemed to be a palpable feeling of their entrapment, that there really seemed to be no way out. We were not let off the hook until the end. Talk about suspense.

Born on the West Coast (Kaiata, near Greymouth), James Norcliffe currently teaches at Lincoln University and lives in Church Bay with his wife and ‘an ungrateful cat named Pinky Bones.’ Norcliffe is both an award-winning poet and author of a dozen novels for young people including The Loblolly Boy series (Penguin Random), winner of the 2010 New Zealand Post Book Award, published in the United States as The Boy Who Could Fly. His novel, The Assassin of Gleam, received an award for the best fantasy published in New Zealand in 2006.

Fresh off the heels of his enormous success with The Loblolly Boy and its sequel, The Loblolly Boy and the Sorcerer, I’m sure they expected much of his next title. The Enchanted Flute did not make quite the same splash. The reviews were mostly good and star ratings were excellent. However, some folk criticized the length of the story, as too slow and drawn out. Other people found a little too much juxtaposition between the two very young naive protagonists, Becky and Johnny, and the lecherous intentions of Faunus or Pan.

Those things aside, I dived into the narrative wholeheartedly. The base of ancient mythology, the twist by basing it in modern day, and taking us with the main characters step by step, never letting too much information slip, teasing out the answers so we cannot tear our eyes away, building the mystery and the oppressive feeling of being trapped in Arcadia with them is taut stuff. What a thriller. It’s a master class in fiction. As an author I’m always looking for the nuts and bolts but when the writing is next level, the mechanics become invisible. Am I biased because he’s a fellow Kiwi author? Yes! But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t great fiction. Well done, James Norcliffe. Now I want to read The Loblolly Boy.

My rating: Nearly four stars.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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“Literature is news that STAYS news.” ~ Ezra Pound

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~ A Book Review: Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp, Odo Hirsch ~

I’ve finished reading my eleventh novel for 2021, Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp, by Odo Hirsch. Whenever I pass a thrift store or a charity shop, I’m compelled to go inside and check out the books. As a writer, I need to read within my genre, which is middle grade fiction. Therefore, I always peruse the children’s section and fantasy sections for new-to-me gems. Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp was a recent thrift-store acquisition with an intriguing cover.

I had never heard of the author before. But how can you resist a title like that? Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp knocks it out of the ballpark because the reader immediately asks, ‘what is the peacock lamp? Why is it important? What does it do?’ The goal for every author is to get the reader to ask questions and not fully answer them till the end of the story. The all-important title must get them asking questions at the front cover. Mission accomplished on both scores with this book.

An excellent title is everything.

What is the peacock lamp? It’s a rare bronze lamp which hangs outside the bedroom door of Amelia Dee, where she lives in the greenhouse on Marburg Street. Burdened with rather hopeless parents, an eccentric artist mother and father inventor, Amelia’s friend, Mr. Vishwanath provides the stability and the sanity in her young life. Mr. Vishwanath practises yoga downstairs and teaches the formidable Princess Parvin Kha-Douri and… spoiler alert, that’s pretty much it.

I was not sure what to make of this story because while it’s wonderfully written and a nice ride; it had a lot of promise that went under utilized. It’s like taking a ride at a theme park only to travel at walking pace and never leave the ground. The lamp has such allure and promise, the ancient yoga teacher, his equally ancient pupil are fascinating, and you keep reading, keep keeping the faith expecting things to go somewhere. I think this is one of those stories about which they say, it is “not plot-driven.”

Cough. Cough. Not a lot happened.

And being the big kid I am, although I had reached ‘the end’ I was still waiting for something to happen.

Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp is not bad though. It’s a quiet story, reminiscent of Antonio S. and Hazel Green, also by the author.

The wise mentor figure portrayed by Mr. Vishwanath provides our protagonist, Amelia Dee, (good name) with considered wisdom, calmness and inner questioning. I think it’s admirable to make such values as expressing yourself, letting go, the fair treatment of others and finding your voice the core of a book. Some people have made the comparison to Jonathan Livingston Seagull for children. Some people have said it’s what the parents who read literary fiction give their kids.

You could ask, are kids really up for reading a very adult kind of story? Do kids read this sort of philosophical fiction? Obviously, the answer is yes. Odo Hirsch was doing something right as he released Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp in 2007 and won HONOUR BOOK: CBCA Book of the Year, Younger Readers, in 2008. This is a dear book and I’m glad kids are reading this sort of wholesome fiction.

When I “Googled” the author, as you do these days, I discovered that Odo Hirsch is a popular kids’ author. He was born and grew up in Melbourne, Australia, where he studied medicine and worked as a doctor. Now based in London, Odo continues to write children’s books and they have translated his works into several languages, for the Netherlands, Korea, Germany, and Italy. For more information, please see http://www.answers.com/topic/odo-hirsch 

How refreshing there is a market for such low-key fiction. Reading Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp is like taking a holiday in the country to recharge the batteries after the rush and bustle of life in the big city. It’s fiction about those quieter moments that occur between the active times, when there is time to slow down and ponder the deeper things in life.

“When you know you are right, that is the time you can be sure you are wrong,” said Mr. Vishwanath.

Would my boys want to read it? No, but, spoiled by modern technology, what would they know? This book is an experience of softening, like a meditation.

My rating: Two and a half stars.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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“It is what it is,” said Mr. Vishwanath. “Everything in life is like this.”

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~ A Book Review: Code Name Bananas, David Walliams ~

I’ve finished reading my tenth novel for 2021, Code Name Bananas, by David Walliams. This book is one of the most recent offerings from the English comedian turned children’s writer. Published in 2020, and given to my son as a present, we started reading Code Name Bananas in lockdown this year and it provided us with some welcome comic relief. The book is full of action, laughter and secret plots, enough to keep us entertained.

This was my first time reading one of Walliams’ books. His fame precedes him. I knew he was the biggest selling children’s author to have started since the year 2000; he has books in over fifty-five languages and has sold over forty million copies worldwide.

To say I was curious would be an understatement. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about.

In Code Name Bananas it is 1940, Britain is at war with Germany. As bombs rain down on the city, orphaned eleven-year-old Eric forms an extraordinary friendship with a remarkable gorilla: Gertrude. Eric spends his days at the place that makes him most happy: London Zoo. But during the blitz, the zoo is no longer safe, and Eric must go on an adventure to rescue Gertrude. Together with his Uncle Sid, a keeper at the zoo, the three go on the run. After a harrowing series of near captures and hair-raising escapes, the trio end up hiding out at the seaside, where they uncover a dastardly plot… fall into the clutches of the bad guys… and have to foil the ultimate villains.

The sumptuous packaging of this book reeks of money spent. With a satiny cover and gilt lettering that catches the eye, it’s a beautiful piece of literary art. Tony Ross is fantastic! The combination of Tony Ross’ fabulous illustrations and David Walliams’ wonderful story work well together. On the front cover there is a gold badge in one corner, marketing the story as a “WHIZZ-BANG EPIC ADVENTURE.” What is a “whizz-bang epic adventure,” you may ask? Apparently it’s a story so crazy and unbelievable nothing is off limits. I was a bit startled how far Walliams will go. But is that not a sign of greatness? It was Neil Gaiman who said, ‘The fundamental rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like.’

With those parameters, Walliams may take over the world with insane outings like Code Name Bananas. Ratburger, Demon Dentist and Awful Auntie have all won the National Book Awards Children’s Book of the Year. The Ice Monster won ‘Children’s Fiction Book of the Year for 2018’ at the British Book Awards and some of his stories, like Grandpa’s Great Escape, Mr Stink, Gangsta Granny and The Boy in the Dress are all available on DVD.

Yup, world domination is definitely on the cards.

Born in Wimbledon England in 1971, David Edward Williams OBE, known professionally as David Walliams, is a comedian, writer, actor and television personality. He is best known for his double act with Matt Lucas on the comedy sketch series, Rock Profile, Little Britain, and Come Fly With Me. Walliams has been a judge on the television talent show competition Britain’s Got Talent on ITV, since 2012. Now he has added best-selling author to his list of accomplishments.

You often hear Walliams being compared to Roald Dahl and I can see why. Walliams has the same blithe irreverence but with a slightly darker edge, and they’re both risk-takers. Walliams is a fun writer, however, the critics of Code Name Bananas have called it “phoned in” and “rushed out.” I enjoyed some parts of the story. Mostly it was too farcical for my taste. I got annoyed at the constant sound effects. They were unnecessary. Though novel at first, it quickly became overdone. If someone is eating, we don’t need to be told ‘MUNCH!’ I almost wondered if the sound effects were padding as they took up a lot of real estate.

On the plus side, I commend the historical aspect, especially for young readers. Code Name Bananas contains useful information about the Second World War, Adolf Hitler, German U boats, the Blitz, the Dunkirk evacuation, the London zoo, Winston Churchill and Buckingham Palace. I’m a big fan of historical fiction. Is it not the ultimate way to grasp information, to hear it in a story? That said Code Name Bananas will not make my list for favourite books of the year.

My rating: Three stars, just.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.”–Jack Kerouac.

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~ A Book Review: Infinite Threads, Mariko B. Ryan ~

I’ve finished reading my ninth novel for 2021, Infinite Threads, by Mariko B. Ryan. You know a book is powerful when you’re still thinking about it a week later. It’s the sort of book that stays with you. I may still think about the 100 indigenous insights for years to come, it might take me that long to understand it. Almost written like a poem, the insights form the meat of this fascinating sandwich that starts and ends with the author’s observations and personal story. Mariko B. Ryan generously shares some of the background to how she found herself ‘kaitiaki, guardian, of the once hidden writings of her great-grandfather, a tohunga, sage.’  

It is the author’s first book, and it’s a hardback. Mariko’s style of writing is erudite, almost poetic in her minimal delivery, getting maximal effect.

The author presents the 100 Indigenous Insights in eleven sections, covering every part of the indigenous life and viewpoint, from rituals of encounter to leadership. Each insight shows up as a heading and Mariko has translated the Maori words. Insight 1: Tae-a-tinana. Show Up. Then she relates the insights in well-crafted numbered mouthfuls. Most sentences start on a new line with a new number.

1. Today, you convinced yourself to show up.

2. Willing to be scrutinised. To go down. To get back up.

(and so on).

At first, I was so taken aback by this unusual book that I felt off put. But Infinite Threads has a universal appeal in its unexpected presentation and style. There is something, like a mystery, always drawing me onwards. What do the rest of the insights have in store? I wonder. What else did the old man, as Mariko fondly refers to him, say to enlighten and guide his great-granddaughter and all the future generations?

Although the author’s genealogy gives her the pedigree needed to interpret the writings of the sage, she admits she had to struggle against her own conditioning and confront her own fears to take on the role of authoring the book. Her blurb says, “Recent world events and challenges have inspired her to share the knowledge of her ancestors.” I appreciated the courage shown and the spirit of wanting to share this information with the world when it’s needed most. It drew me to find out what else the book had to say.

The more I read, the more I had to read. And it was not a flip through. Infinite Threads is no lightweight walk in the park, this is some thought-provoking, candid, clear-eyed, straight talk about us, the state of our lives and the world we live in today. And the indigenous viewpoint is such a balm to my soul right now that I really wanted to understand it as much as possible before I moved onto each new chapter, or section. I took my time over reading this book because I was learning new things.

The story starts out with the author Mariko B. Ryan sharing her thoughts and viewpoint. Speaking as an insider, she gives us the native New Zealander’s perspective on the history and culture of her people and the devastating effect of colonization. We are told the story of how Mariko came to be entrusted with the hidden writings of her great grandfather, Takou, who was an esteemed chief, sage, visionary and prophet, as well as a shape-shifter known to change into an emerald green gecko.

The insights in the novel are wonderful. They’re instructive. And the novel ends with Mariko relating her journey to take on the responsibility of sharing her great grandfather’s words. It’s the sort of personal struggle to step up anyone can relate to and envision.

Mariko B. Ryan lives in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and hails from the northern tribe of Te Rarawa. I thank her for Infinite Threads. This book is deep, real, and a timely reminder about how to live on this earth together the right way, lessons we could all benefit from right now. It’s the sort of book you keep on the shelf, and keep dipping into now and again. It’s a serious book, one for grown-ups. A must read. Well done, Mariko!

My rating: Four stars.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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However, when we are all tending our gardens, when we are all fed and are all engaged productively, the need to take up arms is quelled and the realisation of Peace is affirmed. ~ 1182. Insight 61: Kaingaki Mara. Rangimarie. Gardeners. Peace, Infinite Threads

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~ A Book Review: I Was a Rat! Philip Pullman ~

I’ve finished reading my eighth novel for 2021, I Was a Rat! … or The Scarlet Slippers, by Philip Pullman. This book is one of the author’s shorter works for children which ‘for want of a better term’ he called fairy tales. Although Pullman found these shorter stories very enjoyable, he also admits to finding them ‘immensely difficult to write.’ I’m not surprised, as his books are typically dense with meaning. I was a Rat is multi dimensional with astute observation of people at its core. This small book is such a tidy mouthful I finished it in one sitting. Yet the ripples set in motion by the pebble in the pond continued long afterward. It’s one to get you thinking.

A young boy turns up one night on the doorstep of Bob the cobbler and his wife, Joan, a couple who had always longed for a child. The boy, whom they name Roger, insists he used to be a rat. The couple give him shelter and food. Roger is earnest and confused, unsure how to act like a boy, but every day the couple teach him patiently and Roger tries his best to learn. Bob and Joan go to the police, the hospital, and an orphanage, trying to find a place for Roger, but no one wants him. The old couple next try sending the boy to school, but Roger is not quite tame enough and runs afoul of the teacher. One mishap after another befall poor Roger, who by now is becoming infamous in the village and beyond, as a freak.

Along with the unfolding drama, we get regular updates on the front page of the local newspaper, The Daily Scourge, and the articles continue to pop up throughout the book. Though published in 1999, I Was a Rat is an unblinking meditation on the power of the press (social media) today.

As the innocent Roger becomes demonized by the newspapers, and the public opinion builds around the negative imagery provided, Roger becomes popularly regarded as a monster and they line him up for the death penalty. This reveals the ugly side of the press, bearing parallels with today’s social media trolls and the gang-banging that often happens around those poor souls who fall foul of popular opinion and have the misfortune to become blacklisted. Mob mentality is an almost too real a theme. Yet, the book never really gets bogged down in worthiness or making a point. I Was a Rat can still make us laugh and be funny.

As the story unfolds, we get the twist, the key to understanding our boy who says he was a rat. And we realize how imaginative this tale truly is, being in fact, the follow up to a world famous fairy tale, giving us an alternative view. The story premise is not only intelligent, it’s different. One feels as if the author took a leap out of the box and it paid off.

Philip Pullman was born in England in 1946. A teacher most of his life, he is also the author of twenty books for children. He is best known for the trilogy His Dark Materials, beginning with Northern Lights in 1995, continuing with The Subtle Knife in 1997, and concluding with The Amber Spyglass in 2000. His books have earned Pullman the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children’s Book Award, and they gave him the Whitbread Book of the Year Award (the first time in the prize’s history that they gave it to a children’s book). Pullman was the 2002 recipient of the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children’s literature. And in 2005 he won the Astrid Lindgren Award.

Reading I was a Rat was a curious experience for me. While I wasn’t sure what was happening, the quality of the writing sucked me in and kept me turning the pages, anyway. Packed into the light volume are many levels of meaning. It’s one of those books where it is possible to enjoy it at face value and also plumb the depths for more meaning. I loved the subtle morality. “See, I don’t think it’s what you ARE that matters. I think it’s what you DO.” We learn not to “… go by surface appearances. It was what lay underneath that mattered.” In I Was a Rat, Pullman reminds us that, just as with his wonderful stories, beauty is more than skin deep.

My rating: Three and a half stars.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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In the pleasures that literature affords us, we may see immediately that tomorrow does not have to be like today. Such immediacy makes free. ~ Charles Hallisey

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~ A Book Review: Immortal Guardians, Eliot Schrefer ~

I’ve finished reading my seventh novel for 2021, Immortal Guardians by Eliot Schrefer. This is book one in the second series of the popular Spirit Animals books for middle-grade readers, Fall of the Beasts. A different author wrote each book in both series, although Schrefer is a repeat offender, having contributed to the first series also, with book six, Rise and Fall. This time round he gets to kick off the sequel series and as a New York Times bestselling author, he seems a good bet.

In Erdas, each child in the kingdom must find out for themselves whether they will summon a spirit animal. This rare gift can happen to some children. Our heroes from the first series, Conor, Abeke, Meilin, and Rollan were lucky enough to summon the four “Great Beasts” as their spirit animals. “Great beasts” are immortal guardians who sacrificed everything to end a brutal war. In a strange development, some children summon the other Great Beasts—but then they are stolen! An evil force has interfered with the spirit animal bonds, to steal the Great Beasts and make them his own.

Quite dark, with the hideous Wyrm causing the Great Beasts to turn evil, and the Evertree dying, there is a pervading sense of hopelessness in this book which can be heavy going. I assume this was intentional, and a way of setting out the serious obstacles facing our heroes if they are to succeed and win the day by the time the second series concludes.

Eliot Schrefer does a good job of filling in the blanks for readers who are new to this series. He adds to the characters we love a little and introduces new characters to the fold. Set about six months after the last novel, Against the Tide, the next title, Immortal Guardians carries on the story. Right from the opening chapters, Schrefer does a superb job of drawing us into being invested. One child’s city gets destroyed. One child’s tribe disowns him, and the other summons one of the most feared of the Great Beasts. Scary!

Eliot Schrefer is an American author of many kids’ books, living in New York, and he reviews books for USA Today. A bestselling author nominated for many awards, they have translated his works into different languages. Recently, Schrefer joined the faculty of Fairleigh Dickinson’s low residency MFA program, as well as the MFA in writing for children at Hamline University. You can find him on Twitter @EliotSchrefer.

Schrefer is competent, that is not in doubt. However, it has to be said I found the relentlessly dark nature of this story a drag. The dour side renders Immortal Guardians somehow a less satisfying read than the books in the first series. Is it because, as some critics asserted, the sequel series feels “unnecessary,” and was a case of “publishers attempting to drag out a dead series for money?” I don’t know.

Oprah would say, “What do you know for sure?”

The one thing I know for sure about this book is I gave it a low rating for its miserable excuse for an ending. The content was serviceable but I’m tempted to hold a rally and stage a protest AGAINST CLIFFHANGERS. I was romping through the last chapters, thinking wow this ending is going to be a doozy, and then suddenly it was all over. No wrap-ups, no answers, no twists, no resolutions, no lovely satisfaction of understanding, no being let off the hook, nothing.

The story ended like two fingers in the face. You thought you would get resonance? Ha! You thought you’d have the lovely relief of knowing how things turn out? More fool you! Read the next book if you dare. I walked around the house, railing against the authors these days who think they can get away with unrepentant cliffhangers. Let me tell you something, they went out with the dark ages for a reason. No one wants to read that! I was so hacked off. I’m against being held hostage by my reading material. And quirky whatnot that I am, I felt resistance at the idea of being sucked into reading another entire book that might not end at THE ENDING either. I felt burned, Spirit Animals. Close, but no cigar!

My rating: Two stars.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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Gimme an honest frown over a false smile any day. ~ Gregory David Roberts

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~ A Book Review: Fifteen, Beverly Cleary ~

I’ve finished reading my sixth novel for 2021, Fifteen by Beverly Cleary. Sad news obviously prompted my choice: the exceptional children’s author, Beverly Cleary, died last week at 104. She still had the look of youth about her. Beverly famously said that whereas other children’s authors sometimes struggled to write from the child’s point of view, she somehow found it easy to recall exactly how it was to be a child. Of her style and genre, Beverly said that as a child growing up she’d wanted to read about other kids like her, ordinary kids and their everyday lives. And because she understood her audience so completely, her stories–about kids like you and me–were incredibly popular with children.

It was the Ramona Quimby books that were the most popular, however I didn’t read Beverly’s stories as a child. I discovered the author because my older sisters, whom I admired and adored, had a small book among the other bigger tomes in their bookcase called Fifteen, by Beverly Cleary. Even as a kid, I thought, how cool to read about a person your age when you are that exact age. So I decided I would save stealing it from the bookshelf until I turned fifteen. And that’s what I did. When I finally turned that magical lovely age, I snuck the slim volume from their shelf. I remember relishing every page. Beverly’s free ability to capture that youthful viewpoint was a gift. She gave me a sweet moment in my youth I’ll always remember.

The book itself especially to me now as an adult reader seems like fast food. You can swallow it in one bite, yet it is so wonderfully delicious. Fifteen is a peek-a-boo window into the 1950s. Published in 1958, it was the era when my parents were young, when girls wore dresses and full skirts to formals or dances, walked to school, and sat in malt shops to drink soda. It’s like entering a time machine to read it now, and something tells me this innocent tale of young love would be a total yawn fest to the modern fifteen-year-old, although possibly still easily consumed by the 9–10-year-old crowds.

The coming-of-age story is about fifteen-year-old Jane Purdy, an average girl with a babysitting job and how she meets the dreamy Stan Crandell, who has a tan, green eyes, brown hair with a dip in it, and a genuine smile. Stan might deliver horsemeat, but he rescues our damsel in distress at the outset and proves himself to be just as nice throughout the story. Jane has never had a boyfriend before. She is the picture of flustered youth. Her awkwardness reaches into the heart of any girl and Beverly renders the angst truthfully and winningly.

While some aspects of Fifteen seem dated now, the themes persist today, underlying this story of a crush, is the story of a young person trying to fit in. Jane looks up to the most popular girl in school and tells a few fibs as she tries to be like her before Jane figures out that Stan likes who she is and wants her to be herself. Aw!

I love that there is this wonderful sense of place in this story. I can clearly remember my fifteen-year-old self feeling as if I were in the Purdy’s comfortable family home or in the quiet house with Jane when she was babysitting and her charge was finally asleep.

An admirable talent, Beverly Cleary was born in McMinnville, Oregon. Her books have earned her many prestigious awards, including the 1984 John Newbery Medal for Dear Mr. Henshaw. They have published her books in twenty-nine languages and her characters, including Henry Huggins, and Ralph S. Mouse, Ribsy, Socks, as well as Beezus and Ramona Quimby, have delighted generations of children.

They celebrated Beverly Cleary’s one hundredth birthday in 2016, by reissuing three of her books with forewords by Judy Blume, Amy Poehler, and Kate DiCamillo. In 2017, they reissued the Henry Huggins books with forewords by Tony DiTerlizzi, Marla Frazee, Tom Angleberger, Jeff Kinney, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, and Cece Bell.

I love Beverly Cleary’s writing. I think it is because she was a luminary in relating what my writing teacher would call ‘the minutiae’ of family life and social life. She was relatable, her stories truthful, pure. What a legacy she has left the world. Beverly Cleary, you will be missed.

My rating: Five stars.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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“I don’t think anything takes the place of reading.” ~ Beverly Cleary

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~ A Book Review: The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster ~

I’ve finished reading my fifth novel for 2021, The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Though I’d heard of this classic tale over the years, I’d somehow avoided reading it until now. Juster’s first novel made its debut in 1961 to great acclaim, transforming his career overnight. The book became a bestseller, and they turned it into an opera, a theatre production and a movie.

Born in 1929, in New York to Jewish migrant parents, Norton Juster served in the navy and trained as an architect. In 1960, he began working on The Phantom Tollbooth with cartoonist, Jules Feiffer, drawing inspiration from a wide range of children’s classics including The Wind in the Willows and the comedy of the Marx brothers.

The book sold millions of copies around the world, but the humble Juster downplayed his success. The author of twelve books, he continued to work as an architect in the firm he co-founded, and he taught as a professor of architecture at Hampshire College until 1992. He retired from teaching, yet he never gave up writing children’s books. His book The Hello, Goodbye Window garnered the Caldecott Medal for the illustrator Chris Raschka in 2005.

Juster is best known for The Phantom Tollbooth. The book has an intriguing title. I have to say; I read with great curiosity. While at heart this is a simple story, the tale of a bored child who discovers the phantom tollbooth one day and drives his toy car through, finding himself magically transported to the Land Beyond. As the pell-mell sequence of adventures takes place, we realize that what was simple is actually multi-layered and complicated. This is a book about the power of words.

I wondered whether children were smarter in the 60s because today’s generation of kids might struggle to get the in-jokes and comprehend the word games. In fact, in a lot of ways, The Phantom Tollbooth didn’t seem like a children’s book at all. It was too full of paradoxes and the poetry of raw truth.… you can swim all day in the Sea of Knowledge and still come out completely dry. Most people do. Yet I guess that’s what is clever about The Phantom Tollbooth is that you could read it as a scholar mining layers of subtext or read it as an innocent child and see a tale of non-stop adventure, also known as a picaresque.

After Milo enters the Land Beyond, he quickly learns that the inhabitants have a pressing problem. The two main kingdoms, Dictionpolis and Digitopolis, are at odds with each other. In Dictionpolis, King Azaz believes words are most important. A Mathemagician who believes numbers are most important rules Digitopolis. The conflict between the kingdoms has worsened because of the disappearance of their princesses, Rhyme and Reason. Milo heads out on a quest with the watchdog and a bug, to rescue the princesses and restore harmony to the Land Beyond.

That’s the story, a paint-by-numbers set up, with picaresque content that focuses on extensive wordplay. I will admit reading this book sorely taxed my poor little brain, which needed to stop for a lie down repeatedly. All the cleverness played with my head, confusing me. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed the experience.

“One of the nicest things about mathematics, or anything else you might care to learn, is that many of the things which can never be, often are.”

Although several times the prose made me weep with admiration.

“So many things are possible just as long as you don’t know they’re impossible.”

Reading this classic tome was quite the ride. I found the reading a chore.

“You had the courage to try; and what you can do is often simply a matter of what you will do.”

The tricky mind work with the wordplay often became too much. When I’m reading, I don’t want to have to work that hard. I had to take frequent breaks to imbibe other lighter books in between. While The Phantom Tollbooth was an impressive story, I found the intellectual exercise exhausting and grew tired of trying to figure out what Norton Juster was saying next. My eldest sister would love it. She’s the brain of the family, always up for cerebral exercise. I think she’d get a kick out of the brain calisthenics and probably re-read this book. Being of small brain, I grew tired of the weight-lifting. Once was enough. If it were a food, people would say it’s a gained taste, like avocado.

My rating: Two and a half stars.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself. ~ Groucho Marx

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~ A Book Review: Charlie Bone and the Hidden King, Jenny Nimmo ~

I’ve finished reading my fourth novel for 2021, Charlie Bone, and the Hidden King by Jenny Nimmo. Having grabbed this book in one of my visits to a recent book fair, the slight glimmer on the cover drew me in. I was curious too, as I’ve noticed other titles in the series in second-hand bookstores in the past and wondered what the books were about. I always need to read as much material as I can in my genre of middle grade, so won by the shimmery cover, I picked up Charlie Bone and the Hidden King. It’s hard to resist a little bling.

This was the fifth instalment in Jenny Nimmo’s Children of the Red King fantasy series, which follows the adventures of Charlie Bone. As a child of the Red King, he is one of ‘the endowed,’ Charlie Bone can travel into pictures and photographs, and he uses a magic wand. In The Hidden King, the story starts with a nasty snowstorm and all the animals in town disappearing. Charlie’s friend, Benjamin Brown, desperately wants his dog, Runner Bean, back, and he enlists Charlie’s help. Although Benjamin’s parents are working as spies at Bloor’s Academy, the special school for the endowed, Charlie agrees to help Benjamin, anyway. But our beleaguered hero also has other problems. They have frozen his grandmother Maisie, and he and his Uncle Paton can’t break the spell. The three beautiful Flame Cats deliver a warning, ‘something ancient has awoken.’ Charlie discovers that the shadow escaped from the Red King’s portrait, and that it will do anything to keep him from finding his father.

Though he already has plenty to worry about, the Flame Cats tells Charlie that his mother is also in danger. Sadly, Amy Bone falls under the spell of the strange Hart Noble. Charlie realizes Amy loves Hart Nobel, and that she is forgetting his father ever existed. If Charlie is to find his father, he will need to do so before his mother forgets him totally. Charlie must team up with his friends again, including his new friend, Naren Bloor, to uncover the truth and finally find his father so he can make things right again.

This novel obviously has a decent premise for a fantasy sci-fi tale for young readers. Nimmo seems a capable enough storyteller. She answers all the questions raised. Bone himself is likeable enough for a protagonist. It’s a reasonable light read for a child. Why was I underwhelmed?

Jenny writing

There were several ways in which this book fell short of the mark for me. The characters are cardboard cut-outs, without depth or any form of development as the story progresses. Charlie Bone seems like a substantial lead, but it’s disappointing because we’re never allowed to get to know him. The head-hopping grates maybe expressly because it keeps us at arm’s length from the cast. To jump from point of view to point of view is giddy-making. Also, the style of writing is old-fashioned, as is fitting I guess. However, as a book reviewer and critique group member, I wanted to say ‘show, don’t tell.’ The old-fashioned technique where the author tells chunks of the story with exposition has fallen out of favour these days.

It’s not all bad. It’s cool the way Charlie Bone’s wand has become a moth in this story, and I loved Naren Bloor’s ability to send ‘shadow writing.’ I also liked the twist at the end. In conclusion, I found Charlie Bone, and the Hidden King good, but not great.

Jenny reading

A prodigious author, Jenny Nimmo was born in 1944, in Berkshire, England and educated at boarding schools in Kent and Surrey. She left school to become a drama student/assistant stage manager with Theater South East. Her subsequent work with the BBC led her through a colourful career as a photographic researcher, then floor manager, working mainly on the news, and finally director/editor on the children’s program Jackanory. Jenny left the BBC in 1975 to marry a Welsh artist David Wynn Millward and went to live in Wales in her husband’s family home. When her first child was born, Jenny published her debut novel The Bronze Trumpeter at the same time. Now an author of many books, Jenny is best known for The Snow Spider trilogy and the Charlie Bone stories. Despite dividing fans at first with the series, the Children of the Red King books became very popular and still continue to sell well.

My rating: Two stars.

Talk to you later.

Keep creating!

Yvette Carol

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It was a golden autumn and leaves fell about them like bright coins. ~ Charlie Bone and the Hidden King

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