The Singer of All Songs by Kate Constable

Kate Constable was born in 1966 in Victoria but spent much of her childhood in Papua New Guinea, without television but within reach of a library where she “inhaled” stories, and The Singer of All Songs, Book 1 in the Chanters of Tremaris series, is her first published book. Writes Sara Douglass (quoted on the book’s back cover): “What a charming, captivating book! Kate Constable writes with such grace and clarity that she stands out from the pack … One of the most enjoyable fantasies I’ve read in a long time.”

This is, indeed, a truly remarkable debut novel. I look forward to Book 2 in the series and fully expect to see The Singer of All Songs at least short-listed for awards and given a place of honour in the lists of best books for young people.

The Stones are Hatching by Geraldine McCaughrean

There are many amusing characters in this book. Phelim has to find three others (the Maiden, the Fool and the Horse) to help him in his quest to save the world from dreadful monsters, the Hatchlings of the Stoor Worm, which are already creating terror and chaos. Sweeney, the Fool, is an extremely funny character whom you won’t forget in a hurry, while I’m sure the “Obby Oss” will prance through my dreams for the rest of my life.

Geraldine McCaughrean has an amazing wit. Her humour runs circles around Joanne Rowling’s. Also, she chooses her words with care, making every one count. Because of this, the reader has more sympathy for Phelim than for Harry Potter. In the end you will even feel a twinge of sympathy for the Stoor Worm.

McCaughrean once said this book is more terrifying than she intended. It is certainly spine-chilling in parts. I had to read the chapter where Phelim destroys the Stoor Worm again and again; the writing is just so beautiful. And McCaughrean knows exactly when to ’tell” rather than “show” for the right effect:

Phelim intercepted the paw with his hand and held it. The claws within its velvety feet were still soft. Enfeebled by the effort of hatching, it rested for a moment, globules of albumen slithering off its starry pelt, a panther but leopard-spotted with constellations of gold. It was beautiful.

Not “Phelim caught his breath at its beauty”', or anything similar; just that simple statement: “It was beautiful”.

Many adults (narrow-minded ones anyway) will no doubt criticise the way Geraldine McCaughrean deals with Prudence at the end of the book. But how else, we must ask ourselves, could Phelim escape the horrors of having to live with her? What would we do in Phelim’s place?

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Jonas’s community clearly doesn’t cover the whole world in which it is set, and one doesn’t even have to travel over water to reach “Elsewhere”, of which there are hints relatively early in the book. Most members of the community clearly believe that this is where people who are “released” go. Young readers possibly might not guess the truth here but I’m sure adult readers will.

For a book with such a complex set-up The Giver is amazingly short at fewer than 200 pages. If it had been a novel for adults I think it would have contained a lot more detail on how this utopian society was set up, because it does leave you asking questions about it. Lowry does, however, give enough detail for the purpose of her story and she handles it deftly, never getting in the way of the forward motion of the plot and therefore taking the risk of boring young readers.

I was amazed to hear that The Giver was on the list of “most challenged” books for 2000, on the grounds of “being sexually explicit, having occult themes, violence”. I didn’t see anything in it that was inappropriate for its audience of young adults and anything of a sexual nature was hinted at rather than “explicit”. The Giver is a thoroughly gripping read and beautifully written.

Pagan’s Crusade by Catherine Jinks

This is the reader’s introduction to 16-year-old Pagan, a half-Arab Christian, who is applying to join the Knights Templar. The year is 1187, and Jerusalem, held by Christians, faces the approach of Saladin and his Muslim army. Pagan is chosen to serve as a squire to Lord Roland, a Templar knight. As danger mounts and the Holy City is besieged, Pagan finds friendship—and risks everything to keep it. The above excerpt, which is the beginning of the book, gives a good indication of Catherine Jinks’s extremely spare writing style with its constant peppering of incomplete sentences. It is as though Pagan himself, who has been raised in a monastery and is therefore very literate as well as observant, is speaking to us. It also makes for a fast-paced and absorbing story that simply cries to be read aloud. I realise historical novels are not all that popular among children, but a class of, say, 12-year-olds would soon become engrossed if their teacher was a good reader and read this book to them. This is the first book in the Pagan series. The others (in the order in which they should be read) are Pagan in Exile, Pagan’s Vows and Pagan’s Scribe

Pagan in Exile by Catherine Jinks

What’s everybody staring at?
      All right, so you’ve never seen an Arab before. Is that any reason to stare? My hair’s not green. My skin’s not blue. It might be darker than yours, but dark skin is quite normal in my country. So I’m short. So what? I’m not that short. I’m tall enough to see over my own knees. Anyone would think I had a giant candle-snuffer growing out of my forehead.
      Look at that fellow there, gawking away. Face like a gob of spittle, and he’s staring at me. Why don’t you get yourself a mirror, Spitface, if you really want something to stare at.
      A one-armed child makes a rude gesture. Runs away as I poke out a viciously threatening tongue. No backbone, the little coward.
      “Pagan.” Roland’s voice is cold and stern. (Doesn’t want his squire eroding the dignity of his arrival.) “Please behave yourself.”

The year is 1188 and the infidels have conquered Jerusalem. Pagan, forced into exile, is accompanying his master, Lord Roland, to the castle of Bram, Roland’s home. But the castle, cold, dark and filthy, is not Pagan’s idea of how lords live and neither is Roland’s family anything like the type of family Pagan imagines someone as noble and dignified as Roland should have. Pagan is soon caught up in violent clashes between both family members and the family and their neighbours. At the heart of the bloody feud stands Esclaramonde, a highly principled woman whose enigmatic character and heretical religious beliefs both disturb and attract Roland, while Pagan himself finds that he too has unpalatable truths to confront.

I am absolutely bowled over by Catherine Jinks’s writing style. She must have done a huge amount of research before writing the Pagan books to be able to create such a wonderful portrait of mediaeval life in so few words. The excerpt quoted above (which is the beginning of the book) is a good example of prose that literally cries to be read aloud. If you are a teacher I urge you to try these books on your class. If you are around 12 years old, try to interest your teacher in reading these books to your class.

This is the second book in the Pagan series.

Pagan’s Vows by Catherine Jinks

Lord Roland and his squire Pagan, fresh from battle in the Crusades, have renounced the sword and are seeking to become novice monks at the Abbey of St Martin. Pagan isn’t sure he wants to be a monk and soon finds that neither humility nor blind obedience comes easily to him, but he is equally sure he doesn’t want to leave his beloved master. He also discovers that even a supposedly holy place can swarm with danger and corruption.

Pagan himself tells the story, writing in the present tense, which usually gives me trouble. I normally find it both stilted and unnatural. However, for this story it feels absolutely right. Although I can imagine that many young readers might take a while to become accustomed to Catherine Jinks’s spare, distinctive style, I took to it (and her warm, wry humour) straight away. As can be seen from the above quote (the book’s first paragraph) her writing abounds in unfinished sentences, which most writers normally use sparingly. But here the oft-used effect serves to underline Pagan’s irreverence, which is my only quibble. While I personally found this trait highly entertaining (indeed, almost endearing) I have difficulty believing that someone raised in a monastery in those days would be quite so irreverent, especially at only 17 years of age. One of his favourite expletives is “Christ in a cream cheese sauce”, which would certainly be accounted as blasphemous in those days.

But what does it matter when Jinks provides such an entertaining, “unputdownable” read?

This is book three in the series of four books about Pagan. Although I read this one first, they are best read in their proper sequence, which is Pagan’s Crusade, Pagan in Exile, Pagan’s Vows and Pagan’s Scribe.

Pagan’s Scribe by Catherine Jinks

This final novel in the Pagan series is told by bookish and rather delicate Isadore, who leaves his home village, where books are so hard to come by, to become scribe to Pagan, now Archdeacon of Carcassone. Isadore can hardly believe so irreverent a man could attain such a high position in the Church. But he soon learns Pagan’s worth, not to mention how dangerous the world outside his little village is, for this is 1209, the year in which Papal forces from the north begin their bloody crusade against the Cathar heretics, and the battle line quickly moves closer to Carcassone.

From the quote with which I start this review, it can be seen that Catherine Jinks doesn’t abandon the spare writing style she used for Pagan’s voice in the rest of the series. However, readers are left in no doubt that the narrator’s character and personality are nothing like those of Pagan. While Isadore has many endearing qualities, most readers will find him less appealing than Pagan. I personally missed Pagan’s sarcastic and humorous comments but still found this book as fast-paced and engrossing as the previous three.

The Gathering by Isobelle Carmody

At face value, Cheshunt is a model neighbourhood. But almost as soon as he and his mother move there Nathanial knows there is something wrong—something hideously wrong. And it isn’t just the stench from the old abattoir, which doesn’t seem to bother most residents.

Nathanial soon learns he is not in Cheshunt by accident. As the dark calls its own, so does the light. Nathanial must confront phantoms from his own past if he and all the others called by the light have any hope of stopping the Gathering and its creator.

The word “dark” in The Gathering should really have a capital letter (as it does in Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising) for the forces of evil could not have been more vividly realised than in this book. A number of people who have read it see the Cheshunt school’s headmaster, Mr Karle (“the Kraken”) as a representation of Hitler. In a quote on the book’s front flyleaf Terry Lane is reported to have called The Gathering “a dark, grim allegory of fascism”. Many young readers might not realise just how accurate the analogy is because Hitler actually ran an organisation called The Occult Bureau. (If anything proves how insane Hitler was, this waste of time and resources surely does.)

The evil depicted in The Gathering is truly spine-chilling and I think the main reason for this is that Carmody doesn’t rely solely on occultism to create the evil. While Nathanial’s schoolmate Buddha (a very strange name for an evil character) is clearly driven by the Kraken’s supernatural influence when he burns Nathanial’s dog alive, there is nothing supernatural about how he does it. I found this incident so disturbing it kept me awake for hours. The scene in the fourth Harry Potter book that several people described as too frightening for many children pales by comparison. This is partly because monsters like Voldemort exist only in someone’s imagination. Any well-adjusted child knows this, but also knows that it would be all too easy to murder a little dog as Buddha does.

I found a page of reviews by teenagers
(http://owl.infosys.utas.edu.au/reading_room/books/4.html) where there were quite a few readers who didn’t like The Gathering, and I suspect this is because they had to study it at school and write an essay on it, or answer a series of questions calculated to make them really think. Most would probably have enjoyed it if simply given it as being a “cool” book to read. You might like to look at this page. Although it’s peppered with the sort of review so often found on amazon.com (i.e., the “this is the best book in the world” type of review) several children have posted the material they were required to produce when studying the book at school.

Cold Tom by Sally Prue

The quote from Michael Morpurgo on the English edition’s cover suggests this was Sally Prue’s first novel. On the back the words “original, fascinating, dark splendour, chilling, inventive, haunting, impressive, compelling” are splattered among a constellation of silver stars and I wouldn’t like to argue with any of them. This is quite a short novel but it is beautifully written and packs a lot into its 136 pages, especially about the condition of being human.

Mister Monday by Garth Nix

I found this book (especially the Prologue) more bizarre than either Sabriel or Lirael, but every bit as engrossing. I have to marvel at an author who publishes the first book in a long and complex series without having first written all the others. I wouldn’t like it myself because if a brilliant deviation from the outlined plot occurred to me for a later book, but it needed a rewrite of the first book, this couldn’t be done. Garth Nix has a hard act to follow in this first, highly imaginative book of The Keys to the Kingdom. And he has to do it six times!

Incidentally, I read the following in a review by a young reader on amazon.com and had to smile:

Milo’s Wolves by Jenny Nimmo

When menacing grey figures begin to circle the family, Laura and her father must make a dangerous journey into Europe to protect the ones they love. But can they uncover Gwendal’s secret before the wolves close in for the final bite?

To discuss the theme of this book would be to reveal too much—certainly more than is given in the blurb on the back cover. But it is an extremely thought-provoking and timely theme, and Jenny Nimmo, author of the acclaimed Snow Spider trilogy, has woven it into a thrilling and suspenseful tale that I found hard to put down.

Afterdark: The Dreamsnatcher by Annie Dalton

Vasco Shine is a threat to every child because he steals their dreams. In the second book of the Afterdark series Joe, Kevin and pale, prickly Flora have to go to the fantastic Kingdom of Afterdark, where nothing and no one is what it seems, to stop him. The three friends travel through paradise islands, magical dream fields and terrifying dangers searching for the Pearl of the Deep, the key to Vasco's wickedness…

It isn’t necessary to have read the first Afterdark book to enjoy this enchanting and imaginative novel. Annie Dalton, writing with her usual grace and flair, manages to pack an amazing amount of action and characterisation into 183 pages and (as can be seen from the above quote, which is the beginning of the book) she plunges the reader straight into the magic and excitement of Afterdark with the story’s first sentence.

Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn

Across the Nightingale Floor is set in an imaginary land very much like feudal Japan.

In a short note at the front of the book the author assures us that nightingale floors (uguisubari) are “real inventions” and the most famous examples can be seen in Kyoto at Nijo Castle and Chion’In. The one in this book was specially built to surround the entire house of the evil, murderous warlord, Iida Sadamu, to protect him from possible assassins, for no one can walk across it unheard. No one except a strange young man known to Iida as Takeo…

Takeo’s real name is Tomasu. When his village is burned by order of Iida, and all its people killed, Tomasu is saved (certainly not by chance) by the mysterious Lord Otori Shigeru. Shigeru gives him the name Takeo because Tomasu is too common among the Hidden. Raised among this reclusive and spiritual people, Takeo knows only the ways of peace. But he must forget all that and become not only an Otori—adopted son of Shigeru—but also an assassin, and his victim is to be Iida. Takeo discovers he has the supernatural skills of the Tribe—preternatural hearing, the ability to be in two places at once, to become invisible—and Lian Hearn has woven this magic into an absorbing tale full of action, heroism and (in the form of the bewitching Lady Shirakawa, interest in whom has brought about the death of several men) romance.

There is a reasonable amount of gruesome and bloody violence, but the author doesn’t dwell on it and I didn’t find it particularly disturbing. How it will come across if anyone makes a film of the book is quite another matter.

I’m still wondering why Gillian Rubenstein felt obliged to take a male pseudonym for this trilogy, especially since the identity of Lian Hearn was discovered almost as soon as the book was published. It seems pointless to me for a well-known writer, still writing for the same audience, to pretend to be a new one. I’m also bemused as to how a floor constructed to deliberately squeak could sound the least like a nightingale, or indeed any songbird. Certainly my own squeaking floors sound anything but musical. Their noise is more akin to rusty door hinges than the song of a bird, and if I wanted to imagine they sounded like birds the birds would have to be the most raucous-voiced breed of parrots—whatever breed that might be! Hmm. I’ve just walked over the floorboards that squeak and perhaps I exaggerate rather too much. But the noise still isn’t pleasant. I expect the builders of the nightingale floors in Japan had a special technique unknown to the builders of my modern home. Maybe even a special timber was used.

I notice my copy of this book is a 2002 reprint. It obviously sold better than the publisher expected. And that’s very welcome news.

The Merlin Conspiracy by Diana Wynne Jones

So begins the blurb on the back of The Merlin Conspiracy, in which Diana Wynne Jones has outdone herself. The story is told alternately, in first person, by the two main characters, teenagers Arianrhod Hyde (Roddy) and Nichothodes Mallory (Nick). Roddy lives in an alternate England called the Isles of Blest and travels with The King’s Progress because both her parents are court wizards. Nick lives in England on plain old Earth, but dreams of living somewhere more interesting. So when he finds himself suddenly somewhere else it is literally a dream come true. In Roddy’s world the current Merlin dies and a new one takes his place. But something is wrong. The rituals have been upset and nothing is going as it should. It appears a group of powerful wizards are using the new Merlin to attack Blest. Roddy seeks help from Nick, for signs indicate that he is the answer to her problems. Nick is all too willing to help, but finds it worrying that she has mistaken him for a magic-user.

The characters are as varied and complex as the absorbing plot (possibly Jones’s most convoluted to date) but I had trouble only once, when the Izzies (identical twins named Isadora and Ilsabil) were sent to Mrs Candace’s house, and the next time I saw her name I couldn’t work out who she was. A quick back-track soon put me right. I wouldn’t blame the author for this problem. I would be the first to acknowledge that I’m not very good at keeping track of a large cast of characters, and this is the first time I’ve had this problem in a DWJ book.

Mini, the lost circus elephant, stands out among all the non-human characters. It was so easy to picture her shifting from one foot to another with embarrassment, just like a human. I was sorry when we had to leave Romanov’s island and therefore say good-bye to her, and wished she had been given a bigger part in the plot, so it was a real pleasure when she turned up again.

Complex though the plot is, the reader has no difficulty following it, and it doesn’t take much imagination to picture most young readers turning back to the beginning as soon as they have finished it. They will be well rewarded for doing so.

Roivan by Glynne MacLean

This novel is described by Penguin as “teenage science fiction“, but it’s more science fantasy because it features things like teleportation and telepathy, neither of which is ever going to be scientifically possible.

Apart from having kaleidoscopic eyes with no pupils, Roivan appears to be human. I found her an extremely engaging character and grew to like her enormously. Part of her appeal for me, however, might have been the mystery surrounding her. Having discovered who she is, where she came from and why it was so vital for her to follow Qirl’s instructions, I did wonder how I might feel about her in the sequels. But that’s mere speculation. All that matters is that Glynne MacLean has created a character with whom young readers can thoroughly identify, and a story that will engage their attention from the beginning to the end.

Glynne MacLean acknowledges that Roivan was written with the help of the Mentor Programme run by the New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN Inc) and it was also “commended“ in the Tom Fitzgibbon Award, though I don’t know which year (the information has since been removed from the author’s web site) or whether this was after the mentoring. However, I consider Roivan to be head and shoulders (and, in the case of the first two, even more) above any of the winners of this award that I have read: Summer of Shadows, Dark Horses, 2MUCH4U and The Stolen.

There was one thing I found irritating: a constant emphasis, in one part of the book, on words that I feel didn’t need it. Examples: “She could hear that most had believed the Arktrese to be a myth, the remnants of a nightmare, not real beings who lived and breathed, not their real enemies. Worse, because she could feel the green tinge of fear clothing their expectations of repulsion.“ About two pages later: “She felt the arms, hands and power of her long-dead ancestors assist in her concentration, lifting her strength until she could open her eyes and display pools of fathomless scarlet splaying into brilliant shades of blue. Little by little Roivan felt the awareness of her eyes trickle through the crowd. She took their awareness and showed them the stratosphere above Jeng …“ However, what annoyed me might not even be noticed by other readers.

I see that Roivan is on the list of notable books for teenagers for 2004, but I can’t understand why it didn’t reach the short list in the New Zealand book awards. The Serpents of Arakesh by Vicky (V M) Jones was short-listed and I consider Roivan to be a better book. Possibly, however, I am trying to compare apples with pears in that the Vicky Jones book is published for a younger readership. Roivan is an engrossing read for both adults and teenagers and I suspect much of its readership is likely to be younger than its classification as a young adult book would indicate.

Cross Tides by Lorraine Orman

Back in the present, sixteen-year-old Bel, sent to stay with relations in the Marlborough Sounds, is having so much trouble coming to terms with her parents’ divorce that she briefly contemplates jumping off the ferry taking her to the South Island.

At first Bel is determined not to like her relatives and is often rude to them, which could easily lose a reader’s sympathy. However, Lorraine Orman handles the character of Bel too deftly for this to happen. Bel finds herself drawn to Dawson’s Beach, where she can contemplate her misery in peace and imagine what the beach must have been like in the days when it was the site of a whaling station. A girl dressed in long outdated clothing appears but vanishes before Bel can find out who she is. Bel can’t wait to return, hoping to see the girl again, and soon learns that, in some ways at least, her life is becoming an eerie parallel of Lizzie’s.

The story is rich in historical detail, especially about whaling stations and the confiscation of Maori land, but none of this gets in the way of the plot. Lorraine Orman provides just enough historical background to bring the past to life and add an extra dimension to Bel’s story.