Sir Mouse to the Rescue - Dirk Nielandt & Marjolein Pottie

Everything about this book is delightfully unexpected. Marjolein Pottie’s illustrations, using collage and paper cutting techniques, are immediately captivating and draw you into the world of the story. Even the floral patterned end-papers attract attention. The result is a stunning marriage of simplicity and detail, capturing the essence of the characters with vibrant colour and movement.

One surprise follows another. For the adult reading this story, expectation is turned on its head. Not only is this a book about a mouse who likes to wear armour because she believes she’s a knight, it’s a story about a knight and a dragon who don’t fight. And where the mouse with pluck has it all over the dragon. (Or so she thinks!) For the younger reader who may or may not appreciate the subtleties of the intertextual references to fairy-tales, the literary experience will, at the very least, be a refreshing mix of the unpredictable and unanticipated.

Wonderfully postmodern, Sir Mouse to the Rescue is a laugh-out-loud parodical poke in the paunch to tradition and patriarchy. When someone calls for help from the high tower, it’s the prince who needs rescuing. And when he later asks Mouse to marry him so they can live happily ever after, Mouse says no, because she doesn’t want to become a princess and wear a dress – she’d rather be bold Sir Mouse and wear her suit of armour. Dragon is relieved too, as she’d rather have a knight as a friend than a princess. The characterisation in this book is fresh and original; unsurprising that Dirk Nielandt is a scriptwriter for Belgium television and wrote some of the scripts for the Dutch version of Sesame Street; the strength of his craft comes through in the text, which is sharp, witty and packed with irony. When Dragon dresses up as a knight for her fancy dress party and Mouse objects, having no concept of ‘dressing up’, ‘Dragon thinks something’s not quite right. It’s a fancy dress party, but no one is wearing a costume’. The hint of narcissism in Mouse’s character works well against the easy-going character of Dragon, who can be authoritative when she needs to. When Mouse decides to leave and go on a long journey, because that’s what knights do, even though Dragon cries and says she’ll be lost without her, Mouse remains adamant until ‘Dragon glares at her. “You’re abandoning me,” she says. “That’s not nice. That’s not what friends do – especially not knights.”’

Set out in five short stories with bite-size paragraphs, this text is ideally suited to the target audience of beginner readers – and would work a treat read aloud.

An entertaining and gratifying read.

Book Island 2012
(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 28, Issue 2, May 2013)

In the Wings - Elsbeth Edgar

 

When Ella sees the auditions notice up for A Midsummer Night’s Dream at school her heart lifts – then sinks. Longing to be part of the cast she puts her name down, instead, to help backstage. As she always does. Mr Paterson’s suggestion to attend rehearsals so that she can implement her creative ideas for set design becomes a blessing and a curse. It’s great to work with Lou, the efficient but friendless year seven Mr Paterson has assigned as her assistant, but to watch the members of the cast being put through their paces, reciting the lines Ella knows by heart, is torturous. She would give anything to be rid of her stage fright, to trade backstage for the stage itself.

Life takes a twist when Mum returns from a visit to England with Ella’s estranged grandfather – a retired actor – who is to stay with the family after suffering a heart attack. And then another couple of twists when the year nines are late back from an excursion and Mr Paterson unexpectedly instructs Ella and Lou to fill in during an important rehearsal; Ella does such a stellar job being the fairy that, when Tricia is suspended from school for stealing, he offers her the part. Ella rises to the challenge, not only of facing her fear of stage fright, but of playing against the conceited Sam Hennessy as Puck – and what unfolds as a result brings more than a few surprises for all involved.

In the Wings is a story that is unafraid to plumb the depths of the human condition as it plays out in the lives of Ella and her friends and family. The young teenage or pre-teen reader, as the story unravels, is positioned to observe and experience – alongside Ella – a gamut of life situations: the fragility of the body when illness strikes and the tenuous balance between life and death; the challenge to tolerance in the face of difference; the longevity of grief around a lost relationship; the impact of shame as a consequence of poor judgement and a bad decision; the renewal that comes with loyalty, trust and resilience; and the thrill and hope of first love. Elsbeth Edgar expertly situates her characters in a school setting that will be familiar to her target audience and raises issues close to the heart of teenagers. She invokes empathy for Ella, allowing readers to engage with Ella’s thoughts and feelings and challenges.

This book is engaging from first page to last. It is well crafted, buoyed by conflict, tension and mystery with believable, three-dimensional characters. The references to Shakespeare and the world of the theatre add vibrancy and depth. A rewarding read that stays close on your heels well after you’ve closed the covers.

Walker Books 2013
(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 28, Issue 2, May 2013)

The Light - Jo Oliver

 

The Light is the story of a lighthouse keeper’s family living on Montague Island off the coast of NSW early last century. Narrated by the youngest child, Louisa, it documents a day in their life: tending the animals, fetching firewood, milking the cow and collecting eggs, baking bread, churning the butter and cleaning the lighthouse. Even though the chores must be done, there is always time afterwards for Louisa to take her tin whistle down to where the seals bask in the sun. As she plays for them, her music carries over the wind and waves and across the island. Music weaves a vital thread through the narrative: Louisa hears her father playing his fiddle alone in the night as he tends the light, and in the evening the family gather around the piano as her mother plays and the others join in. And it is the sound of their music in the midst of a raging storm that welcomes the four shipwrecked men and ‘wraps around them like a blessing’.

This is a beautiful picture book, the third by Jo Oliver. The text has a straight-forward old-world feel to it, uncomplicated, in keeping with the theme. Its simplicity is reflective of the times: ‘Mother and Father play some jigs and then the soft songs of Ireland and Scotland, of wind and moor and sea. The boys whittle and Johanna stitches clothes’. The illustrations, too, work well with the theme, the colours subdued and derived from the original plans for the lighthouse and keepers quarters. This excerpt from the New Frontier Teachers Notes describes the technique used by Oliver: ‘…solar plate etchings, a medium in which drawings are transferred to a metal plate using light exposure. The plate is then inked and rubbed back before printing. Ink left on the surface of the plate, or print tone, gives gradations of light and dark in addition to the etched lines. The prints are then hand coloured in watercolour.’

To highlight the importance of music both to the story and as a comfort and connection to the families who lived on the island, a watermarked music stave has been used as a backdrop to the illustrations on relevant pages.

Readers will find The Light both engaging and educational. It is a gentle book that holds great appeal.

New Frontier 2013

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 28, Issue 2, May 2013)

Bring Back Cerberus:The Debt Instalment Three - Phillip Gwynne

In this third instalment of the series, the plot becomes even more tangled and enigmatic; if falling into line with the requirements of The Debt was making things complicated for Dom before, life becomes interlaced with perplexing convolutions this time around. Sworn to secrecy by The Debt means secrets and lies become part of the fabric of Dom’s existence. After playing a nerve-racking waiting game, Dom is finally given the third assignment – to find Cerberus, the prototype of a new device before it hits the market and hand it over to the mysterious Anna Russo at her birthday party. And considering no one even knows what the device is – a new mobile phone, tracking device, whatever – Dom’s task seems impossibly difficult. To make things even more complicated, as well as hacking into people’s email accounts, Dom must learn how to break cryptic codes and find the answers to questions even Google won’t supply. The Dom Silvagni in this book is not the Dom the reader is introduced to in the beginning, before The Debt put its stamp on his life. Tech geek, school-wagger, private investigator, spy – resourcefulness, pluck and courage have become second nature.

This book is Janet Evanovich meets Ian Flemming meets Matthew Reilly. Packed with adventure, humour – often involving bodily functions of the smelly kind – computer tech-speak, facts about sport – running and the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) – intrigue, suspense, conflict and first love, the target audience will LOVE this series. The prose is intelligent and superbly crafted, the characters three-dimensional and believable; the irony of being a rich kid with a debt that money can’t pay is played out deftly throughout the text. And Gwynne slips backstory from the first two books seamlessly into the story. Do I really have to wait until June for Instalment Four? A totally engaging read.

Allen & Unwin 2013

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 28, Issue 1, March 2013)

Turn off the Lights:The Debt Instalment Two - Phillip Gwynne

The Debt – Instalment Two raises more questions than answers. Dom’s next task is to turn off all of the Gold Coast’s lights during Earth Hour. How can a fifteen-year-old boy manage that? He has ClamTop – the mysterious laptop computer supplied to him by The Debt, that opens on voice-command – but he’s going to need a heck of a lot of resourcefulness to pull this one off. And it’s complicated. Not only does Dom have to race against the clock to put a strategy in place, he has to beat Fiends of the Earth at their own game, to stop someone being maimed, or worse.

And how is Dom going to prevent Tristan from taking advantage of Imogen – when he’s discovered they plan to meet when the lights go off? Then there’s Dad acting weirdly. What did he mean when he said The Debt didn’t necessarily impose an imposition and ‘to turn adversity into advantage’? Why has he lied all these years saying he doesn’t ‘speakka the wog’ when Dom overhears him having a conversation in perfect Calabrian? And what of that comment, ‘my hands are bloody but unbowed’?

If all this is not baffling enough, why is taxi driver Luiz Antonio following Dom? And why did Seb, Dom’s running mate, set him up to run through Preacher’s Forest – which the kids at school say is littered with mutilated and mouldering bodies – and where Dom is shot with a tranquiliser dart that knocks him out cold? What of the kidnapping incident with Zoe – the Zolt’s sister? And the men in the balaclavas with baseball bats so desperate to retrieve the Double Eagle coin? And for that matter, the Zolt. Where is he?

This next instalment in The Debt series is peppered with intrigue as the plot becomes more and more clue-laden, making it impossible to stop at book two.

Allen & Unwin 3013


(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 28, Issue 1, March 2013)

Catch the Zolt: The Debt Instalment One - Phillip Gwynne

All up, Dom Silvagni doesn’t have much to complain about. If you took out of the equation Tristan Jazzy’s annoying habit of leaving his sister’s bike lying about for Dom to almost trip over on his early morning run – made all the more annoying when it happens right in front of Imogen Havilland’s bedroom window – then life is pretty good. Dom lives in luxury with his parents and younger brother and sister, and one-legged grandfather, Gus, in Halcyon Grove on the Gold Coast. Gus is also Dom’s coach and there is not much that takes priority over running in Dom’s world.

However, on Dom’s fifteenth birthday everything changes. First he is stalked by a mysterious white van on his morning run, and after hearing a whooshing sound, wakes up on the pavement, unable to account for four minutes of his life, with only a mosquito-bite-like mark on his hand to show for it. Then, after discussing secret men’s business with his father and Gus, Dom finds out that he is responsible for clearing an ancient family debt by performing six formidably difficult tasks. The first instalment is to catch the Zolt, a seventeen-year-old who has stolen cars, boats and even light planes from nearby Reverie Island. If he fails to deliver, The Debt will take their pound of flesh. As they did with Gus.

This leads Dom on a thrilling adventure, where he must befriend his arch-enemy, the self-centred Tristan, and watch him try to seduce Imogen, Dom’s friend since childhood. As the race to find the Zolt moves to Reverie Island, it is impossible to discern the difference between allies and enemies; Dom must use every ounce of courage and resourcefulness he can muster, not only to preserve his family’s honour, but to preserve his life.

This adventure series, targeted unashamedly at upper primary school (and I would say teenage) boys, is Phillip Gwynne’s first foray into writing for this demographic. It is a ripper of a yarn – suspenseful, cleverly plotted, well-crafted and funny. The text works hand-in-glove with the reader’s intelligence and assumed general knowledge which creates both the effect of rounding out the central character, Dom, through whose voice we hear the events of the story unfold, and aligning the reader to empathise with him in his quest. The target audience will identify with Dom’s strength of character as he negotiates his various predicaments, and be drawn into the story not only because of its page-turning quality but by the authenticity of the characterisation – well supported by voice, setting and subtext.

Some adroit foreshadowing in the first book sets down clues and sets the reader up to unravel the larger mystery as the series progresses.

Allen & Unwin 2013

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 28, Issue 1, March 2013)

The Windy Farm - Doug McLeod and Craig Smith

When your family lives on the windiest farm on Windy Hill, because it’s all they can afford, life can be tricky. Everyone except Grandpa is in constant danger of blowing away. Even the pigs. But inventor Mum comes up with a solution that sees everybody– chooks and all – fitted out with heavy metal shoes. But on the day that half the house blows away – even though Grandpa says, ‘Never mind’ – something must be done. When rich Uncle Jeff, who has an oil well in his back yard next to the clothes line, says, ‘it’s your silly fault for buying such a windy farm’ and refuses to help, a bit of ingenuity and Grandpa’s power tools save the day. Until the power bill arrives. It’s a sad day when the family must sell off Big Betty, Grandpa’s favourite pig. But Mum has an environmentally inspired idea that turns the tide on the family’s fortunes – by turning plenty of windmill blades. Big Betty comes home and everyone lives happily ever after. Except for Uncle Jeff, who gets blown away. ‘Never mind,’ says Grandpa.

It is always a thrill to open a new Doug MacLeod and Craig Smith collaboration and The Windy Farm provides no exception. Let’s hope they keep them coming. The text and spirited illustrations are immediately appealing; the simple storyline, infused with whimsy and humour, effectively sets the stage for Smith’s illustrations, which – as always – breathe vitality, pith and energy into the story. The title is clever and the story about how a family harnesses the power of the wind employs a gentle subtextual teaching element for its young audience without being prescriptive. There is plenty of detail in the illustrations – crafted in gouache and acrylic, and gloriously waggish – to provide a child new discoveries on subsequent returns. They will love, for instance, the page where the house nearly blows away: a bra and underpants go sailing past; the photos fly off the fridge; the moon shines from inside the window while bats are shaken from their sleep in the roof; then Grandpa’s look of surprise as the door swings open to reveal him sitting on the dunny. A delightfully playful book with an environmental edge.
Penguin 2013

(A version of this review appears in Magpies Vol 28, Issue 1, March 2013)