Elidor

Elidor by Alan Garner

Book of the Week: 15 March 2020

Cover illustration by David Wyatt

This week’s book is a classic from the 1960s. This is partly because I have been busily reading Hilary Mantel’s 883-page The Mirror and the Light and have not had time to read anything else, but also because everyone should sample one of the most lauded writers for young people.

Here is the plot description from publisher Harper Collins website, where you can read a sample of the book:

Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David, four Manchester children, are led into Elidor, a twilight world almost destroyed by fear and darkness.

On a gloomy day in Manchester, Roland, Helen, Nicholas and David are lured into a ruined church, where the fabric of time and place is weak enough to allow them into the twilight world of Elidor. It is a place almost destroyed by fear and darkness, and the children are charged with guarding its Treasures while a way is sought to save the dying land.

Then the evil forces find a path through to this world…

If you enjoy this, there is The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and its sequel The Moon of Gomrath to try, before moving on to the complex and difficult The Owl Service or Red Shift.

Alan Garner was poorly as a child and says that ‘for the first ten years of my life … I did very little but lie in bed’. He recovered and went on to be a renowned athlete at his grammar school in Manchester. After reading Lord of the Flies he decided to be a writer and left Oxford University to return home to Cheshire and write his first book. Over the years he has won many awards for his writing.

Wranglestone

Wranglestone by Darren Charlton

Book of the Week: 8 March 2020

Illustration by Jana Heidersdorf

Wranglestone weaves together a tense, and sometimes gory, plot about zombies in a future of isolated communities, with a tender love story, all vividly and lyrically described.

In a dark future of no internet, electricity or modern conveniences, Peter and his dad live on Skipping Mouse Island in a house on stilts where they dread the coming of winter. With the first fall of snow, their friends and neighbours gather together for a final social before digging in for winter. The freezing of the lake means the Restless Ones can drag themselves across the ice and prove more than just a threat. Some of Peter’s neighbours decide he is a hazard to the community after he fails to stop a dangerous stranger from trying to join them. He has to be saved from disaster by his dad and Cooper, a boy he has long admired from afar, who lives on a neighbouring island. It is decided that Peter needs a trip to the mainland in order to toughen up and it is here that he and Cooper discover that the adults around them have been economical with the truth and that true danger comes in forms other than those of the Restless Ones.

Amongst the tension and terror runs a thread about how we create enemies through a tendency to ‘other’ those who are unlike ourselves and the importance of empathy and understanding in counteracting this.

If you would like to find out more, the author’s website is here. I was amazed that he wasn’t actually born and brought up in the American wilderness after reading such wonderful descriptions of the scenery.

The Good Hawk

The Good Hawk by Joseph Elliott

Book of the Week: 1 March 2020

Cover illustration by Levente Szabo

Agatha is a good hawk, or so she has always believed. Her job is to patrol the sea wall and spot any approaching enemies that might attack her clan on the Isle of Skye. One day, she mistakes one of Clann-a-Tuath’s returning ships for an enemy one and fires a flaming arrow at it. Jamie is on board that boat suffering from seasickness. He has been given the role of an Angler, but is afraid of the sea. His anxiety isn’t helped when the flaming arrow sets fire to the boat and everyone must swim for their lives.

From this unpromising start, Jamie and Agatha are thrust together when a dreadful event destroys their quiet existence on Skye and they have to travel across Scotland to Norway on a dangerous mission to rescue those they love.

This is the first book in a new fantasy series called ‘Shadow Skye’ which features unique characters that will have the reader rooting for them and looking forward to book two. It’s one to try if you enjoyed The Shattered Sea series by Joe Abercrombie.