Monthly Archives: June 2020

Crater Lake (Book of the Week: Lockdown edition)

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Crater Lake by Jennifer Killick

Book of the Week: 28 June 2020

Cover design by anneglenndesign

Lance’s year group are looking forward to their trip to the new and innovative activity centre, Crater Lake. If it wasn’t for bullying Head Boy, Trent, and Assistant Head, Miss Hoche, who Lance thinks has it in for him, everything would be perfect. He has the company of his best friend, Chets, along with the angelic-looking Katja, and week of activities to look forward to.

Things start to go pear-shaped when the coach they are travelling on lurches to avoid an injured man with red, swollen eyes and clothes ‘that look like they’ve been lawn-mowered’. The driver waits for medical attention to arrive whilst everyone walks the rest of the way to the activity centre. When they get there they see a black lake set in an enormous crater, a building that looks like a prison and find everywhere strangely under-staffed. Lance thinks it looks like ‘the perfect location for a Goosebumps book’. Once they have been served only soup for dinner and watched a film about the life cycle of the wasp, Crater Lake doesn’t feel so inviting.

If you like your horror with plenty of humour, and enjoyed Undead by Kirsty McKay, then try Crater Lake.

Burn (Book of the Week: Lockdown edition)

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Burn by Patrick Ness
Book of the Week: 21 June 2020

Illustration by Alejandro Calucci

I was thrilled that last week’s Book of the Week, Lark, won the Carnegie Medal. The winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration was won by Shaun Tan for his Tales From the Inner City.

This week’s book takes us far away from the everyday surroundings of Lark to an alternative version of 1950’s America. Sarah and her father are struggling to make a profit from their farm, so they decide to hire the labour of a rare, blue Russian dragon to clear the land. Just as in our version of the USA in 1957, Dwight D. Eisenhower is president, small town racism is bubbling under the surface and sometimes erupting into violence, the Soviet Union is planning its launch of Sputnik and the Cold War is ongoing: these are all present in Burn, but with added dragons.

Dragons have an uneasy relationship with humans; they have their own culture and mythology and there are people who distrust and fear them and people who have formed cults about them: they can also talk. Despite her father’s warning about the dragon, Sarah is curious and learns that Kazimir (the dragon) is there because of a prophecy that actually involves her. If all this sounds a little ‘fairytale’, the introduction of a ruthless teenage assassin, and two FBI agents who are on his trail, dispel that completely, in fact there are some realistically violent action scenes.

Later on in the book there are some surprising set pieces that seem ideal for an action movie. As you would expect from Patrick Ness, the human element and the romantic relationships are never ignored, providing plenty of heart in an action adventure set in a finely imagined world.

Generally suitable for older readers in Year 9 and upwards.

Lark (Book of the Week: Lockdown edition)

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Lark by Anthony McGowan

Book of the Week: 14 June 2020

Illustration by Nick Hayes

This week sees the announcement of the winner of the 2020 Carnegie Medal, the recognition of an outstanding English language book for children or young adults awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. Lark is one of the eight shortlisted books, the others are shown in the photograph below.

Lark is the fourth and final book about brothers Nicky and Kenny and although you can read this as a standalone story, it is a much richer experience if you have already read the others.

Nicky and Kenny have experienced many ups and downs since their mum walked out on the family when they were small. Money was tight, their dad started drinking too much and the boys were sometimes picked on in school. Despite these problems, there has always been the warmth and affection between the brothers and their connection to the natural world around their Yorkshire village. With a few, short words the author slips vivid pictures of birds, animals, hills and streams in the reader’s mind. Who can resist larks described as ‘shooting up into the sky like little brown fireworks’ or the buds on trees as ‘tight fists of life waiting to open out into a green hand’? In this story, however, we are reminded that nature can be unforgiving, as Nicky and Kenny go for a day’s walk on the moors with Tina, their dog, and find themselves lost in a snowstorm. Despite Nicky’s optimism, events take a dangerous turn and there is the potential for tragedy. This is such an everyday adventure (in fact I have been stranded in a snowstorm, albeit in my car, on the Yorkshire Moors) that it is easy to identify with Nicky and Kenny’s growing tension and fear.

This is a short and simply-told story that is full of humour and yet will end up making you think you have ‘got something in your eye’ when it draws to a close.

Becoming Dinah (Book of the Week: Lockdown edition)

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Becoming Dinah by Kit de Waal

Book of the Week: 7 June 2020

Illustrator uncredited

This is successful novelist Kit de Waal’s first book aimed expressly at young people and cleverly uses elements of the classic novel Moby Dick.  There is no need to have read Melville’s famous story in order to enjoy it, although it does add to the enjoyment to recognise some of its tropes.

We first meet Dinah as she is shaving off her hair and preparing to go on the run because her life is in ruins and there is no other option, or so she feels. She has been brought up in a commune and home-schooled, until she managed to persuade her mother to send her to school in the sixth form. As much as she yearns for a life outside the small group of families in the New Bedford Fellowship, adapting to life at school proves painful as well as exciting. There are so many things she doesn’t know – how to dress, how to fit in, how to make friends. Her life starts to change drastically, not just at school but at home in the form of family breakup. With her choices running out, she is persuaded by her cantankerous neighbour Ahab to drive a camper van and chase the people who stole his vehicle and his prosthetic leg. The problem is that Dinah hasn’t even passed her driving test. What could possibly go wrong?

Dinah is a sympathetic and relatable teenager and you don’t have to be raised in a commune to understand many of her feelings of being left out, misunderstood and isolated. This is a warm and likeable story of finding your identity in life and facing up to your fears and mistakes.