Monthly Archives: October 2020

The Short Knife

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The Short Knife by Elen Caldecott

Book of the Week: 1 November 2020

Illustration by Miko Maciaszek

In this week’s book, we find ourselves in a Britain of darkness and confusion. The Romans left some years before and the invading Saxons are an ever-present danger, as Mai and her family are about to discover. When a visitation from Saxon strangers to their family farm results in Mai, her father and her sister, Haf, seeking sanctuary with Gwrtheyrn and his band of Britons in the Welsh hills, a tense, terrible and tragic series of events is set in motion.

This is a book where you can feel the hunger, smell the rot and wonder at the toughness and bravery of Mai who must try to survive in a brutal and alien environment. Expect plenty of tension and action expressed in some wonderfully lyrical writing.

If you enjoy historical adventures by writers like Rosemary Sutcliffe, or Joe Abercrombie’s Half a King then this is a must-read.

This is the 300th Book of the Week, which I started in January 2012 with This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel. For the first few years, the books were just displayed in the Library, until November 2014 when I started writing online reviews. In January 2015 the blog moved to this platform with the first choice being I Predict a Riot by Catherine Bruton. As much as I love judging book covers for their design (and I do always try to credit designers for their work) you can’t judge the contents of a book by its cover, as the old saying goes, which is why I started writing about the contents. We all need to find out a bit about a book’s plot before we decide to read it it – hence this blog and accompanying links on Twitter. If anyone has discovered a good read via this blog, then I’m happy. Endless thanks go to all the wonderful authors who write for young people and the often lovely acknowledgements they provide on social media.

Here in the Real World

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Here in the Real World by Sara Pennypacker

Book of the Week: 11 October 2020

Cover illustration by Jon Klassen


A book for anyone who has ever felt different, left-out or misunderstood.

Ware is happy in a world of his own imagining, but when his grandmother has a fall and his parents need him taken care of for the summer, he rebels and skips attendance at the community centre chose by them, to spend his days in the grounds of the ruined church next door. It is here that he meets the fierce Jolene who is planting a garden in old snack cans and who treats the place as her private kingdom. After a brief power struggle, they pool their talent and start to transform the waste ground and the disused building; but the ‘real world’ begins to encroach on their refuge and they may be powerless to stop it.

This has all the charm and conviction of Sara Pennypacker’s book Pax and would be a good choice if you like books such as Liar and Spy or Wonder.

Sweet Sorrow

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Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls

Book of the Week: 4 October 2020

Illustration by Natasha Law

First love and long, hot summers are made for one another – something that Sweet Sorrow exploits to the full.

Charlie and his mates have finished their GCSEs, gone wild at the school disco (it is 1997) and are waiting for their futures to start. Charlie is not looking forward to avoiding his dad who is jobless and resenting his mum who has moved out. He doesn’t think that doing his part-time job at the local petrol station, whilst waiting to hear about a string of failed exams, holds much promise. But long, hot summers have a way of surprising you, and one day, when he has biked out of town, he comes across an amateur dramatic society rehearsing Romeo and Juliet in the grounds of a country house. They invite him to join them, something that would normally make him run in the opposite direction, but for the fact that one of those asking him is a girl to whom he has taken an instant shine.

The story of the summer that unfolds is one of love and friendship, the clash of people from different backgrounds and the life-expanding contact with new ideas. None of this is as earnest as it sounds. The dialogue is sharp, funny and realistic and, as we learn that it is all being remembered by an adult Charlie, tinged with nostalgia. As a bonus, it evokes the magic of Shakespeare and the transformative power of drama played out in gardens and orchards under a cloudless blue sky, without ever being sickly sweet or promising a fairy tale ending.

Best suited to older readers and grown-ups.