Tag Archives: Historical fiction

A Night Divided

Posted on by

A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Book of the Week: 22 November 2020

Cover art by Tim O’Brien

It is Sunday August 13th1961 when Gerta, her brother Fritz and their mother wake in their Berlin home to see barbed wire fences dividing them from, not only West Berlin, but from Gerta’s father and older brother Dominic who had been visiting the West for a couple of nights. The fence is being guarded by the Grenztruppen, the border police, who carry rifles and are not facing the supposed enemy of the West, but instead stopping those in East Berlin from escaping communist rule.

At first, the family’s main worry is separation. Then, because Gerta’s father is considered a dissident, the Stasi (the secret police) bug their flat and the family arouse the suspicion of neighbours and friends. Gerta and Fritz long to escape. Are they prepared to risk being shot and how will they cross the Wall and the Death Strip to reach the other side and freedom?

This book is fictional, but is based on true stories from those who lived with the Berlin Wall for twenty-eight years and those who escaped. It provides a vivid picture of what it must have been like to live in an anxious and oppressed society where the secret police had huge powers and so many people were informants. The author points out that there was one police officer for every166 citizens, whereas the Gestapo had one officer for every 2,000 citizens and the KGB one for every 5830 people. The book provides a valuable history lesson in the form of a tense thriller.

If you would like to read more fiction with this setting, try ‘Sektion 20’ by Paul Dowswell. Year 8 are looking at politics in literature with particular reference to George Orwell, so here is my reading list on that theme:

The Short Knife

Posted on by

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.

‘Shell’ and ‘Stranger’

Posted on by

Shell by Paula Rawsthorne and Stranger by Keren David

Books of the Week: 9 December 2018

Designer not credited

Design by Ellen Rockell

Monday 10 December sees the announcement of the winner of the Warwickshire Year 9 Book Award. Teams of Year 9 students throughout Warwickshire have been shortlisting, reading and voting on books chosen initially by school library staff and are now waiting to find out which book has won. We started in September with a longest of nine books, narrowed it down to four, and have been reading and discussing them for the last couple of months. It has been a hard choice as there were so many wonderful reads.

Two of the four shortlisted books have already been Books of the Week: Orphan Monster Spy in May  and Outwalkers in April, so now it is the turn of Shell and Stranger to be joint Books of the Week.

Shell raises all sorts of questions about the ethics of body transplants and what makes you the person you are. Lucy is terminally ill, but a revolutionary and risky new medical procedure allows her brain to be transplanted into the body of a donor. Although she is happy to have escaped death, she finds adjusting to a new body an alienating experience. She is now pretty and popular which alters her relationships and forces her to keep secrets from everyone around her. She needs to find out more about her donor and, in doing so, uncovers things that others wish to remain hidden. This is a grippingly told story with plenty of dramatic highlights.

Stranger is a novel where the action takes place in two different eras: Astor, Ontario in 1904 and the same location in 1994. It is about outsiders and people who feel they don’t belong and how events have lasting repercussions over time. It begins in 1904 when Emmy and Sadie are out walking and encounter a naked, bloodied young man who emerges from the forest distressed and unable to talk. Sadie runs away, but Emmy tries to help. Ninety years later, Megan arrives in the same small town for Emmy’s 105th birthday. She is Emmy’s great-granddaughter with her own secrets and unhappiness. How the lives of the two women intertwine is something we discover as we read the dual narratives of this compassionately told story.

Whichever book is voted the winner on Monday, I’m sure Year 9 judges will tell you that they are all worth reading and are books that will stay in your mind long after you have put them down.

 

Bone Talk

Posted on by

Bone Talk by Candy Gourlay

Book of the Week: 25 November 2018

Illustration by Kerby Rosanes

The Costa Book Awards were announced last Thursday and Bone Talk was one of the four shortlisted books for the Children’s Book Award:

2018 Costa Children’s Book Award shortlist

David Almond for The Colour of the Sun (Hodder Children’s Books)

Candy Gourlay for Bone Talk (David Fickling Books)

Matt Killeen for Orphan Monster Spy (Usborne)

Hilary McKay for The Skylarks’ War (Macmillan Children’s Books)

It is set in the Philippines at the end of the nineteenth century, when the Americans were invading that country, and told from the point of view of Samkad who is looking forward to becoming a man of his tribe, much to the disgust of his female friend Luki who thinks herself just as capable, but who is limited to ‘women’s work’. Samkad’s sense of resentment when his initiation ceremony is delayed fades into the background slightly when he discovers a brother he didn’t know existed and meets outsiders who bring weapons of destruction.

The original setting and the quality of the writing make this a memorable read. If you would like to know about the author’s inspiration for writing the book, here she is talking about it.

Beyond the Bright Sea

Quote

Posted on by

Beyond the Bright Sea by Lauren Wolk

Book of the Week: 25 March 2018

Cover illustration by Tan Yau Hoong with hand-lettering by Sarah J. Coleman and Anna Booth

This week sees the award ceremony for the Warwickshire Secondary School Book of the Year which our Year 7 judging team will be attending on Tuesday. One of the shortlisted books, Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean, is also on the Carnegie shortlist, along with this week’s book. The winner of the Carnegie Medal, awarded by a team of librarians, is announced in June.

My name is Crow. When I was a baby, someone tucked me into an old boat and pushed me out to sea. I washed up on a tiny island, like a seed riding the tide. It was Osh who found me and took me in. Who taught me how to put down roots, and thrive on both sun and rain, and understand what it is to bloom.

Crow lives on her island, part of the Elizabeth islands off the coast off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, helping Osh in his garden and being taught by their neighbour, Miss Maggie, until the day they go to investigate the source of a fire on the neighbouring island of Pekinese, once the site of a community of people suffering from leprosy. This sets a chain of events in motion that might satisfy Crow’s longing to know where she came from, but which may also destroy everything she holds dear.

After a leisurely start, there is plenty of excitement in this beautifully written story of self-sufficiency, identity and a sense of belonging.

The other books shortlisted are shown above. Most are already available to borrow, with Rook and Wed Wabbit coming soon.

Some of the books on the list are recommended to students of 14+ and in the case of Release, 16+ but all have been chosen for the high quality of their writing.

 

SaveSave

The Ghosts of Heaven

Posted on by

The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick

Book of the Week: 12 June 2016

Ghosts of Heaven

‘There are four quarters to this story; they can be read in any order and the story will work. The four quarters are assembled here in just one of the twenty-four possible combinations; this order makes one kind of sense, but the reader should feel free to choose a different order, and a different sense, if desired.’ So says Marcus Sedgwick in the introduction to his book. Who wouldn’t be intrigued after reading that?

I initially started reading the second quarter, ‘The Witch in the Water’, but then was interrupted by other reading deadlines and had to abandon it temporarily. When I returned to the book, convention got the better of me and I started at the beginning and read through to the end. The final story was my favourite, so I was glad I picked that order. However, other people I have spoken to have read it in a different sequence and still found it satisfying.

Marcus Sedgwick uses diverse styles and narrative points of view in his four stories, which range from that of a young girl in a prehistoric tribe wanting to learn the ways of magic, to a village of the 17th or early 18th century where a woman is accused of witchcraft, to an early 20th century American asylum, and finally (if thats the order in which you read it) to a spacecraft on its way to colonise a new world. The symbol that links the stories is the spiral, which serves a different purpose in each one. What it all means when you put them together is something to ponder, as this is not an easy read but an ambitious and demanding book which may just win the Carnegie Medal. We will find out on 20th June.

For more books shortlisted for the Carnegie, check out the website here

The book’s trailer is here and Marcus Sedgwick’s own website is here.

Stratford Boys

Posted on by

Stratford Boys by Jan Mark

Book of the Week: 17 April 2016

Will Shakespeare is sixteen and lives on Henley Street in the small town of Stratford-upon-Avon with his parents and brothers and sister. When he isn’t helping his father in his glover’s workshop, he spends time hanging around chatting to his friends Adrian and Hugh in the churchyard of Holy Trinity or visiting The Bear public house. Adrian and Will went to the local King’s New School together.

The story begins when Adrian finds out that the council want a play put on at Whitsun and there is no travelling band of players due to visit the town. He suggests that the boys put one on themselves and that Will could adapt an old mystery play that his father John has had stored in the workshop for years. The fact that half of it is missing, and the rest has been nibbled by mice, presents a bit of a problem for Will but he gamely decides to give it a go, despite having had no experience of playwriting.

“The most significant thing Will had learned from his attempts at poetry was that there were very few words that rhymed with love: dove, above, shove, and of course, glove; and possibly move, at a pinch. His trial run at a sonnet about a glover in love had come to grief on the fifth line.”

Will and Adrian have to recruit a rag-tag band of amateur players to bring their potential play to life and find that theatre isn’t as simple as they imagined.

Jan Mark published this in 2003 and tells the story mostly in dialogue, making Will and his friends into an almost modern-sounding group of teenagers albeit in a well-researched setting.

For those who enjoy re-imaginings of the life of Shakespeare, such as King of Shadows by Susan Cooper, this is a good addition to that category and brings to life the man we will all be celebrating next weekend when we walk through the streets to commemorate his birthday.