A Perilous Land

 Nettle by Bex Hogan (Zephyr, 2024)

Faerie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary, and dungeons for the overbold.

- J.R.R. Tolkein

There are few books that properly cast the spell of the folk tradition. All too often - and especially in literature for young people - 'faery' is translated with a sweetness that is as far from the dark danger of the source as cheese is from chalk. Those few successful examples, however, are great indeed: Neil Gaiman's Stardust, Hope Mirrilees' Lud-in-the-Mist and, perhaps the masterpiece of them all, Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. In all of them, an 'English' quality is essential to their success - a resolute honesty that veers from whimsical  charm to sinister shadow. It is unsurprising, then, that Bex Hogan's Nettle, in its juxtaposition of these two opposing forces, is indeed that rare beast, the authentic English faery novel. 

Nettle is a girl who wanders into Faery through a hidden portal. There she encounters a stable boy (who, like her, has been tricked into Faery) and a shadow faery. She is brought to the court of the Faery King who in traditional folkloric fashion sets Nettle three challenges. Thank goodness that Nettle listened to her grandmother as, armed with her knowledge, she stands a fighting chance against the tricksy faery world. 

Throughout the book, there are subtle but strongly felt echoes of the source folk tradition, so subtle that at times they almost go unnoticed, woven so beautifully as they are into the texture of Hogan's storytelling. But their curious strangeness resonates. One example occurs early on in the book where Nettle meets a woman who, like her, has been trapped in Faery. The woman has been bewitched, cruelly, by a Faery and cannot remember quite the correct way to say goodbye. In trying to wish Nettle farewell, her palm brushes Nettle's recalling some long-forgotten gesture...but no, its true meaning is lost.

The construction of the novel itself also derives from  native tradition. Each chapter is headed by a picture of a flower or plant; the names and, according to folklore, the significance of these plants is given at the end of the book with the reader being invited to make their own connections between the content of each chapter and the original source folklore. 

As with the great fairy tales there is some light romance and in keeping with the great Faery tradition, there are also moments of discomfort, even quite shocking horror. Nettle will be very much enjoyed by those readers of 12 and up who have explored the imaginings of Sophie Anderson and Kiran Millwood Hargrave. I very much look forward to reading more from Bex Hogan...especially The Owl King, advertised in the final pages of this book! 

Nettle was published on 10th October by Zephyr and is available from all good bookshops. With many thanks to Katey Pugh for inviting me onto the blog tour to celebrate publication. 

Review: On The Wall

On the Wall by Anne Fine (Old Barn Books, 2024)

If Virginia Woolf had ever produced something for children, the result might have been along the lines of Anne Fine’s new book, On the Wall. Here, there’s a curious central character, Finlay, who for most of the book we see from without. Dreaming, wondering, a philosophical presence sitting up ‘on the wall’, this new boy to the school, fresh from the local primary into Year 7, says he is doing nothing, thinking nothing, though just by being there his influence upon those who are drawn into his orbit is powerful enough to alter their views of things.

The book is structured around the three terms of the school year. Fine has an innate understanding of how this ‘year’ works - there is the getting-to-know-you part at the start, then the more comfortable weeks of the Spring term, and then, suddenly, the grand finale of the end of year where minds are very much set on the imminent ‘moving on’ and all its associated excitement and apprehension.

Not since Gene Kemp’s ‘Cricklepit’ series has there been a more truthful ‘fictionalising’ of school life;  in the day-to-day routines and variations, of course, but also in those who inhabit the corridors on a daily basis. Finley’s class - as with every class, a microcosm of the huge variety of human society and nature - gradually reveals each of their own private worries and obsessions. When shared with Finley, these seem to take on new existences: they are not the same worries, obsessions - or even children! - that they were before: Finley’s detachment has a cooling air of clarity; he is able to put things in perspective just by being there, doing his thing ‘on the wall’. 

Through the course of the book, the eye is both on the children but also, more unusually perhaps, on the teachers, whose commentaries from the staff room punctuate the unfolding narrative elsewhere. (Their lives, again like those of Kemp’s Cricklepit staff, are only lightly sketched in; but lives they do have - the staff are real people, not cardboard cut-outs.) Individual staff members offer takes on the new boy that range from indifference to bafflement - ironic perhaps that these are the ‘teachers’, doubly so when in preparing for a school concert it’s the children who, quite unassuming, demonstrate their partial understanding of what Finley is capable of. But ultimately no-one really knows. Fine herself expresses her astonishment in the Afterword that even she didn’t realise that Fin carried a mobile phone until, unplanned, there it was, set down on the page in black and white.

Fine establishes key moments in the narrative with a surface artificiality that bring us, the readers, under the same spell. There is a scene early on, for example, where the class are taken to an art gallery and, to the teacher’s astonishment - and ours - the spotlight falls on Finlay and, one by one as if in a play, the other children are drawn from the shadows of the rest of the stage to join him in the centre. The effect is startlingly theatrical, and illuminates the inner lives of the children, their dialogue running fluidly in a corporate stream of consciousness. Their art teacher stands amazed. It is an unsettling moment, but a very beautiful one, too.  

Many will find On the Wall a very different experience to reading most other school stories. Just as Mrs Dalloway is hardly a story about a shopping trip, so sensitive readers of On the Wall will find new depths in the unnoticeable rhythms of our school day experiences, all the way accompanied by the wonder that is Finley.

Anne Fine's On the Wall was published by Old Barn Books on 5th September and is available from all good bookshops. 

Super Questers: The Case of the Angry Sea by Lisa Moss and Dr. Thomas Bernard; illustrated Amy Willcox (QuestFriendz, 2024)

Lilli, Bea and Leo journey to Questland to research ideas for a machine to clear up the rubbish in their local river. Upon arrival in Questland, the trio discover that the Queen is in urgent need of their help as the sea is in a state of fury and unrest and only they can help. Lord Grumble has teamed up with new mischief maker Captain Blackwaters and his pesky pirate-bots on a terrifying tanker. They are tearing through the waters of Questland polluting the sea and destroying the marine life habitat. How will they stop the dastardly duo and calm the angry sea? Join the SuperQuesters in their exciting new marine adventure to save the sea from pollution and rescue the marine life of Questland including otters and narwhals.

There's lots to explore in this latest installment of the SuperQuesterz series and just as much to admire. First off, there's the theme of this fourth volume: marine pollution. While the story has a light touch on the subject, there's other asides that draw attention to the seriousness of things that are happening in our seas right now. With just the right level of detail, these prompt deeper thinking from the young audience about the real-life parallels of the story.  

The puzzles in the book all focus on another facet of STEM learning: coding. An ideal audience would include some bright Year 1 children, with Years 2 and 3 getting most benefit. With this readership in mind, the puzzles range from spatial awareness skills to some complex WHEN/THEN functions, but nowhere is it felt that coding is a tricky 'specialist' area; in fact, many of the puzzles appear in very familiar guises...just with an added layer of computational thinking! It's very sensitively done with a real appreciation and understanding of the younger audience. 

As a whole, The Case of the Angry Sea reads like a fun, puzzle-laden picture book story but there's also a glossary included, covering many complex coding terms, which helpfully defines some of the terms used in the book, and clarifies the purpose of some of the problems (e.g. 'mental rotation' is the skill lying behind Puzzle 1 in the book). So, along with the maps, charts and diagrams to be found in the pages, there's an awful lot of non-fiction reading skills being introduced and sharpened too. 

The fun doesn't stop with the end of the book, either. There's a brilliant downloadable activity pack which explores other areas of coding, language and mathematics, from tallying recyclable materials, to designing an anti-pollution poster to raise awareness of the problem.

Overall, the series is shaping up to be a real asset to Key Stage 1 classrooms everywhere. STEM subjects should always be a source of excitement and challenge and, with the Super Questers on board to help, children everywhere will find new and renewed pleasure in discovering the world around them. 

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Super Questers: The Case of the Angry Sea, published by QuestFriendz is out today, 14th March 2024, from all good bookshops.