The Child's Elephant, by Rachel Campbell-Johnston

Bat lives in the village of Jambula. He spends his days herding his small band of cattle, running errands for his grandmother, playing wrestling games with the other village boys in the evenings. One day, out with his cattle, he and his friend Muka find Meya, a baby elephant, orphaned by poachers, collapsed and starving in the scrub.

Meya is welcomed into village life, for elephants are considered a sacred animal - close to humans in the way they form friendships and families and loyalties, but close to the spirits too – and she is everything to Bat: constant friend and companion, as he helps raise her and feed her and she joins him out on the savannah with his cattle. It’s a hard life, but an idyllic sort of one too, with few concerns but the next day and the turning of the seasons.

Except soon rumours of a terrible child army reach the village, tales of refugees and roads not being safe to travel. And when Lobo returns to Jambula, the cruel son of the medicine woman, a boy who knows only how to boast and bully, he is fascinated and intrigued by Bat and his relationship with Meya. Does he want Meya for his own? What will he do if he can’t get her?

The Child’s Elephant is a story of friendship and survival and hope. Bat and Muka’s world will soon be turned upside down, their minds and bodies pushed to the very limits, but friendship, a belief in what is right and wrong and – most importantly – hope, will help them to survive.

Rachel Campbell-Johnston seamlessly combines a tale of quiet village life, an edgy co-existence with African wildlife, with the brutality and fear and the ravaging of communities exhorted by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army as, from a caring wildlife tale we are transported with Bat and Muka to a brutal training camp. Here, Bat is coerced into a place where he must betray those whom he holds most dear, the terrible choice of Muka or Meya. How can he choose? What can he do? And when they make a run for it, it seems that all will be against them: the people, the land, the season. Will they ever find home again? What will they have to sacrifice along the way?

This a very accomplished young novel, the balance between the wildlife and the African plains and the all-encompassing forests of the army perfectly rendered. There are some potentially difficult scenes: Bat’s encounter with the poachers in the opening chapter, his and Muka’s capture by the rebels, the brutality of the camp, their friend Gulu’s tale of his own capture. But Campbell-Johnston writes them with the utmost care, keeping me on the edge of my seat, but without unnecessary angst. And she summons Bat’s life to the page wonderfully: the sights and sounds of the land around him, the link between him and Meya, his cares and concerns, the changes that are wrought upon him.

Several years are covered during the book, both quiet ones and difficult ones, but there’s not a dull moment and everything that takes place does so for a reason; everything will be called upon again in later chapters, will take Bat and Muka on their journey forward into adulthood. It is sad and wonderful all at once, but their care for the world around them and their friendships with Meya, with Gulu, and with each other, will see them through and into the future. Suitable for middle grade readers, I can see why The Child’s Elephant has been chosen for the 2014 Carnegie Medal shortlist; it would be a good step up particularly for anyone who likes Michael Morpurgo, or Lauren St John’s African Adventures series.

The Obituary Writer, by Lauren St John

Lauren St John is a big, big name in children’s publishing, with her African Adventures series, The Laura Marlin Mysteries, and most recent bestseller, The One Dollar Horse. Now, though, she has set her sights on the adult world: The Obituary Writer is her first published work of adult fiction. It is both lyrical and dark, wild and tame, and sure to be a success.

The premise: London journalist Nick is living a happy-shallow city life as an obituary writer for The Times, but when his commuter train crashes, his life buckles and smashes like the carriages and people around him. It is one of the worst crashes in British history, but Nick somehow walks away. There is PTSD   and survivor’s guilt, but he is seemingly otherwise unhurt - except for the living nightmares that soon begin to plague him. These are dark and creepy and bleed into his waking hours, his day job, his personal life. What does it mean? How can he escape them?

A book written in two parts, the first half sucks you into Nick’s mind and sets a tidy pace as he tries to swaddle himself away from the world and his dreams. It’s creepy and dark and intriguing, and impossible to imagine where it’s going to go. Part two of The Obituary Writer, though, is quite a different beast. Forced by a confluence of events to flee London, Nick seeks solace in Cornwall. His mind is set on a particular course of action, but at the last possible moment it is changed by the vision of a woman, barefoot, on horseback, galloping across the sands of Porthcurno beach. St John’s description of the Cornish air and countryside is so vivid that it’s little surprise Nick’s encounter sets him in a new direction – reading it was enough to make me want to jump out of bed (at midnight, no less) and go and bury my own toes in the sand.

As Nick settles into a new life in Cornwall, at first it seems as if he has left London's demons behind him, but they are only biding their time, soon to raise their ugly heads in ways that are new and just as confusing for our protagonist. It is a constant struggle to find the delicate balance between normal life and his internal fears. The storyline is not as smooth-running and shiney as in St John’s writing for children and here and there just a little convoluted – clearly she knew where she wanted to get Nick to by the end of the book, but the process of getting there is at times not as sharp as in her other writing. Woven into this journey, though, are tremours of darkness, hints at Nick’s confusion over his past and his present. Events float out and around him almost as in a fog, and you know that something, something is going to happen to bring it all to a head, but what? Each time St John puts another rock in his path, you start to wonder, is this how it will end, is this what it means, but then he navigates around it, until, until… the letter.

Nick is both likeable and unlikeable; he has plenty of flaws, but he means well. He has a big ginger cat, Oliver, who is a character in the story all on his own, adding extra life to Nick and his troubles. The thing is that Nick means well, but even when things start to work out for him, part of him left behind by the accident remains shut off. It’s almost as if he knows what is going to happen, what it all means, but like many of his demons, he doesn’t much like having to confront them. Just like most people. I like that St John leaves the ending ever so slightly open – I can take away what I think happened, what I think was written in that letter, but I do wonder, does anybody ever find it? What does it say?

Overall, The Obituary Writer, like Nick’s dreams, casts a shadow of mottled degrees, like clouds on a sunny day: dark in places, lighter in others, with different textures in between. It is hot and cold, a story with an overcast, and a sign that Lauren St John is here to stay.