A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness

The monster comes calling at Conor’s bedroom window at 12.07am. A giant, a yew tree that has taken on human form, a Green Man, he tells Conor, “I’ve come to get you.”

But Conor isn’t afraid – he knows there are worse things that could happen – and so, while the picture that Patrick Ness builds of this monster could - in virtually any other circumstances - be terrifying, we are not afraid either.

Over the next few nights – weeks, even – in between school and trips to the hospital, between dealing with his uptight grandmother and absentee father, the monster visits Conor and promises to tell him three tales, but in exchange, after the monster’s tales are done, Conor must tell his own tale, his truth.

It seems, at the beginning, as if this truth will be something about his mum’s illness or about Conor’s nightmare. In fact, the chances are high that these two things, and the fact that this new monster has appeared on Conor’s doorstep, are intricately linked. But the tales that the monster tells Conor are not fairytales, they do not seem designed to appease or support, and their endings are the reverse of normal expectations, the morals simultaneously twisted around and yet still true.

And so, after the second tale, I began to question: Why is the monster really here? What is its purpose with Conor? Although the revenge the Green Man wreaks in his tales is monstrous and demonstrative, we don’t feel afraid of him, for his behaviour feels justified. But perhaps we should be afraid, for Conor’s sake? What twist to Conor’s story is the monster going to reveal? What truth does Conor have locked away in his heart, and what will the monster’s response be?

A Monster Calls is a really, truly extraordinary book. It is dark yet cleansing; sad yet revealing; quiet yet full. Based on an idea conceived by Siobhan Dowd, but who died before she could complete it, the baton was passed to Patrick Ness who took Dowd’s idea and ran with it.

Part of me wants to say that the most astounding thing about this book are Jim Kay’s illustrations, which flow across the pages and intermingle with the text, but that wouldn't be accurate. The illustrations on their own are incredible, and the story on it’s own is too, but the pairing of the two together create a work that literally comes to life page by page, almost as if watching an animation rather than reading a book. It makes for a quite extraordinary piece of storytelling, and explains quite wordlessly why it has received the accolades it has, particularly the CILIP Carnegie Medal and the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal.

This feel of animation is particularly strong when it comes to the four tales: they flow within the text of the rest of the story and yet are somehow something ‘other’, standing outside the rest of the words. More often than not the monster uses his earth magic to place the scene of his tale before Conor’s (and the reader’s) eyes, in a manner that reminds me of the animation used in the penultimate Harry Potter film to tell the tale of the Deathly Hallows. This feeling is no doubt influenced by the full page spreads of black and white images, pictures that in their almost two-tone sketchiness could be dark and creepy – and indeed are, in some ways – yet whose detail and light touches make them endlessly fascinating. I heard David Almond comment that, “People say books without pictures are somehow more grown-up, and I think that’s just mad.” (Desert Island Discs, Radio 4, March 10, 2013) Mad indeed, as Ness and Kay demonstrate here.

Meanwhile, Conor’s mum is getting sicker and sicker and, while the people surrounding Conor flail and struggle, they keep Conor in the dark. It may be obvious to everyone what the likely outcome will be – Conor included – but given the adults’ refusal to say the words to him, the way they shut him out of the proceedings, it’s little wonder that Conor is unable to, or refuses to, acknowledge the direction in which things appear to be headed.

I felt relentlessly angry at how Conor was treated by the adults around him, and as Ness showed me flashes of Conor’s own anger through the story - destroying his grandmother’s sitting room, seeking out the bullies that torment him in the school playground - it tapped into my own childhood memories of that intense, boiling anger that resides deep within the heart and the belly, but is so difficult to explain or to overcome. Conor is angry and hurting, and it’s painful to watch.

The monster’s tales get progressively closer to home, and closer to Conor’s heart, and the ultimate reveal, the purpose to the monster’s call, is simultaneously cataclysmic and cleansing. The monster’s explanation for his tales and his deep understanding of Conor’s pain are incredibly revealing for any human being trying to understand their mixed emotions:

‘Humans are complicated beasts,’ the monster said. ‘How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour? How can an apothecary be evil-tempered but right-thinking? How can a person be wrong-thinking but good-hearted? How can invisible men make themselves more lonely by being seen?’

This is not a book to be rushed; it’s a reading experience not so much to savor, but that should appreciate the intricacies of the storytelling, of the animation and the illustration that goes along with the words. It’s a true piece of art. And as Patrick Ness says in his introduction, “Stories don’t end with the writers, however many started the race. Here’s what Siobhan and I came up with. So go. Run with it.”

Where My Wellies Take Me, by Clare and Michael Morpurgo and Olivia Lomenech Gill

Where My Wellies Take Me kind of defies classification. It’s a story book and a poetry book and a scrap book and an art book and a picture book and a nature book. It’s a beautiful book that you can sit down and read all in one go or can dip in and out of over days, weeks, months and years, returning to look at that special drawing or re-read that favourite poem, or just to flip through and appreciate whenever you wish.

At its heart, for me, this book is a celebration of nature and the British countryside, interweaving the story of a young girl, Pippa, as she explores the local countryside - following wherever her wellies take her – with poems and rhymes and ditties that evoke the seasons and animals and Pippa’s wandering nature, all alongside and intermingled with a profusion of sketches and drawings and paintings. This is all put together in a scrapbook style so that each aspect overlaps one another, with foldout pages, acetate inlays, hidden corners, and secrets to uncover.

The illustrator and book designer, Olivia Lomenech Gill, has been shortlisted for the 2014 Kate Greenaway Medal for the drawings and wonderful patchwork layout that make this book into the wonder that it is. Every single page has something different to offer, the detail and the care exquisite. From the three-stage sketch of a heron taking flight, chickens pecking at hay in the farmer’s yard, cows lowing and chewing the cud, and the sleeping valley giant to four-page wassail panorama, it makes you want to step into the page and be there for yourself. Lift the lid on the Blue Cross match book to reveal the beetle tucked inside, open the shed door to see who is sleeping in amongst the coals, resist the urge to wipe charcoal from your fingers. This work definitely matches the quality and ingenuity of 2012 Kate Greenaway winner Jim Kay (A Monster Calls).

Pippa visits the lambs, talks to bumblebees, breathes in the hedgerow flowers, checks the time by blowing dandelion clocks. She trogs across Farmer Yelland’s fields, greeting his animals, and is offered a ride on the farmer’s pony, Captain. It’s got an old-time feel to it which is encapsulated by the pictures: the farmer’s tractor is clearly vintage, there’s a distant image of an aproned woman carrying pails on a shoulder yoke, the farmer is turning the soil in the fields by hand, an old red telephone box stands on the village green. Indeed, in their introduction, Clare and Michael Morpurgo reference the best times of their childhoods, he wandering the marshes and sea walls of Bradwell, she tramping Devonshire lanes in search of lizards and slow-worms and this idyllic sense of a time lost, a childhood viewed through rose-tinted glass, pervades the pages.

Are these things lost to us? Or are they sealed behind grown-up eyes and modern technology? I think perhaps it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. Certainly the countryside around us is much changed in the last fifty, sixty years, but there is still plenty of quiet beauty to be appreciated once we put down our mobile phones, get out of our cars, put on our wellies, and take a little time out to wander down a tucked away country lane, peer in the hedges and listen to the birdsong. As a ‘country lass’ all of this is on my doorstep, if I stop to look at it - something that the many city children don’t always get the opportunity to taste. This is why the Morpurgos set up their charity, Farms for City Children, enabling thousands of children over the last thirty years to spend a week being farmers, providing a little piece of idyll for each of them:

“They feed the sheep and calves, muck out the horses, dig up potatoes. They wear wellies almost all the time, and in among their tasks they have the freedom to explore and enjoy the countryside around them, just as we did.”

Where My Wellies Take Me is something that little bit special; a book that any book lover, young or old, will surely love to have on their bookshelves. And the blending of the images with story and poetry, the interactive nature of many of the pages within the book, make it a perfect way to introduce younger readers to poetry: because there is so much to look at, because there is story and nature, it is easy to get sucked in, to want to investigate each page. And maybe it will inspire the creation of their own scrapbooks by collecting leaves, making accounts of beetles they meet when out walking, copying out poems or phrases that resonate with them, gradually building up a picture of their own lives and interests and everyday surroundings, creating their own piece of idyll.

My Brother's Shadow, by Tom Avery

When the wild boy shows up at the classroom window, Kaia is intrigued. He stares, but doesn’t speak. He sits in the seat next to Kaia, filling the empty space hovering beside her. She talks to him, but he doesn’t talk back; at break time they stare together at the trees and she writes in her notebook with the yellow cover and the grey pages. She tells him about her brother, about his shadow, about how since the day he died she’s been frozen in place.

My Brother’s Shadow is Kaia’s story about moving on, of finding a way to keep going after the death of her brother. For a long time she’s kept the world at bay, kept her friends at bay, but gradually the notebook and the boy give her the opportunity to process her pain and her hurt, to begin to share it with others and thus begin to let it go. Gradually, the boy’s continuous presence, his undemanding company, help her begin to thaw. It’s a story that will make you cry more than a tear or two, but ultimately has an upbeat, positive ending.

The book is reminiscent of Patrick Ness (and Siobhan Dowd's) wonderful, powerful story A Monster Calls, not only because of the emotional subject matter, but also because My Brother’s Shadow has received similar illustrative treatment: like Jim Kay’s incredible drawings that help tell the story in A Monster Calls, My Brother’s Shadow has been heavily illustrated in blacks and greys by Kate Grove. It is a lighter treatment than in A Monster Calls, thus perfectly attuned to the younger audience (My Brother’s Shadow is aimed at the 9–12 bracket) and to the fact that this is a story about moving on, rather than the heavier in-the-middle-of-it subject matter seen in A Monster Calls. The pages at the beginning are sprinkled with snowflakes and ice, but gradually change to petals, leaves, and then sunflowers.

Tom Avery has written a very emotional story and at first I wondered how much appeal it would have for it’s intended readers, but I soon realized what a silly idea that was. I’m fortunate to have never suffered a loss like Kaia, yet I appreciate and enjoy reading stories that cover such topics and there is no reason why much younger readers wouldn’t feel the same – because reading allows us insight into the full range of human emotion, the human condition, and the understanding of our world, something which is as equally valid for a ten year old reader as it is for a thirty, forty or fifty year old one. Both those who have and haven’t experienced loss have much to gain from reading such well-considered, well-written stories as this one.

Who is the boy and where does he come from? I have my theories, but I think it’s best to let you form your own. Avery’s storytelling is insightful and considered, and Grove’s drawings make it a beautiful book to look at too; just make sure you have a box of tissues to hand before you begin reading.