Fire Colour One, by Jenny Valentine

Sometimes you pick up a book and, within the first few pages, find yourself asking, why have I never read this author before? For me, Fire Colour One was one of those books.

This is Iris’s story. Bright as flame but troubled, thanks to her turbulent childhood with her horrible, blinkered mother Hannah, and self-absorbed stepfather Lowell. It is also Ernest’s story – Iris’s real father – and Iris’s uncovering of it. While Hannah snoops and fishes for a hefty inheritance, Iris sits at Ernest’s bedside during the last days of his life and learns a million things. Things like how her parents met, and how everything really ended. Things like the truth.

My copy of the book describes it as ‘A bold and brilliant novel about deception, love and redemption,’ and that’s exactly what it is. It’s hard to put my finger on what makes it so good, it’s just got that je ne sais quoi that books like The Fault in Our Stars have. Iris is so vivid, and I felt so much for her – so much pain and so much love. She misses her lost friend Thurston so much, but doesn’t know how to find him; and she needs something more, something indefinable, but she doesn’t know how to find that either. So she builds fires. She doesn’t really build them to cause trouble or to cause damage; she builds them because she has to, because she loves the flames so much, because fire makes her feel better, because it encompasses her. Fire is magic and alive – it even needs air to be able to breathe, while Iris practically needs fire to be able to breathe.

“We see what we want to see, regardless of what we are actually looking at, nothing at all to do with the truth,” (pg.113) Iris tells us, and this is so true - of everyone, I think - but especially of her mother. Themes of lies and truth run through this novel like smoke – ever present, but impossible to catch hold of – along with themes of art and fire. It’s irresistible and unputdownable and truly excellent.

And the title? Fire Colour One is also the name of a painting by Yves Klein – a real painting, not a fictional one, and rather an important one too. But you’ll have to read the book to learn of its significance to this particular story…

I’d heard good things about author Jenny Valentine and knew that Broken Soup, her second book, had been shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize when it came out. But, for whatever reason, I didn’t expect the exceptional story and writing and characters that I found inside the pages of Fire Colour One. John Green, eat your heart out. I definitely need to go back and read her other books now.

The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell

I’ve gotten into the habit of penciling notes in the margins or on the blank pages at the back of the books I'm reading. They could be about anything: an idea or a theme that speaks to me from the story, a particular line that I find meaningful or especially beautiful, a précis of the story to use when I review the book later on. The length and variety of these notes changes book by book, mood by mood. But today, opening my copy of The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell, thinking I’d revisit my reading thoughts before writing a review, I discover the book is untouched, note free. Tabula rasa.

Generally speaking, the more annotated a book is, the more it’s made me think and the more I think of it, but I can only surmise that in the case of The Wolf Wilder I was so busy soaking up the wild atmosphere and the untamed characters and their adventures that all thought of making notes on such things completely fell by the wayside, utterly forgotten in the pure and simple pleasure of reading. Rundell walks a perfectly balanced tightrope with her writing, creating an utterly magical story that simultaneously contains no magic in the fantastical sense – fairies and wands aren’t the magic here, but the wild dreams and actions of a small group of children racing across the winter tundra, led by Feo, her wolves, and her determination.

In a land where wolves are captured from the wild and brought into aristocratic homes to be dressed up and paraded around as pets, Feo and her mother are not wolf tamers, but wolf wilders. Taking in the pampered creatures when the rich houses ultimately reject them – for a snarl or a bite – they help the wolves figure out how to be free again. The woods and the wolves are Feo’s entire life, but when General Rakov and the local army regiment begin to exert corruptive control over the region, and comes after Feo and her mother, everything inevitably changes.

On the run from General Rakov, Feo enters the world outside the all-encompassing forest of her childhood: Russia at the turn of the twentieth century, where people either have everything or nothing, and something more than just fear is brewing beneath the surface. Glimpses of this are shown right from the start of the story through Feo’s friendship with Ilya, a child soldier she encounters in the woods one day, but when they leave the trees, the more they travel, the more apparent it becomes that things are not right. Feo is like a wolf embodied in human form: naturally feisty, she never backs down from a fight, defending her family at all cost, standing up for right and against wrong, so it’s little wonder that her plight to rescue her mother from Rakov’s St. Petersburg prison soon becomes so much more, nor that she unwittingly inspires others to follow her. She doesn’t seem to be afraid of anything, though I think, inside, she’s secretly very afraid, which is impossible not to identify with.

But it’s not just the characters and their actions that make this book. The settings that Rundell conjures are as much a part of the character of the story as the people and the wolves are. From the deep forest of Feo’s home, where everything feels safe and secure until Rakov comes, to the blank snow-covered wildness away from the trees where Feo is running for her life. Then there is the ruined, burnt-out hamlet where a young brother and sister take Feo and Ilya in for the night despite their own practical homelessness. And, towards the denouement of the story, Feo and her band of friends take refuge in a disintegrating castle a little way outside St Petersburg to formulate a plan for entry to the city and then the prison where her mother is being held. The castle is holding together, a surreal opulence interspersed with blackened, burnt-out patches and cracks at the seams that I can’t help but find reflective of the state of the world and city that Feo is venturing into.

It’s hard to avoid comparing Katherine Rundell (who, don’t forget, won the 2014 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize for Rooftoppers) with the master of children’s storytelling, Eva Ibbotson – their writing shares a similar appeal and timelessness and magic, and with heroines and heroes who are good and brave and true. But, to quote Phil Earle recently (on Twitter), her “voice is truly original. And special.” There are moments of fear and darkness in Feo’s story, but equally there are moments of wonder and joy. The Wolf Wilder is a snowy adventure, packed with all sorts of different kinds of bravery and, of course, Rundell’s unspoken magic, and is sure to capture any young reader’s imagination.

The Dawn Chorus by Suzanne Barton

Peep loves music and singing, and so when he wakes up early one morning and hears beautiful music swaying through the trees he just knows he has to find out where it’s coming from. And when he tracks the singers down - the Dawn Chorus - their conductor agrees to let Peep audition – yay! He has to be there bright and early the next morning, but after practicing late into the night he oversleeps and misses the audition. Will the Dawn Chorus give Peep another chance?

The Dawn Chorus is a very simple story with beautiful illustrations that feature lots of different coloured birds, leafy trees and starry nights. They’re bold and clear whilst being endearing and sweet.  I also like that whilst this is a story about animals, the images of them aren’t personified, fitting perfectly with the story that’s being told, which has its basis in nature.

Peep tries really hard to get to his audition and do his best, but he just doesn’t seem to be able pull it off, despite all the practice he puts in. But we soon discover a very good reason for this: he’s a nightingale! So he’s a beautiful singer, but its just not in his nature to sing at dawn. This idea really reminds me of something I heard recently in regards to children who have learning challenges: it’s easy for others to think that because a child isn’t performing well in something that we think they should be to do, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t trying – there might, after all, be another explanation. And: they might not be great at what we think they should be great at, but they will in all likelihood be great at something else. Just like Peep.

My only criticism is that I wasn’t blown away by the text/voice in the book (reading it to myself, I found it a tad stilted somehow – perhaps just a little too careful), but what The Dawn Chorus does do is tell a straight forward story without going around the houses (like a lot of picture books are apt to do today). Suzanne Barton knew what she wanted to say, and she does so with aplomb. A beautifully put together little book that I think will be more fun to read out loud with young children than quietly to one’s adult self.

[This book has been shortlisted for the 2015 Waterstones Children's Book Prize!]

The Queen's Hat by Steve Anthony

The Queen (accompanied by loyal Corgi) is off to visit someone very special, but as she steps out of Buckingham Palace, the wind does a great swoosh and blows the Queen’s hat off her head! Can she catch it, or will she have to chase it across London?

I love the idea of the Queen breaking protocol, running through the streets of London to try and catch her hat. Not only the Queen, though: the Queen’s Guard, normally so stiff and erect in their red jackets and furry black bearskin hats, are determined to chase the Queen’s hat down as well. We see them clambering over a lion’s statue in Trafalgar Square, in a mele of animals in London Zoo, racing across Tower Bridge – hundreds of them in tiny detail – scaling Big Ben, and then floating back to the ground with black umbrellas a la Mary Poppins.

There’s clearly a very British feel to The Queen’s Hat – not just in the images of classic London sights, but in the bright red jackets of the Queen’s Guard as they make their way across the city, enhanced by Steve Anthony’s colouring of the images in predominantly muted blue-grey tones (which matches the greys of the buildings of course). I also enjoyed the changes in perspective in the images, from close-ups with just three or four soldiers in the frame, then sweeping out for a distance view of the London Eye or Tower Bridge. The Corgi can be seen in every image, of course – and someone else too…

The text and voice of this story is quite basic, more action orientated than character orientated, so all of the characterization comes from the pictures. But what the voice does do is introduce a great variety of different descriptive words for where the hat goes and what it does as Queenie chases after it: soared, whoosed, through, along, around, across, over, which is great fun to read and then follow through in the illustrations.

This book is fun for those who both do and don’t live in London, and there’s something solid and identifiable in the fact that the London sites we see in the story belong to me as much as the next person, even though I live way out in the countryside. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside – especially when we find out at the end who the special person is that the Queen has gone to visit!

[This book has now been shortlisted for the 2015 Waterstones Children's Book Prize!]

Second Chance Summer, by Morgan Matson

I dream of summers like this. Of the summer house with wooden floors, the porch to sit on and watch sunsets, of sand and water, of best friends and boyfriends. It’s like my youth - or an ideal version of how I wish my youth had been - wrapped up in a book. I don’t recall ever having summers that were actually like this, but I still hope that one day it’ll happen. Second Chance Summer may be, like its narrator Taylor says, the best of times and the worst of times, but its essence just encapsulates what a great summer should be.

Taylor is the difficult middle child. Her older brother is the smart one, her little sister the talented one. All she seems to be any good at is running away when things get tough. That’s exactly what she did five years ago, and it’s exactly what she wants to do right now. Her dad is sick and wants to spend one last summer all together as a family at their summer lakehouse. It’s been five years since they last went and five years since Taylor threw away the most important friendships of her life. How is she going to face Lucy and Henry again, and how is she going to face her dad’s illness?

I really enjoyed this book. I found it to be a really calm reading experience, yet I raced through it barely realising how much of the story I’d read. It has everything that I enjoy in a book of this ilk, evoking not only that summer setting I dream of, but also all the characters’ various emotions, and Taylor’s especially. I’m a big fan of Sarah Dessen and Second Chance Summer reminded me very much of her style and approach - a teenage novel with real people in real situations. Morgan Matson was actually shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize earlier this year for her first book, Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour, a book I haven’t yet read but have heard endless praise for - it is definitely going on my reading list now.

Ultimately, Taylor discovers she has a lot more to offer than she thought she did - she’s the one who keeps her family together, helping her shy little sister to make friends and her socially inept brother get a girlfriend. She is the heart. But when things start to get really tough can she stop her legs from twitching, can she stop herself from running away from all that makes things too difficult?

I’m itching to talk more about this, but can’t without giving the storyline away, so get out there and read it now!