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!]

We Are All Made of Molecules, by Susin Nielsen

We Are All Made of Molecules is an excellent feel-good book. I read it very quickly because the story was so compelling and the characters so full of life.

Stewart and Ashley are not related, but they’re about to become brother and sister: Stewart’s dad is moving in with Ashley’s mum. Stewart’s always wanted a sister; Ashley has most definitely never wanted a brother. Stewart is extremely smart but not great at making friends; Ashley is more interested in maintaining her position at the top of the social ladder than schoolwork. Stewart’s mum died a while back and he misses her like crazy; Ashley’s father moved out after announcing he is gay and she can’t believe he spent all her life lying to her. This new family that’s being created is going to be interesting. Very interesting.

We Are All Made of Molecules reminded me at times of both Lara Williamson’s wonderful A Boy Called Hope and Holly Goldberg Sloan’s insightful Counting by 7s – but with it’s own special je ne se quoi of course. The characters are lovely, and grow brilliantly through the story – Stewart has so much to offer with his intelligence and his little insights into the world, while the changes Ashley goes through are equally as affirming.

Each chapter alternates between Stewart’s and Ashley’s viewpoints and Susin Nielsen has created two very distinct voices for each of them. Stewart is sweet and innocent, and so good-hearted. He’s decided to leave his old, exclusive school ‘Little Genius Academy’ and join Ashley’s high school. He’s not exactly clueless about the social mores, and it’s not that he doesn’t care what other people think of him – he does – it’s more that his idea of what makes him appear cool is skewed compared to Ashley’s. Can he find a way to fit in and make friends?

Ashley is hilarious – she doesn’t mean to be, but when she gets her words mixed up it’s hard for everyone not to laugh: she can’t wait, for instance, to be 16 so she can get ‘unconstipated’ (emancipated). At the start of the story she comes across as brattish and spoilt, but she knows what’s what, really, I think; it’s just that she’s so entirely focused on maintaining her social standing that her morals and empathic ability have been cast by the wayside. The question is, if she lets go of her anger and her fears, can she find what she’s lost?

And what happens when gorgeous Jared, the new boy at school, is added to the mix? Is he sent from heaven or is he just a school bully? He’s going to tangle things up even more, that’s for sure, and adds that extra, explosive quality to the story…

This is a tricky book to classify though: it’s sort of grown-up middle grade / young teen – very approachable for older middle grade readers, but some of the things that take place are more teen orientated. Jared, for instance, exerts a certain level of sexual pressure on Ashley that some parents might feel inappropriate for younger readers. Kim Slater’s Smart straddles a similar sort of boundary, and I think there’s an argument that we need more of them – readers, after all, can’t really be classified either. Personally, I would highly recommend We Are Made of Molecules to everyone and anyone aged maybe 11 to 100! It really hit the mark - or, as Stewart would say: it's quality.

Now I need to go and get two t-shirts made: one with the book's title and one that says,

"Always be yourself. Unless you can be a unicorn. Then always be a unicorn."

Think I'm a little odd? Well, you'll just have to read the book then…

Belzhar, by Meg Wolitzer

Nobody knows what to do with Jam, and she doesn’t really know what to do with herself, either, except to live in the little world of memories of her and her time with Reeve. Reeve: this beautiful boy who lived and loved and died and left Jam alone. But now her parents have decided to send her to The Wooden Barn, a boarding school for “emotionally fragile, highly intelligent” teenagers, and she’s got to get up and go to her first class, “Special Topics in English”.

It’s a legendary class, apparently, “Special Topics in English”. Jam’s roommate, DJ, is desperate know what goes on in the class, and desperately disappointed not to have been selected for it. Jam couldn’t really care less, though; she just wants to get through the day and go back to her own, private world. And at first at least, it seems like a pretty regular class to her, except there’re only four other students and the homework includes writing in a stupid diary.

Gradually Jam begins to assimilate to her new surroundings, though the grief of Reeve’s loss follows her everywhere just the same. But then, when she finally opens the journal and begins to write, suddenly she can feel Reeve’s arms around her again, she can smell him and touch him and talk to him. It’s like she’s being given another chance to be with him. Is she the only one this happens to? As the experiences of the diaries begin to create a bond between the Special Topics students, they each tell their stories and form a tight-knit group that no-one else can penetrate. But what will happen when the diaries run out of pages? Can they find a way to hold onto the places the diaries take them to? To the people and things they’ve lost? And should they?

Belzhar is a book that is very hard to put down – first you have to keep reading to find out about Reeve and who he was and what happened, and then you have to keep reading to find out what the other Special Topics students are going to reveal. And then you have to keep reading – because, well, you have to keep reading. And then you begin to wonder: is everything really quite how it appears to be? Because when one person is telling the story, when it’s first person perspective, you only have what that person is telling you to go on. And what if what they’ve told themselves happened isn’t the whole truth?

Meg Wolitzer has created a really interesting ‘unreliable narrator’ in Jam, and an emotionally heart-pounding story – not just Jam’s story, but the other kids too. Can they each find a way to do the right thing in the end? And what if they don’t? Make sure you’ve run all your errands and done all your homework before you pick this book up – because once you do, that’ll be it for the day.

Arsenic for Tea, by Robin Stevens

Welcome to the Wells & Wong Detective Society. If you haven’t met them before, don’t worry, we can introduce you. Miss Daisy Wells, aged thirteen (very nearly fourteen), daughter of Lord and Lady Hastings of Fallingford House, and Miss Hazel Wong, also aged thirteen, daughter of rich Hong Kong businessman (but with a thing for all things English). Daisy is a very determined young lady who is used to things going her way, but who recently learnt it isn’t always a bad thing to listen to the advice of a friend like Hazel.

The Detective Society was born in Murder Most Unladylike after one of their mistresses at Deepdean School went missing – well, ok, after one of their mistresses was murdered. Daisy is President and Hazel is Vice President and Secretary. This basically means Hazel has to write down everything that happens, which, if I do say so myself, she does extremely well. So far they have a 100% success rate, but things have been quiet as far as cases are concerned recently. Until now, that is.

Now is 1935, the Easter holidays, and Daisy and Hazel have decamped from school to Daisy’s home – a traditional English mansion that is getting a little rough around the edges – for the holiday break and to celebrate Daisy’s birthday. There are lots of other members of Daisy’s family there along some other friends from school, Kitty and Beanie, their holiday governess, and a friend of Daisy’s mother, one Mr. Curtis. Except that now Mr. Curtis appears to have been poisoned. It wouldn’t have been a terribly bad thing – he really wasn’t very nice – except that now the village is flooded out so no-one can leave, and someone in the house is Responsible. Yes, with a capital R. Someone in the house is a murderer and Daisy has decided this is a perfect new case for the Detective Society. Can they solve it before the police arrive?

Robins Stevens tells a rip-roaring story. Arsenic for Tea is an adventure and a mystery, but is also about friendship and family, trust and betrayal. The world she has created is very jolly hockey sticks and terribly spiffing, yet she draws the balance between this and contemporary story-telling absolutely perfectly - it never becomes too stuffy or OTT, yet always maintains it thirties overtone. In addition to which there is an awful lot of very neat plotting – to start with, it seems as if almost every member of the household could be the culprit, but the girls gradually rule out suspects as they eavesdrop behind cabinets, go hunting for evidence, and gradually pull together all the little pieces of the puzzle.

Hazel’s voice is wonderful as she recounts everybody’s actions blow by blow, all interspersed with her own thoughts and feelings. It’s a particularly tricky case for Daisy because it seems inevitable that the murderer must be one of Daisy’s family. She really doesn’t want to have to suspect any of them, and who can blame her, but if she’s to be a proper detective she simply has to, while Hazel is reminded of the fear she felt from their previous murder case and the worries around what might become of them should the culprit discover their investigation.

All in all, Arsenic for Tea is an absolute joy. Not only such fun to read, but Stevens keeps us guessing all the way through – I only put two and two together two paragraphs before Hazel does in a classic ‘oh my god!’ moment. Amidst red herrings, multiple motives, a sagging family legacy and – fortunately – plenty of cake, there is one thing of which I can be sure: Wells & Wong are here to stay. Brilliant.

Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan

Enter stage left: Craig and Harry. Ex-boyfriends, current best friends. Their friend Tariq follows.

Stage right: established couple Peter and Neil; new friends Avery and Ryan; lone wolf Cooper.

Eight teenaged boys; 48 hours. 48 hours in which worlds will be made and worlds will be torn apart.

Following the lives of this handful of young men over the course of just one weekend, the centre of Two Boys Kissing revolves around Craig and Harry, who are attempting to break the world record for the longest kiss, and creating quite a storm in the process. Some people are outraged that these two boys should be allowed to do such a thing in public, in front of the high school, but soon enough, they’ve also generated millions of followers on the internet and drawn supporters from all around the world.

Are Craig and Harry the centre? Or is the centre actually the narrator – or narrators? This story is not being told by the boys themselves, but by a group of watchers: the ghosts of the past. They tell the boys’ stories while telling us, quietly and poignantly, their own. At first I found this a bit strange – it took me a few chapters to get used to the juxtaposition of voices and characters, but once I did it made so much sense. Because this way, as the ghostly chorus places their pain against the relative freedoms of LGBT people today, David Levithan reminds me that the rights the LGBT community has today are absolutely brand new.

Things are a long way from being plain sailing, though. Harry’s parents are the ideal: supportive, loving, there. Craig’s parents don’t know anything – what will happen when they find out that he’s kissing a boy in front of everyone? Avery’s parents are true to him, and Peter’s too; Neil’s pretty sure his parents know he’s gay, but they can’t bring themselves to say it out loud, while Tariq is recovering from a brutal, homophobic, physical attack, and Cooper is alone, so alone and lost and ashamed.

These different boys, they are not shaped or controlled or defined by their sexual orientation; each of them is an individual, each has their own temperament and cares and concerns and interests and responses to the world and the people about them. But the way that some people respond to them shuts all of these other things out – Cooper’s father, yahoos on the street, even the radio broadcaster who launches a call-in about Craig and Harry’s record attempt. Is this really the 21st century? I don’t want to believe that there are people who still think like that, and yet I can believe it.

The chorus of voices past enables Levithan to cut away from the individual stories of our eight characters, to look upon the world from a distance, to sum up the pain and the love, to glance at the boys in love, the boys who are alone, the boys are just meeting, the boys whose parents care, and the boys whose parents hate – and then zoom in, down onto the earth and look closely, look inside our selected characters. It’s odd to think of a time when it wasn’t perfectly normal for people to be openly gay. I had forgotten (shamefully) about AIDS and about the terrible struggle that it took to get the disease recognized. And it seems completely crazy to me that it is basically only within my lifetime that any form of gay rights has been acknowledged and – even more crazy – that it’s only within the last couple of years that gay marriage has become legal.

A good friend introduced me to a technique for determining whether I was being sexually discriminated against: ask myself, would this thing have happened, or would this thing have been said if I was a guy? I think the same principal can be applied to all forms of bigotry, LGBT rights included. There is a certain amount of disgust voiced at Craig and Harry as they make their attempt for the longest kiss record – but if it was a man and woman doing it, would the response be the same? We would say it’s sweet; it’s romantic. Just because it’s two boys who are kissing doesn’t change that.

Two Boys Kissing. Yes, this is a book about being gay. The ghostly chorus, the themes, the events that take place all point toward this. But really – really – this is a book about love. Because love is the same. Love is the same whether it’s between a girl and a boy, two boys, two girls. It still feels the same. It still has the power to create and the power to destroy. Love is love, and it cannot be denied.

The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith

In the days after I finish reading The Alex Crow, my friends begin to get a little annoyed with me. I can’t help sniggering at what are, really, perfectly ordinary, innocent things they are saying. But in The Alex Crow there is a boy, Max, who has an imagination and a way with words that is so extraordinary, he can make practically any sentence into a metaphor for jerking off. It’s really quite astounding. So now, almost anything anyone says to me can be, well, er, "reinterpreted". And it's this, along with all the other remarkable things that take place in this story, that really makes me wonder what might be discovered should author Andrew Smith ever decide to donate his brain to science.

Four stories intertwine to make up The Alex Crow. Ariel and his adopted brother Max are at an all-boys American summer camp designed, ostensibly, as a place “Where boys rediscover the fun of boyhood!” which seems mostly to mean no electricity, cold, leaky cabins, and a series of wilderness inspired activities that Max, Ariel and their new friend Coby do their damndest to subvert as far as possible. Alongside this, Ariel tells us his backstory: a serious and heart-tearing tale of survival in a country torn apart by civil war.

But there is also the melting man: Leonard. His brain has been tampered with, causing a series of auditory and visual hallucinations that are somehow simultaneously terrifying and hilarious to read about. Lenny is driving a hideous U-haul across America looking for the mysterious Beaver King, who he plans to blow up using the atomic bomb he’s built in the back of the van. And there is a series of journal entries from the doctor of The Alex Crow, a failed Arctic expedition in 1880 which has become lodged in ice.

All of this lies against the strange and weird backdrop of the Merrie-Seymour Research Group, which runs the camp the boys are attending, and at which their father works. But what connects them to Leonard and The Alex Crow, and how did Ariel wind up in their midst? Much like Smith’s previous book, Grasshopper Jungle, the jigsaw pieces are gradually and inexorably pulled together into one shocking picture that makes you question, well, everything that Smith has told you up to that point: is Ariel really who he thinks he is? Are all of the melting man’s hallucinations really hallucinations? And is the summer camp really just a summer camp?

There are some pretty crazy things and some extremely serious things in this book, but I think what probably stands out strongest are the characters and their trueness – well, the adults are all exceedingly messed up, but the three boys are the ones on whom all of our emotions go. Andrew Smith surely writes about teenage boys in the truest way possible, from Ariel and his quiet, internal struggles to Max, who lives as loudly as he can. It’s a fucked up world that Smith’s characters are growing up in, but somehow, scarily, the crazy science that supports it feels like it could perfectly easily and unsurprisingly be real - the fucked up part are the people who chose to make these things a reality.

And then there's the part where Smith narrates with such detail and close attention it’s impossible to miss a thing – all intentions are laid out for the reader and yet the story remains intriguing, surprising, and clever. Themes of language and reality, manipulation and control, survival and extinction pulse across the pages and while it is not quite as ‘blow your mind’ as Grasshopper Jungle (how, after all, is one supposed to follow a book like that?), it undoubtedly has that intense, fucked-up feel to it’s world and it’s words. As everything begins to come together, the denouement approaches ever faster in flash of horrible realization.

Just, please, Mr. Smith, if one day you do donate your brain to science, make sure it’s not the Merrie-Seymour Research Group or any of their affiliates…

Mine! by Jerome Keane and Susana de Bois

Exactly how artists – and writers – are able to create so much personality from such simple ideas, I really don’t know. Horse and Fox, the stars of our story, are brightly coloured, fairly blocky-looking creatures and yet the way they roll their eyes and the way they stand just tells you everything you need to know about them. In this case, they are bored. Very bored. But then something happens. Actually, something falls from the sky. But who saw it first, and who should get to play with it first?

Picture books to promote the concept of sharing are certainly nothing new, but Mine! is so bright and funny and just says it all, really! Horse and Fox ooze personality practically off the page and you can tell just where their shenanigans are headed – but this doesn’t matter one bit, because you are waiting… waiting… to see it happen.

I loved it; it’s quirky and bright and funny, and doesn’t mess around. I can’t imagine this book losing it’s edge, even over multiple readings – like Jon Klassen's  I Want My Hat Back, I think it’ll probably make you smile every time.

Hattie Peck by Emma Levey

Hattie Peck is an extraordinarily adventurous hen with a one-track mind: Eggs. She loves eggs. She loves eggs so much that she decides she will go wherever she can to get hold of some. And so her travels begin: all around the world, searching high and low for eggs. But when she brings them all home, what will happen?

The front cover of Hattie Peck is very appealing, the illustrations just the sort that appeal to me. And this is a very nicely put together book, the drawings fun and creative, working well with the words and the storyline. But Hattie herself is rather two-dimensional, and... she is a MASSIVE thief! Taking all these eggs without a by-your-leave and stealing them away for herself. She doesn’t seem to realize what it is she’s done, and I felt terribly worried for the families who have lost their offspring. And there are no consequences! Ok, Hattie might have a rather unusual collection of “children” at the end of the story – but she seems perfectly content with her lot.

I wondered at first if I was being a bit too picky about this, but have decided I’m not. I wouldn’t want my child to think that they can go out and take whatever they want from other people, just because they really like it. So, look at this book for the pictures and the adventures of a selfish hen – but then make up your own ending?

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!]

A Possum's Tail by Gabby Dawnay and Alex Barrow

Young Samuel Drew is off for a walk, accompanied by his little wheeled dog, and we follow him as he heads down the street, past the sights and sounds of London, and into London Zoo. Wending his way around all the different animals, he makes his way to see the little possums. They’re sleeping – but as he turns to leave they awaken, drop from their perch and, seeing Samuel’s little dog’s string tail, grab on tight. So, as Samuel heads back the way he came, he’s unknowingly followed along by this little collection of furry creatures. But what will happen when he gets home and discovers them?

I’m not really sure what to think of A Possum’s Tail – it starts off as one sort of book and then becomes something else! It has quite a traditional sort of feel, with it’s careful rhyming, illustrations that conjure a time just gone by, and straightforward layout, picture above, words underneath. I suspect that much of the content in the pictures are real places, but not being from London I’m only able to recognize the obvious ones. It feels lovely and circular to read – but then, when Samuel Drew gets home and discovers his possummy trail, the tone changes, and the perspective changes, and it suddenly wasn’t quite so comfortable a story anymore. Nothing untoward happens, not in the least, but it just felt a little bit silly after that, after such a lovely beginning. I’m sure, though, that this is probably an adult perspective, and that young children reading the story would most likely give a different response.

The book is a lovely package, and something just a little bit different perhaps from your average picture book. Give it a try and I'm sure you won't be disappointed.