PRETEEN FICTION: MARY SHINE THOMPSONfinds books for younger readers that don't shy away from tackling difficult themes
SOME OF THE BEST current preteen novels deal with the kind of deadly serious material that would not be out of place in adult fiction. In this selection of books, for example, physical abnormalities and the warring emotions they generate loom large. Full marks to the novelists for not underestimating readers.
One book already attracting gushing praise is RJ Palacio’s first novel, Wonder (Bodley Head, £9.99). Auggie is its main narrator, with interspersions from family and friends. He has been home-schooled to fifth grade because he has a terrible craniofacial abnormality. Predictably, he is reviled and misunderstood. New York children and their parents do cruelty – spectacularly. Even his sister, Via, denies him. Auggie more than struggles through, though, winning his peers’ acclaim and, finally, even a standing ovation.
This page-turner, full of caustic wit, could be described as Jodi Picoult for beginners. It is not without flaws, among them a dollop of soppiness. I – and the plot – could have done without the death of Daisy, the family dog. And pulling off the device of the naive narrator who conveys more than he realises is fiendishly difficult. While Auggie is a brave little warrior, his voice can be too perky, too fluorescently upbeat. Nor was I convinced by the book’s homey precept that “the universe takes care of all its birds”. If only.
Parallels might be drawn with Nicky Singer’s The Flask (Harper Collins, £12.99). Jess’s critically ill newborn half-siblings, conjoined twins, are the cause of a confusing torrent of emotions, including shame, and the widening rift with her best friend, who seems to prefer a crass boy to Jess, tortures her.
Singer does not pretend that Jess’s problems will evaporate. Rather, Jess matures enough to recognise the jealousy that gnaws not only at her but also at her beloved grandmother. Like Palacio’s Wonder – and unlike the Anne Fine/Judi Bloom genre with which this story has common ground – The Flask articulates a belief system. It suggests that everything is interconnected and that human beings have an infinitely extendable capacity for loving.
This capacity is notably absent in Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick’s Dark Warning (Orion £8.99), set in Georgian Dublin. Taney, an impulsive girl with the gift of second sight, befriends Billy-the-beggar, or Billy-no-legs. He introduces her to seedy gambling joints and cockfights, where her gift works to his advantage.
Fitzpatrick generally avoids sentimentality – Billy’s disability doesnt make him a saint – and her protagonist is almost as unappealing as the manipulative Billy. Taney has fallen “in love with the night”. She enjoys wielding power, and she has a vindictive streak. The destructive dynamic between her and Billy is convincing: Taney returns repeatedly to the ne’er-do-well despite his destructive strain.
In Ghost Road (Quercus, £6.99), the final book in Eoin McNamee’s Ring of Five trilogy, the trainee spy Danny still battles to save the Upper World from evil Ambrose Longford and to subdue his own darker forces, which are intimated by his differently coloured eyes. In true espionage mode, characters shed one identity after another, and plot twists and double-takes abound.
McNamee is at his best when he evokes the pastoral quiet of the Ghost Road. Danny doesn’t live happily ever after, to the book’s credit. The exhausting whirl of deceit left this reader distrusting even the story itself, however.
After all that operatic emotion it came as light relief to read Eva Ibbotson’s posthumous The Abominables (Scholastic, £10.99), a delightfully implausible romp. When a Himalayan yeti family wearies of modern tourists, two enterprising children transport them in a refrigerated truck to an English manor. The book pokes fun at intrepid Victorian women travellers, one of whom educated the yetis in regular hymn singing, politeness and cleanliness. The queen, no less, organises a rescue when they become prey to nasty hunters. Predictably, perhaps, the yetis, however ungainly, breathe new life into the stately home.
Young Irelands: Studies in Children’s Literature, edited by Mary Shine Thompson, was published by Four Courts Press last year
