Children's Book Round Up: Literary Review, December 2017

Hello, my Christmas round up of children's books for Literary Review is in the December / January issue, featuring:

Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend
The Land of Neverendings by Kate Saunders
Mike by Andrew Norriss
My Side of the Diamond by Sally Gardner
The Empty Grave by Jonathan Stroud
Witchborn by Nicholas Bowling
Christmas Dinner of Souls by Ross Montgomery.

Read the full piece here.

Interview with Kate Saunders in Books for Keeps, and Children's Books of the Year in BfK

My interview with Kate Saunders, about her new book, The Land of Neverendings, is in this month's Books for Keeps; also in the issue is my books of the year. Have a look at another wonderful, packed issue of the children's specialist title.

Children's Round up For Literary Review December / January issue 2014

Happy Advent! My children's round up is in this month's Literary Review, featuring:

Shadow of the Wolf by Tim Hall
Mountwood School for Ghosts by Tony Ibbotson
Five Children on the Western Front by Kate Saunders
The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman & Chris Riddell
Buckle and Squash and the Monstrous Moat-Dragon by Sarah Courtauld
Cakes in Space by Philip Reeve & Sarah McIntyre
The Imaginary by A F Harrold
Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge
Salvage by Keren David
Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick
Snow by Sam Usher

Lots of enjoyable Christmas reading to be done.

First review of THE BROKEN KING, by Kate Saunders, in June issue of Literary Review

Hello all, the very first review of THE BROKEN KING, by Kate Saunders, author of many children's books including The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop, is out. It's in the June issue of Literary Review, which also has on its front cover Jonathan Beckman's book about Marie-Antoinette, and contains a piece by Patrick Hennessey and a picture from Willem Marx's book on Balochistan, amongst many other delights. Literary Review doesn't post everything online, so I've put Saunders' review below, but do check out the magazine's website here. And do get hold of a lovely print copy if you can.
 

Kate Saunders

“Steal the Sun”

The Broken King

by Philip Womack

Beware of what you wish for; Simon, the young hero of this spendidly engaging book, is being driven mad by his little sister, Anna. He suddenly remembers an old story that contains a “rhyme for getting rid of annoying siblings”. And the next thing he knows, Anna has vanished. This is guaranteed to strike a chord with any reader who has wished they could get rid of a tiresome brother or sister.

But of course he didn’t mean it – the thing about annoying siblings is that you can’t live without them either. Some dark force has whisked Anna away and Simon, in agonies of guilt, is force to acknowledge how much he loves her. What can he tell their parents? The family is going through a tough time – Dad has lost his job and moved them all from London to a rented cottage beside the sea.

Out walking, Simon has a dazzling vision of a golden woman who rides a golden deer with wings. “I know where your sister is,” she tells him, “in the world of the Broken King.” This lady is from the Golden Realm and she’s here to send Simon off on a magical quest – strewn with all the classic ingredients of a good quest, including prosaic objects with unexpected powers, evil knights who change into swans, and three mysteriously worded “tasks”: “Eat the shadow”, “Steal the sun” and “Break the air.” Not clichés, just your basic quest-pack.

What gives this story its zest is the charm of the two main characters – for, of course, the pack must contain a companion. Simon is joined by 13-year-old Flora, who wears smudged eyeliner and a tatty black leather jacket. Flora’s along for the ride because she made the same wish as Simon and accidentally got rid of her 18-year old brother. He’s into drugs and was tearing Flora’s life apart, but, like Simon, she is now admitting her deep love for the sibling she wished away. Consumed with guilt, the two children assume they are about to walk through the gates of hell.

The Broken King echoes with references to all kinds of mythologies, jumping effortlessly between Greek gods and the Brothers Grimm, with a classy dash of Victorian gothic. It is the first volumee of a trilogy, “The Darkening Path,” and Philip Womack tok as his inspiration Browning’s Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.

The first book suddenly stops with all ends dangling – which is frustrating. Novels that are part of a series should deliver more immediate satisfaction. But I’m only complaining because The Broken King is superbly written and totally gripping, and I want the next bit now.

Dec / Jan Literary Review Children's Round Up

I've done my biannual children's round up for The Literary Review. It features:

The Diviners by Libba Bray
Scramasax by Kevin Crossley-Holland
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner
The Traitors by Tom Becker
The Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher
The False Prince by Jennifer A Nielsen
The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders
Phantom Pirates by Daren King
The Further Tale of Peter Rabbit by Emma Thompson
Grimm Tales for Young and Old by Philip Pulllman

It's in the Dec/Jan issue of Literary Review,which is packed with other fun things - a piece by Edmund de Waal on Michael Cardew; a poem by Alice Oswald; the Bad Sex in Fiction Report, of course; and the usual selection of thought-provoking and witty articles.

Making Merry with Marion Lloyd

Marion Lloyd (centre) and her Ladies

To the October Gallery in Holborn: strange nets hanging off the walls,  and a celebration of Marion Lloyd's list. All the authors published this year gave insightful speeches: they are an eclectic bunch, with some fascinating life stories: Jane Johnson, who grew up 'wild' in Cornwall and is now married to a Berber; the half-Sudanese Sam Osman, self-confessed 'provincial' mother of three Ally Kennen (whose interests include Viking funerals and rubbish tips); the hilarious Kate Saunders who works and reworks her manuscripts and then throws them away if they're not good enough; and Moira Young, who appears to have been pretty much everything, as well as a nurse. Sadly absent was Eva Ibbotson, who did not live to see publication of her lovely book One Dog and His Boy; but she was ably represented by her son, who gave a vivid, touching and amusing account of his mother's writing ways. 'Imagine me a bit shorter, with white hair and beady eyes, and imagine that I'm about to say something completely inappropriate - and you've got my mother.'

As an author it's always interesting to hear about other people's methods, particularly as the whole business is so strange it's hard to believe that oneself is actually doing it, let alone anyone else; Moira Young said that effectively she 'listened' to the voice of her characters, whilst Sam Osman commented on the fact that Marion Lloyd treats her characters as friends - which is what they are when they come whole into your mind. I've left three of my new characters sitting under an underpass - and I really ought to be attending to them.... The party was attended by many Scholastic people, as well as novelist Amanda Craig; an enormous thank you to Marion Lloyd and to Scholastic for a marvellous evening.

Children's Books for the Summer: Philip Womack's Round Up in the June Literary Review

Eight sterling books for the summer

I've reviewed eight books for my biannual round up in Literary Review. It's not available on this thing called the interweb, so if you want to read it (which of course you will) you'll have to go and get it yourself from something called a 'newsagent'. The books I've reviewed are:

Bracelet of Bones by Kevin Crossley-Holland
Scrivener's Moon by Philip Reeve
The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
Magicalamity by Kate Saunders
One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson
Sky Hawk by Gill Lewis
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Thomas, Silent by Ben Gribbin.

The Liberators by Philip Womack: Times Critic Amanda Craig's Children's Books of the Year

So out of some weird synchronous activity, I bought a copy of The Times just before I went in to see the new Harry Potter (review to follow shortly). I got home, settled in my favourite chair with some music on. I always read the Review section first; I opened it, without looking, where I imagined the first Books page might be. I saw a large picture of a cat. Ah, I thought. Children's books. And then I saw my name - The Liberators has made it into the excellent Amanda Craig's selection of Books of the Year, alongside Eva Ibbotson, Kate Saunders, Patrick Ness and many more. I was so amazed and thrilled I had to read it again to check it was true and I wasn't actually reading about some other book ('The Terminators', for instance, as some of my friends have called it.) Libations were poured all round to the god Dionysus; paeans were raised and a hecatomb offered up. Io io!

A link to the piece is HERE: you have to be a subscriber to the Times to access it.

Literary Review Children's Round Up

That most wonderful of all literary magazines, Literary Review, contains this month (that is, June 2010), my twice-yearly children's round up. In it I review the following ten books:

A Web of Air by Philip Reeve
The Boy Who Climbed into the Moon by David Almond
Quicksilver by Sam Osman
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore
Halo by Zizou Corder
Fallen Grace by Mary Hooper
Beswitched by Kate Saunders
Frightfully Friendly Ghosties by Daren King
Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner

They are a sweetly varied bunch, ranging widely in style and content, and mostly containing a great deal of wit and charm (surely the two things that any children's book should have, at least in part). My particular favourites were Daren King's zippingly zany little book about massively over-polite spectres, and the beautifully rendered Sylvia and Bird by Catherine Rayner. I challenge you to read it and not be totally gripped. The review is unavailable online, so I suggest that, if you wish, you beetle on down to your local newsagents and demand a copy.