The Craig Cup

The novelist and critic Amanda Craig has awarded Wildlord the Craig Cup for Most Underrated Children's Book. Her review is here on Writers Review.

Wildlord review round up

 I've been so delighted by the response to Wildlord. It's wonderful to be reviewed - when there are so many brilliant new children's books out there, it's difficult to find space (as I know myself, from having written a thrice-yearly round up for Literary Review for over a decade.) Here's a round up of the latest.

Amanda Craig, herself a brilliant novelist, has reviewed Wildlord in the New Statesman:

Children's Books Ireland had a very kind mention of the book in their Christmas Reading Guide:

Love Reading4 Kids made Wildlord their book of the month (thank you!) and had this to say:

Culturefly had Wildlord in their Best Books for Christmas:

And finally, The Irish Times:

 

 

 

Christmas Children's Books Round-up for Literary Review

As sure as eggs are eggs, here comes my 94th Children's Book Round up for that estimable organ, Literary Review. You can read it here. Featured books are:

Dark Peak by Marcus Sedgwick

The Chime Seekers by Ross Montgomery

The Red Gloves and Other Stories by Catherine Fisher

Utterly Dark and the Face of the Deep by Philip Reeve

Sisters of the Lost Marsh by Lucy Strange

The Shadows of Rookhaven by Padraig Kenny

Fireborn by Aisling Fowler.

WILDLORD book trailer

 

Gareth Jones has made this spooky trailer for Wildlord.

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner: review

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Joe, a boy living on his own in a dilapidated house, goes for an eye test. The letters don’t behave as they should, and morph into Latin (from an old alchemical text, incidentally, though Joe doesn’t know it). In Alan Garner’s numinous new book, Treacle Walker (4th Estate), time and reality shimmer with strangeness. The title refers to the name of a  rag and bone man with “green violet” eyes, who appears at Joe’s house one morning, initiating mysterious incidents. He speaks philosophically: “For at the very moment you have Now, it flees. It is gone. It is, on the instant, Then.” He also spouts strange words: “hurlothrumbo” and “lumperhomock” - characters in a play by an 18th century dancing master called Samuel Johnson, which refer directly to the supernatural. We are not in Kansas any more.

Garner’s body of work stands apart. His children’s books are like poems, spare, tense and achingly vivid, starred with poignancy, beauty and passion. Treacle Walker is set some time in the 1950s, evoked with loving, choice detail, including a comic called Knockout that becomes eerily significant. Despite this, the novel seems ageless and fable-like.

Joe must be put to the test, and when his eye gains magical powers, a dangerous force is set loose which he has to thwart. The book hauntingly employs doppelgangers, mirrors and cuckoos, whilst also creating a new kind of nature myth.
Treacle Walker shows us renewal, resurrection, and the cycles of the seasons; and it does so with an artistry and attention rarely seen in children’s literature. Those who know Garner’s work will sense another golden thread, woven into the tapestry; those who don’t will be entranced, and, with luck, led into a world of treasures.

Buy it here

Podcast with Nikki Gamble: In the Reading Corner

 

I very much enjoyed doing this podcast with Nikki Gamble. We talked about Wildlord, folklore, fantasy and more. You can listen here.

Off the Shelf in Big Issue North