North and the Only One by Vashti Hardy

This book was among the new titles in the Book Bunker library at Westmead Children's hospital where I work as a volunteer. I previously read a short book by Vashti Hardy - The Griffin Gate.

Rose wakes from a vivid dream that seems to be about her life in the past. A few days ago she had woken up to find herself in a house she does not recognise. She meets Mother but again has no recognition of this person. Life is comfortable and she does have the beautiful companionship of her dog whose name is North but there is always this niggling feeling that someone important is missing. She needs her memories. She needs to remember her past. This dream, as with other dreams, has been so vivid and so she gets of out of bed and quietly goes to Mother's room keen to talk to her about the forest scene and house she has seen in her dream.

If you are book talking this book with your library or class group I would read pages 29-31. This is from page 31. 

"She strode, forward, stopping midway down the bed. Mother looked so peaceful. Her cheeks brushed with white, hands neatly by her sides. Moonlight glinted on something in mid-air to the side of her. At first, Rose thought it must be a moth, but then she realised it was some sort of aerial line or string in  between her and Mother. How curious. She reached towards it to check she wasn't imaging it, and ran her fingers gently along the wire. It was definitely a cable. She looked back to the wall and saw it was plugged into a charging point ... Rose froze. It didn't make sense. She looked at the charging point. She looked at Mother. A shudder ran through her, her heart rate escalating. It was impossible. Mother was plugged in! ... A person didn't need to plug themselves in. Not someone of flesh and bone like Rose. Mother was something else."

I did read this book in almost one sitting but it is a long book (340 pages) so I imagine it will suit a reader who enjoys Science Fiction and a reader with strong reading stamina. The story does take quite a few unexpected twists and turns and, as is often the way with Science Fiction, you do need to suspend disbelief especially in relation to the human need for food. The premise is that Rose is the only or the last human and yet at every turn someone is able to supply her with water and food albeit only small quantities. Clearly Humanoid Robots do not need food so I was somewhat confused about why this was so readily available - but as I say, you just need to let that thought go. I did enjoy the early hint that Mother was not quite 'right' but that scene I quoted above still gave me a huge jolt!

The other part of this story that was a little bit strange - but many young readers won't notice this - is the use of names relating to the invention of the computer - Ada (Lovelace); (Charles) Babbage; and Alan Turing.  There are also layers of Pinocchio and I am sure choice of the two furliths (robot animals) that help Rose - fox and rabbit - have some literary significance. There are also references to Alice in Wonderland, The Nutcracker, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.

In some ways this book made me think of an old movie called Logan's Run and even the famous book The Giver by Lois Lowry. 

Bookseller blurb: Twelve-year-old Rose can't remember anything before last week, when she woke up  not knowing her own name, her own house, or even her own mother. The only thing Rose recognized was her puppy, North. But Mother patiently explained everything - well, not everything. Not the real-feeling dreams Rose has about a mysterious forest she half-recognizes. Or why she is not allowed to stray beyond the garden, out into Luminelle, the vast city surrounding them. Mother is kind and helpful, but Rose can't shake the feeling that something's not right. Or maybe it's everything that's not right?
But then, when Rose flees to the outside world with North, it quickly becomes clear to Rose that she is different. And for reasons she doesn't understand, she's dangerous. On an unforgettable journey of discovery, Rose uncovers life-altering truths about the city she's in, the people around her ... and ultimately herself.

Bookwagon recommends North and the Only Star hugely. This superbly intelligent story is ideal for enquiring, inspired readers. What a magnificent story.

Vashti Hardy has done it again – combining STEM and a futuristic vision with a heartfelt story that leaves readers thinking long after the book is closed. Yet North and the Only One is a completely unique story. It feels different from Vashti’s other adventures. With so much emotion and so much unknown, readers become a part of Rose’s search for truth. Scope for Imagination

Here is the web page for the author Vashti Hardy. She lives in West Sussex.

The Letterbox Tree by Rebecca Lim and Kate Gordon

"We've been so wrong about everything for so long - pulling them all out to make way for houses and roads that look exactly the same and make the soil so soft and unstable that it just blows away. Mega shopping malls are the only things keeping us cool these days because no one can afford the power it takes to keep us cool in our own homes. .. Everything is broken. ... Nothing feels permanent or certain."

"Bea had told me how Hobart used to be green. And so full of trees and life and that there were cool places, and shadows. There was even snow sometimes, in people's gardens. Now it's just scorched earth and nothing grows."

Two girls "meet" across time. One is living now in 2023 and the other seventy years into the future. Both live in Hobart, Tasmania but Nyx lives in the Tasmania of 2093. Life is almost unbearable with all the changes brought about by global warming, climate change, and degradation of the environment. It is hot, dangerously hot and the land is ruined by fire and flood. Water has to be treated before it can be drunk and food comes in a dehydrated form. Nyx and her father are preparing to evacuate but they have left it too late and now they are trapped. Nyx finds solace in an old tree growing hear her home. One of the very few trees left. Climbing the tree one day she discovers note from a girl named Bea. Nyx really wants a friend and it seems so does Bea who is badly bullied at her school but what neither girl expects to discover is that they don't just live physically apart from other another - they live decades apart.

Through their tree letters the two girls begin to make some sort of sense of their strange circumstances. Nyx tells Bea all about the Hobart of the future. Bea understands there are things she can do now, not to alter the course of history perhaps, but to make things slightly better for her friend. Bea begins to plant trees - native species - that should survive into the future. When Nyx tells Bea that things have escalated and are now critical, Bea decides to ask her community and previously hostile school mates to help her bury survival supplies for her future friend. 

This book has a clever premise. It is very contemporary and so may not stand the test of time (think references to Harry Styles) but I did enjoy the build up of tension and the powerful descriptions of the landscape and buildings of 2093. Readers who live in Hobart are sure to recognise their city. The open ending is also perfect. I am so glad Rebecca Lim and Kate Gordon only hinted at a happy ending and didn't feel the need to wrap everything up neatly. 

This is the second joint author novel I have read over the last month. The other was The Raven's Song. I wonder if these were projects that started over COVID - I know it does take a long time for a book to reach publication. The Letterbox Tree from Walker Books Australia is due out May this year. The publisher recommend this book for 8+ but I think the concepts and storytelling are too complex for that age and I would say this book is for readers aged 10+ and for readers with some reading stamina not because it is a long book but because it is quite a complex plot where readers have to piece together fragments of information to work out that one girl is in the present and one is in the future and also to make sense of life in 2093 such as communications sent directly into our brains.  

Huge thanks to Beachside Bookshop who have passed this book and other advance reader copies of middle grade novels onto me for over six years.

I have previously talked about these books by Rebecca Lim and Kate Gordon:

Tiger Daughter

The Relic of the Blue Dragon

Read more about these books by Kate Gordon

Amira's Magpie

The Raven's Song by Zana Fraillon and Bren MacDibble

There are three linked stories in this book written by two authors. Novels by two authors fascinate me. Perhaps the two voices  in this novel were penned one by each author - Bren MacDibble might have constructed the story of Shelby who lives in the future and Zana Fraillon perhaps tells the story of Phoenix who sees visions of the Raven girl. Phoenix lives with his Gran and aunt and his four siblings and there are hints that he is living in our present world especially when he uses his mobile phone. 

Here are some text quotes to give you a flavour of this writing and also some plot fragments:

Shelby:

In this future place only 350 people can live in each community. And each are allocated exactly seven hundred hectares. "Three hundred and fifty kind, ethical, truthful people on seven hundred hectares ... "

"The next township is beyond that fence line, 'bout two hundred and sixty kilometres south of us. ... (that) is a long way to walk, even if we were allowed out there. And the doctor has the only phone on our seven hundred, just for emergencies and government business ... "

"I'm co-owner of an egg farm with three hundred and eighty hens and twelve roosters. I'll never get a sibling coz of my da not wanting another partner even if one was allowed to come here, no matter how many times I tell him to ask, so one day this township will rely on me for all its eggs."

"there's only twelve school-age kids in this whole township ... No babies have been approved to be born for five years straight ... "

"people in the old days lived in giant mega-cities smothered in dirty clouds and had lots of technology and lived unsustainably and used fossil fuels and drowned the world in plastics and pollution and parts of the honoured world died ... and new diseases told hold and killed most of their children and now we have to stay in our township and keep our hair short and our hands clean ... "

"Lunch is the main meal of the day, all our township operating on solar ovens or solar-powered electric ones, coz even woodfire smoke is pollution and we're proud of our near-zero pollution. Although it's been a long time since the government drone's delivered us extra supplies as a prize for our efforts ... The drones used to arrive at least twice a month, bringing chocolate, fabrics, medicines and seeds ... "

When Shelby and her friend Davy are sent out to check on the fence they discover it has been cut and they see curious flower posies tied to objects along the path. They are forbidden from leaving their community but Shelby is curious and then they spy an old man. He is placing those posies along the path but where is he from and where is he going? The children follow him and they make an amazing discovery. He has led them to a ruined city. They watch as he heads into a building and inside they discover something shocking:

"There's shapes of things in there like rows of giant eggs. ... There's people in the egg things. How? Why? But little faces. Children! There's kids in them. Kids waiting to hatch?"

Meanwhile Phoenix keeps having visions of the raven-haired girl and a bog. He and his siblings know the bog is dangerous and they know to keep away but the youngest boy - Walter falls in. Phoenix does manage, after a dreadful nail biting struggle, to rescue his precious little brother but when the children come home something is wrong. Walter is unwell and so is Phoenix. The children are taken away and put into isolation in a medical facility. This strange new virus is dangerous and highly contagious. 

The third story comes through echoes of a poem or folk song - a song with a warning - which is quoted at the beginning of the book. Here is an extract:

Upon one moonlit night she came 

Down hillside steep and rocked

Into the place of inbetween

The Ravened Girl of the bog ...

Can you hear she calls for you?

Through time's great swirling fog

Listen, listen, listen ... 

Sings the Ravened Girl of the bog

Listen, listen, listen ...

Sings the Ravened Girl of the bog.

Have you ever listened the radio talking about books and just wanted to SCREAM!  On Saturday I was listening to our ABC Radio National program - The Bookshelf with Kate Evans and Cassie McCullagh. They were talking with a guest from New Zealand and as usual asked their guest about their current reading - books they have been enjoying. The guest, Claire Mabey, Founder of Verb Wellington, mentioned The Raven's Song. This is a book I have only just read. It is shortlisted for our CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) Book Awards Younger Readers category. I was a 2021-23 judge for this award in the Picture book Category. At our recent judges in Meeting in Melbourne the three Younger Readers judges talked very enthusiastically about this book and so I purchased it straight away. It was one that I had missed reading last year when it was released.  

Now back to my story. Why am I mentioning the book program and the interview? Because Claire Mabey said two things about this book - one surprising and one shocking! The Raven's Song as you can see has two authors. Claire Mabey claimed one of these authors is from New Zealand.  I needed to investigate this because we associate both with the children's literature here in Australia. Zana Fraillon is the author of the award winning book The Bone Sparrow (IBBY Australia Honour Book) and her new book (also a CBCA shortlisted title - The Way of the Dog)  and Bren MacDibble has three titles which I adored reading.

The Way of Dog

I now discover Bren MacDibble is originally from New Zealand but she lived in Melbourne for twenty years and now lives in Western Australia. 

How to Bee

Across the Risen Sea

The Dog Runner

Now for the shocking thing - Claire Mabey said she had just read The Raven's song to her own child aged 5! She does say it is a Middle Grade title but she read it to her young child who it seems followed this very complex story. In my view, The Raven's Song, will be enjoyed by mature readers aged 11+ although I should mention the publisher says 9+.  I guess Claire Mabey is very literary and so her child has probably been exposed to some wonderful fiction but I just despair that the general public listening to this broadcast will now think this is book (yes it is wonderful) is for a very young child - it is not. I hope penning the text quotes above demonstrate this.

This is a dystopian novel and that is one of my favourite genres. 

Judges comments about The Raven's Song: A stunning novel set in both the near and distant futures linked by the ancient motifs of the raven, the land and bog bodies preservation being the theme that ties everything together but never overshadows the characters' emotional journeys: Phoenix's loss and world in pieces, and Shel's discovery challenging everything she ever knew. Masterfully written and engaging, each object, action and word choice is purposeful. Pandemics, climate change and conservation, are the backdrop for this story, told in a way that never intrudes on the reader's journey and desire to explore the world. It provides parallels between our own reality and the resulting in an engaging and thought-provoking read.

In this video Bren and Zana talk about their book.

Personally I don't want to relate this book to our COVID world of the past two or three years. I didn't even think about the pandemic when I was reading this story - it was just so absorbing and intriguing and I really appreciated the way Zana Fraillon and Bren MacDibble made me work hard as a reader to follow their two very different stories. The ending was such a clever revelation and a jarring surprise. If you want to read more plot details click on these review comments:

Bren and Zana’s story is wonderful and evocative, and I loved that the uniqueness of the characters came through clearly and eloquently, allowing readers to inhabit the worlds and lives of Shelby and Phoenix. The Book Muse

The story will open up your mind, placing an emphasis on the connections that we have with people, caring for our planet and ancestry. Better Reading

One living in the future and one in the past, Shelby and Phoenix’s stories start separately and then entwine. Chapters alternate between them, revealing secrets one at a time. It’s exhilarating and addictive. Kids' Book Review

By coincidence I have just started reading another Australian middle grade novel by two authors - The Letterbox Tree by Rebecca Lim and Kate Gordon. It is due for publication in May 2023.

The Paperchaser by Penny Hall

"Hinton could see rows of identical houses, lining neat, well-tended streets. There were children setting off to school, emptied garbage bins being taken off the footpaths, people calling early morning greetings to each other ... 'And there's a price tag. ... This estate is surrounded by an electric fence with surveillance cameras, guards, dogs - the works. so all these little nuclear families can live in the cloud-cuckoo world of their parents, even their grandparents ... And don't kid yourself it's democratically run either!"

Hinton is living in a city, it could be any city really but Australian readers will recognise Sydney, the harbour, the bridge and references to the North Shore. The time is not defined but it is the future and it feels quite dystopian. People live in fear of violent gangs, no one uses the railway system anymore, the suburbs have become gated communities and everyone has to carry some form of identification because there seem to be armed police on every corner. 

Hinton is in his final weeks of school. He just needs to sit his exams. He has a plan to attend university but even this process is now rigorously controlled by the state. The authorities will determine which course he enters based on societal need not student wishes. The years at the university itself will involve being locked away to study with no contact with the outside world. Hinton wants to study law. His idea is that to make change you have to deeply know how the system works. 

"You might think you've been in a controlled environment at school. But at university! A weekly visit from one outsider - with official approval only. The only other contact with people outside through the phone - when it's working - and letters - then there isn't a work-to-regulations ban on ... And for what? A piece of paper covered in curly writing?' Hinton drew himself up and looked down his nose at her. 'I'll have you know ... that paperchasing is an old and highly respected profession ... for me, it's a case of intellectual exercise leading ultimately to intellectual freedom."

Hinton has a part time job at a supermarket but the gangs have been watching him and now they are threatening to hurt him badly if he doesn't leave the store room door open late at night so they can steal the food and other supplies. Luckily just as all of this is happening Hinton is rescued by some young strangers and he enters a whole other world underground in the city. He finds groups of young people who call themselves Miners. They have bases all over the city and beyond and elaborate communication systems. Hinton has so many questions but no one seems willing to answer him.

This book is filled with tension and twists. I am sure it would still be enjoyed today 35 years after it was published - it just needs a fresh cover and a new publisher who is willing to take a risk. The original cover is actually terrific by Arthur Boothroyd (1910-2011) but it does give the book a slightly old fashioned look. Arthur Boothroyd did the covers for other Australian children's books such as Broome dog by Mary Small and So much to Tell you by John Marsden. 

The Paperchaser was written in 1987 and it was shortlisted by the Children's Book Council of Australia in 1988. It is long out of print but I found a vintage copy at a recent charity book sale. I remembered I loved this book and in fact I kept the copy in my former Primary school library although by now I am fairly sure it has been disposed which is a shame. 

This book does stand the test of time and it has a terrific pace. Someone commented about the pace when I mentioned I had a plan to read this book in January. I read the whole book in nearly one sitting (146 pages). I was interested to see the publisher was Walter McVitty Books. That company have disappeared now but they did publish terrific titles. I was always a little bit fascinated about Penny Hall because later in her career she went on to become the Teacher-Librarian in a fairly exclusive girls school here in Sydney, Australia. I think I met her once.

This book reminded me of these:

Taronga

The Last Human

Maurice Saxby said: "It is an extended image of alienation; the mental state when one feels a nobody; the black cloud, the wedge of ice that site close to the heart when one journeys alone. It is also a metaphysical examination of reality and unreality; a speculation ... of what lies beyond the realm of human understanding. It is a tight, tense and gripping story with a poignant and poetic ending."

Catch me if I Fall

The Dog Runner

The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

This is a dystopian story that opens around the year 2150 and then the setting moves to the year 2600. Earth is in danger in 2150 and civilisation is disintegrating. It is now too late to save life on earth especially since a comet - Halley’s Comet -  is on a collision course to destroy everything. A unnamed group of officials decide to save a group of people and send them to a distant planet. These people will be 'reprogrammed' with the  hope to end all wars and unrest and make everyone equal. It will take many generations for these people to reach Sagan.  But as is always the pattern in a dystopian novel equality doesn’t mean everyone’s the same. Equality and a peaceful world sound great but the danger is in what people will do to make that happen. As a Goodreads reviewer says: "The book is political in that many, many science fiction stories are political. The book is essentially a dystopia set on a spaceship and another planet. Dystopias are almost always political because they show us power gone sour."

"You won't even know any time has passed when we're up there. ... This sleep will last three hundred and eighty years."

"One hundred and forty-six people ... is all it takes for humans to continue with enough genetic diversity ... "

Petra and her family are put into stasis pods. There are Monitors on each ship who keep it running but they won't make it to Sagan. 

"El Cognito's downloadable cognisance puts the organs and brain to sleep immediately. The gel preserves tissue indefinitely, removing senescent cells and waste. It not only provides nutrients and oxygen the body will need for such a long stay in stasis, but lidocaine in the gel numbs never endings making the gel's colder temperature comfortable upon awakening."

Over the hundreds of years in this 'frozen' state the brains are filled with information to aid survival on the new planet and old memories are supposed to be purged but Petra keeps her memories of Earth and more importantly she keeps her memories of the stories - she indeed the last storyteller - the last cuentista.  Her stories will save her life and the life of the four other surviving children. 

Sagan feels like the garden of Eden but the climate is strange with hours of dangerous winds and the possibility of dangerous animals and plants but life on this planet will be so much better then living under the control of the Monitors and paying subservience to The Collective. 

Read this School Library Journal review by Betsy Bird and this one on Charlotte's Library blog. I agree with her comment: It is not a comfortable read. It is a powerful, wrenching, disturbing one. I couldn't read it all in one sitting. I am wavering between three and four stars. 

Bookseller blurb: There lived a girl named Petra Pena, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita. But Petra's world is ending. Earth will soon be destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children - among them Petra and her family - have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race. Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet - and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard - or purged them altogether. Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?

Here is a very detailed set of teacher notes with questions for each chapter. 

This book has received so many award including the BIG one - the Newbery Medal.

• Winner of the John Newbery Medal 
• Winner of the Pura Belpré Award 
• Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Year 
• Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Best of the Year 
• Boston Globe’s Best of the Year 
• BookPage’s Best of the Year 
• Publishers Weekly’s Best of the Year 
• School Library Journal’s Best of the Year 
• Kirkus Reviews’ Best of the Year 
• Bank Street’s Best of the Year 
• Chicago Public Library’s Best of the Best 
• New York Public Library Best of the Year 
• A Junior Library Guild Selection 
• Cybils Award Finalist 

I did find this book quite difficult to read because I am not a fan of interwoven folktales - I keep thinking I am supposed to make important connections between these stories and Petra's present awful reality. The two covers above are the US and UK editions. 

Here are some companion reads:

This book is very old and long out of print but it is such a powerful story. 

Forbidden Memories - this book is sadly long out of print

This is an Australian book and sadly it is also long out of print.

Here is another amazing Australian Science Fiction book - and yes it is out of print

The Future Trap

The Last Human

Fake by Ele Fountain

"There's a lot of money to be made from keeping people in one place, with only their screens. Think of all the shopping for a start. Why change things if most people are happy? ... 

The ones making all the money are smart. 

They're very generous to the people who made the laws, so they won't rush to change them."

The best authors of dystopian fiction do not reveal everything at the start of their story - they carefully insert tiny fragments of information so as a reader you can 'join the dots' and infer the way of the world in this future time. I adore this style of writing. 

As this book opens, Jess who is fourteen is about to head away to school. She is leaving her beloved younger sister Chloe behind. On the first page we read the word ROOM (I am not going to tell you about this you need to read Fake to understand this). Then on page 15 there is a mention of a portal watch which Jess uses to connect with her friend Finn. It is some sort of video phone.  Chloe and Jess also have a pet kitten. Surely this is not a problem but then Finn comments "Keeping a pet. That's an offence." It is now time to leave but how will Jess get to her new school. We read that the transport has been charged.  

"No transport has space for luggage - big transports waste electricity. ... Families used to have massive cars which could carry everything. Transports only have room for seats, to save energy."

Then we read these chilling words "mum warned me that some students will never have met another child before." and there is a mention of live-learning. The other students take health supplements and have their online shopping delivered by drone. In her trunk Jess has bought some of her fathers precious books. Mae, her room mate has never touched a paper book. 

In this world of the future, children learn on screens at home so they are protected from diseases until they are fourteen when their immune systems have developed.  

"After the antibiotics stopped working I thought they made all kinds of laws to protect us. ... But that was twenty years ago during the Scarlet Fever epidemic."

There is no money, only credits. Chloe needs expensive medicines and her parents, who live on a farm, have very few credits and the price of the medicine keeps rising. Jess has learned about coding and computer hacking. She has a plan to help her family but days in the new school are busy and tiring and working on complex coding at night might not be a good idea because mistakes can easily happen. Mistakes with shocking consequences for her precious family. 

This book is such a terrific commentary on our modern world - on our use of and dependence on technology; on the implications of disease such as the Covid Pandemic; and our concerns with personal privacy when the State collects so much data about our lives. Heavy stuff!  Yes. I nearly gave this book five stars but, to me, the ending was a little rushed and perhaps a little too perfect but this aspect of the story is sure to deeply satisfy young readers aged 10+. 

" ... a compelling thriller with fantastic characters set in a futuristic world where everyone is isolated from each other in their homes."  Books up North

"Well, this is an absolute corker of a story, one that feels slightly surreal as you read and relate to particular events and situations. There is a true link to what we have endured during the initial Covid 19 lockdowns and fear from society."  My Shelves are Full

Companion reads:

Chance of Safety

Where the River runs Gold

Catch me if I fall

Among the Hidden

The Girl who could Fly

Very Rich by Polly Horvath

Please take this warning very seriously - do not read this book if you are hungry. You have probably heard of unrequited love? Well this book is full of unrequited meals! I had to stop reading around page 225 and make myself a delicious lunch because, like the hero of the story Rupert, I was starving. 

Starving - not really - but Rupert is starving. His family are poor, dirt poor. Rupert is lucky to eat one paltry meal each day. Mrs Brown can only serve the large family oatmeal flavoured with kitchen scraps scrounged from bins around their small town. Rupert is thin and very cold. He has no coat, worn out sandshoes and he is forced to wear his three shirts as he trudges to and from school. The writing in this book is so good that I felt cold (even though the day here was sunny and warm).

As the story opens, Rupert sets off for school. The streets are oddly quiet and after his long cold journey he discovers the school is closed. On the way home his jacket is caught on the swinging gates of a mansion in the rich part of town. Rupert finds himself whisked into Christmas day with the huge and very eccentric Rivers Family. It should be the day all his dreams come true - an abundance of delicious food, games with fabulous prizes and moments of genuine laughter and happiness but right at the end of this extravagant day everything goes horribly wrong. 

What Rupert does not realise, though, is that some of the crazy family members feel sorry for the way things turn out and so over the coming months each of them, secretly, take Rupert out of his home and school with the intention of treating him to a wonderful day. Unfortunately though, these amazing days never seem actually work out and each time Rupert is left hungry, puzzled and disappointed. 

Publisher blurb: Ten-year-old Rupert Brown inadvertently finds himself spending Christmas with the wealthiest family in town and is astonished to discover a world he never knew existed. Rupert lives with his parents and many siblings in a small house in the poorest section of Steelville, Ohio. When he spends Christmas with his classmate Turgid Rivers, he is offered all the food he can eat, and the opportunity to win wonderful prizes in the family games—prizes he hopes to take home so he can share his Christmas bounty with his family. But after he loses everything in the last game, Rupert resigns himself to going home empty handed. Feeling secretly guilty, all of the adults in Rivers family try to make it up to him by taking Rupert on one unlikely adventure after another, embroiling him in everything from time travel to bank robberies. But can anything he experiences make up for what he has lost? Deftly blending magical realism with heartbreak, hope, and a wide cast of eccentric characters, Polly Horvath weaves a tale that is darkly funny and deeply poignant. Very Rich is a bittersweet and quirky story that celebrates the unique nature of human experience.

I would love to book talk this book with a group of Grade 5 or 6 students. I think I would read `page 32 and 33 - the Christmas feast. This book will also be perfect for fans of A series of Unfortunate Events and Roald Dahl (especially Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) books. 

Horvath is at her odd, arch best here—generous with her wry observations of people and their awkward relationships and foibles. Kirkus

Horvath is having a ball with this story. It’s fast-paced and filled with witty asides, creative scenarios, and a ridiculously entertaining cast. She pulls from Dickens, but Rupert’s parents have qualities akin to Roald Dahl’s despicable adult characters, and Uncle Henry’s time machine is a whirring cardboard box reminiscent of Dorothy’s flying house and the hot-air balloon in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Plus, there is a gravity-defying restaurant scene similar to the laughing-gas chapter in Mary Poppins. Quill and Quire

After reading this book you may want to make a funnel cake. I had no idea about this but they sound delicious.

Find the Recipe here 

When I was growing up, my family had a tradition of visiting the county fair every year. I loved riding the ferris wheel and viewing all of the livestock, but what I looked forward to the most was all of the fair food! I loved the deep fried Oreos, corn dogs, kettle corn, and best of all, the funnel cakes! There really is nothing better than a hot funnel cake, dusted with powdered sugar.

Here are a few text quotes to give you a flavour of this writing (and I hope to also entice you to read this book!)

"There were three bedrooms in the house. One for the boys, one for the girls, and one for Mr and Mrs Brown. In the boys' and girls' bedrooms, the younger children slept in the beds and the older ones slept under them. Rupert shared the underneath of a bed with John and Dirk."

"He could feel the chocolate ooze all over his tongue and run down into his stomach, where it awoke a hunter so vast, it was as if the chocolate were a flame thawing Rupert's frozen insides and igniting the appetite therein."

"He ate the roll and then saw the butter pat and he stuck that whole into his mouth and let it melt in savory wonder all over is tongue. He'd never had butter. The only kind of fat the Brown's ever saw was lard. He like lard but the butter was simply out of this world."

"Tomorrow we're going to the library to get library cards and then we'll get books of stories to read. But tonight I'll tell you one of mine."

Cave Paintings by Jairo Buitrago illustrated by Rafael Yockteng translated by Elisa Amado

As this book begins we meet a young boy waiting at a space station somewhere in the universe. He is heading away for a holiday with his grandmother which means he needs to travel, as he has in the past, to the farthest planet. We are not told the name of his home planet but it is clear his grandmother lives on our planet Earth. It is also clear this story is set far into the future as we see other aliens embarking and then disembarking from the amazing space craft. The airline attendants are sure to amaze you.

The boy and his grandmother climb into a bubble shaped craft and they head off across different landscapes before arriving at a cave. This is what they see:

Lascaux is famous for its Palaeolithic cave paintings, found in a complex of caves in the Dordogne region of southwestern France, because of their exceptional quality, size, sophistication and antiquity. Estimated to be up to 20,000 years old, the paintings consist primarily of 

large animals, once native to the region.

At the end of his holiday his grandmother gives the boy a set of  pencils. Your young reading companion is sure to be puzzled or curious about why this boy is not familiar with a simple set of familiar objects but these are ancient artefacts which once belonged to his ancestors. On the way home he uses the pencils and a note book from his grandmother to draw the view out of his window and his memories of his recent holiday. He is using art to interpret his world just as the cave painters did in ancient times.

A work at once both limitless and grounded, the imaginative illustrations will be especially appealing to lovers of science fiction and fantasy. School Library Journal

An ode to the endless possibilities of art, a celebration of open borders, and a reverence for the contributions of our collective ancestors. Horn Book

Celebrated collaborators deliver another thoughtful delight, revealing how “making marks” links us across time and space. Kirkus

Here is the publisher blurb "Our hero travels all alone on a spaceship, through the universe, past galaxies, comets and planets to go visit his grandmother on Earth for the summer holidays. She takes him to visit an ancient cave, where he discovers handprints and drawings of unknown animals made by human beings, just like him. To top off his wonderful holiday she gives him mysterious objects which once belonged to his grandfather — paper and crayons. On the way home he draws what he saw on his travels — to the amazement of his fellow passengers. Jairo Buitrago’s thought-provoking story reminds us of what remains as everything changes. Rafael Yockteng’s fabulous art, a tribute to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, presents us a wonderful, diverse future in which space travel is common, though knowledge of the past is still a secret treasure to be discovered."

The original title of this book is Pinturas rupestres. 

I loved all the quirky aliens in this book and the wonderful space travel vehicles. This book could be a good way to introduce Science Fiction to a young reader. 

I first discovered Rafael Yockteng through the IBBY Honour book display which was hosted here in NSW by Lost in Books. I was immediately drawn to his book Two White Rabbits. I cannot read Spanish but the illustrations told a powerful story. Later I discovered this book has been translated into English. 

When I was researching International Illustrators for an IBBY Australia presentation I sought out Rafael's work again and saw Cave Painting.  Luckily for me, boy oh boy I am so lucky, my friend from Kinderbookswitheverything has purchased this for her school library and so I can now read this quirky and very intriguing book.

Book Week is now behind us. This year the CBCA (Children's Book Council of Australia) selected the slogan Old Worlds, New Worlds, Other Worlds. As often happens, after the event I always find things that fit the theme - either display materials in $2 shops or in this case the perfect book. Cave Painting beautifully encapsulates Old Worlds (cave paintings), New Worlds (Space travel) and Other Worlds (aliens and other planets).

Cog by Greg van Eekhout

Cog looks like a twelve year old boy but in fact he is a robot or a biomaton. He lives with Gina. She teaches Cog new things each day:

"I am programmed for cognitive development, and to learn by consuming information with my sensors, which are similar to human eyes, noses, ears, tongues and skin. I am capable of learning through reading, through smelling, through hearing, through tasting."

Things are going well for Cog until he is badly hurt in an accident with a truck. When Cog wakes up he finds himself in a science facility. It is there that Cog discovers the truth and this discovery is truly terrible for Cog, his sister ADA, his new friends and even more importantly it could mean the whole world is in danger. Nathan has plans for world domination and be warned he has plans to insert computer chips in human brains too.

I love the word placement in this book.  Take a look at these sentences

"Nathan smiles, but it is a very different kind of smile. It is a smaller kind that shows no teeth. I am unfamiliar with this kind of smile. It does not convey happiness or excitement or agreeability."

"The man strikes Proto with the hockey stick. Thwack. Proto clatters to the ground."

"So first we're going to gouge the X-module out of your brain."

I should mention the characters from the front cover are Cog, his sister ADA, and their new friends Trashbot and Proto the dog. The other important character is Car and he is heroic but also very funny.

Blurb from author site: Cog looks like a normal twelve-year-old boy. But his name is short for “cognitive development,” and he was built to learn. But after an accident leaves him damaged, Cog wakes up in an unknown lab—and Gina, the scientist who created and cared for him, is nowhere to be found. Surrounded by scientists who want to study him and remove his brain, Cog recruits four robot accomplices for a mission to find her. Cog, ADA, Proto, Trashbot, and Car’s journey will likely involve much cognitive development in the form of mistakes, but Cog is willing to risk everything to find his way back to Gina.

You may already know that I am drawn to books about robots. This is because they are often funny (there is a terrific supermarket scene in Cog) but these stories are often also dystopian and occasionally even political and always seem to be about the misuse of power. Cog contains all of this and more.

If you have a super curious, quirky kid of 9 or so who needs a book to read, offer this one. Then, if you are a smart, quirky grown-up, read it yourself. Charlotte's Library

The author nicely inverts gender roles, making Cog introspective and shy while his sister—a weapon android—is brasher and braver; watching the pair grow together as they explore humanity provides pathos and humor.  A thought-provoking tale for younger readers about hubris and what it means to be human. Kirkus

If the theme of world domination interests you try to find The Seven Professors of the Far North and The Girl who could Fly.  Here is Greg van Eekout's web site and here are some companion reads about robots:

Runaway Robot

Boot Book One (there are three in this series)

The Wild Robot (and sequel)

Troofriend

Tin