Wolf Siren by Beth O'Brien

"I think about this chain of violence that began with human greed, the desire to take and take until the trees lost their protectors and many wolves and humans lost their lives."

Red lives in a village with her mother and younger brother and sister. The village is controlled by the mayor and by the fear of attack by the wolves who live in the forest. In past years wolves attacked the village men but not the women so, while everyone lives behind a high fence, the men especially can never leave. The mayor controls everything including the distribution of food, marriage and the dispensing of punishments.

Red's father has been killed many years ago - purportedly by a wolf. Her grandmother has also disappeared and Red has not seen her for many years but as this story opens Red does meet her grandmother in the forest. People from the village are not supposed to visit the forest but Red feels a strong affinity with the trees - they even seem to reach out and touch and caress her. Then her grandmother shows her something even more surprising. Red is able to summon a small pack of wolves. They gather around her and walk in a diamond formation. There are two women who can be found in the forest - an old lady who is suspected of witchcraft called Ms Blaeberry and the woodcutter - a woman named Caragh. It is not directly stated in the story but there is an implication that Caragh has been banished to work as a woodcutter because she refused to marry the mayor. He is so jealous of Raif because he an Caragh are in love and in fact have a plan to run away. 

The changes to Red continue when she discovers not only can she summon her wolf pack but she herself can transform into a wolf. This ability coincides with the menarche. There are all sorts of rules about girls and their periods. This is considered a dark secret and even the water she uses to wash her rags can only be disposed of after dark in a secret place. Red knows she is in great danger if anyone, especially the mayor, finds out that she can transform. Added to this is the worry that her sister, Aerona, might also be able transform too and the day of Aerona's first period is approaching. 

One of the most interesting characters in this story - that I was desperate to know more about - is the wife of the mayor. His treatment of her is an example of domestic violence but Nova also gives tiny signals to Red that seem to mean she has a deeper knowledge of her oppression. 

There are some interesting life rituals and manners explored in this book such as the way people greet each other and their procedures following a death.  Girls are also expected to wear skirts - another sign of control and oppression. 

I also loved the way, as a previously explained, the trees support Red:

The woods seemed more alive after the rain, as though the very air was releasing a sigh of pleasure. But there was something else there, too, a feeling that was much harder to identify. The tree curled her twig branches over my shoulder as though she was preparing to steady me, and I covered the rough twigs with my hand to reassure her. I turned slowly, looking from tree to tree, scanning the ground, peering up into the lower branches for whatever the woods thought deserved my focus.

Beth O'Brien uses language so skillfully.  Think about her word choices in these sentences:

"The thud of the plate and cup sounded dismal in the quiet house."

"The cacophony is beautiful, the disjointed sounds creating a melodious echo."

I recommend this book for very mature readers aged 11+. Here is a list of other "Little Red Riding Hood" based books for Young Adults aged 13+. 

Publisher blurb: Red is not allowed to go into the woods. Everyone knows that they are dangerous – because of their strange magic and the wolves that lurk there… But Red finds herself increasingly drawn to the woods and the place where her grandmother disappeared without a trace three years ago. When the woodcutter fails to return home one night and wolves are spotted close to the village boundary, fear drives a deep and dangerous divide between the villagers and the nature they live alongside. Only Red seems to hold the key – but she has a secret, and exposing it could ruin her family forever …

You can read a chapter sample on the Harper Collins (Australia) webpage. This book was published in 2025 and I picked up my print copy here in Australia from a local bookseller for AUS$18.

Here are a few text quotes:

"Father was one of many men to be taken by the wolves. Where once our village had been famous for its lucrative wolf-fur trade, courtesy of our skilled hunters, soon it was associated with nothing but violent attacks. No matter how many men the mayor conscripted to try and keep the wolves at bay, our losses continued to mount up. Shortly after my father’s death, the mayor was forced to admit defeat, disband the hunters entirely and forbid all men and boys from entering the woods. This worked in so much as the attacks stopped. But the restrictions the mayor placed on our village after that meant the fear of the wolves was impossible to forget."

"I want you to imagine there’s a wolf in front of you. She has her back to you and she’s going to stay in front of you wherever you walk.’ There was a pause as she let me form that image in my mind. ‘Now, to your left and to your right are two more. They come up to your waist and if you reach out your hands, you’d be able to brush their fur, but they are no closer than that.’ Another pause. ‘Finally, there is a fourth wolf. This one is behind you, so the four of them form a diamond."

"I turned my own face up to smile at Grandmother and saw she was holding a bundle out towards me. I stood up and my wolves parted, letting me step closer to her. It was a coat. By full daylight, it would be a vivid scarlet, but under the dappled light of the trees it looked much deeper, much darker. More like blood."

"The mayor depends on us all being frightened of the woods, whether it's fear of attack or of shame."

"Nearly all the girls and women of this village know the woods aren't a bad place. They're a place where bad things happen, ... but bad things happen within our village wall, too."

Wolf Siren is a debut novel for UK author Beth O'Brien. She is the author of four adult poetry books. Having been born visually impaired and with an upper-limb difference, Beth is passionate about the representation of disability in literature and is currently studying for a PHD researching the (mis) representation of disability in fairytale retellings. She is the founder and editor of Disabled Tales.

Here is a map of Young Adult Fairy tale retellings:

Image source: Epic Reads

I think my interest in these 'grown-up' versions of fairy tales goes back to my reading a book by Donna Jo Napoli although it was not about Red Riding Hood. 

I found this collage of versions of Little Red Riding Hood on Library Thing. When you go to the link you can hover over each title for a brief plot summary.

Image Source: Library Thing tag "Little Red Riding Hood"

I have had this book, Red, on my to-read list for a long time so this might be the next "Red Riding Hood" based story that I read:

The Peach Thief by Linda Joan Smith

This was no place for a girl. And the longer she was here? 

The sooner they’d see that’s exactly what she was

Knowing I was travelling for over five hours on public transport yesterday I decided to add a few more books to my Kindle library. I started and ended the day reading the whole of The Peach Thief (384 pages) - such an engrossing story although at times the anticipation that something utterly dreadful was sure to happen to young Scilla Brown meant that regular intervals I had to 'close' my book and take a huge breath.

Scilla is an orphan living in the workhouse where food is scarce and the punishments are severe. She has one good friend - a girl named Emily but she has been taken away to work in a factory or in service. Then Scilla herself is taken by an older girl named Dora. Dora is a little bit like Fagan from Oliver Twist. She needs Scilla to assist her with petty crimes like shoplifting. Dora steals some rancid meat from a market stall and Scilla finds her dead under the bridge where they were sheltering through the night. Long ago Scilla tasted a peach. The beautiful sensation has never left her. She knows there are peaches in the manor house garden behind the high wall. 

She’d risk anything to taste a peach again, so ripe, so delicious— fit for a queen! And here was her chance, before her life spiraled back to the workhouse, her only choice now

Driven by hunger and her desire to find the fruit of her dreams, late at night she climbs over the wall but her feet are caught in an espaliered cherry tree and she falls to the ground and is caught.

Dora has dressed Scilla in boy's clothes and cut her hair short, so the head gardener Mr. Layton thinks she is a boy. She tells him her name is Seth Brown. Scilla is sure she will be sent straight to jail but someone she manages to convince Mr Layton that she can scrub the garden pots.  

She kept her voice low to match her boys’ cap and clothes, her shorn hair. A boy could blend in, get out of scrapes a girl might not, Dora’d always said.

The other workers seem somewhat suspicious of the newcomer so Scilla keeps her distance, but one young man seems friendly. Right from the beginning, to her absolute amazement, he helps her with her tasks. He is a very charming and very good looking fellow and gradually, as readers, we watch on as Scilla falls in love with him - but is he really being honest with Scilla and does he have some other motive for the advice her gives Scilla. Also it is a huge worry the way he invites her to join in his dangerous nighttime adventures especially when they involve stealing precious fruit from Mr Layton who has shown her nothing but kindness. 

Over time Scilla learns more and more about gardens and the wonders of turning tiny seeds in to fragile plants which then eventually provide delicious and abundant produce for the big housel. Mr Layton seems to take her into his confidence showing her the winter stored fruits and allowing her to study books from is extensive collection. He also gives her a special role on the day Prince Albert visits the greenhouses. All of this is wonderful but also dangerous because Phin, that handsome young gardener, is desperately jealous of these attentions. He is sure he is the one who will one day also become a head gardener. 

Nuanced, richly atmospheric, and exquisitely written. Kirkus Star review

Blurb from the author page: The night that workhouse orphan Scilla Brown dares to climb the Earl of Havermore’s garden wall, she wants only to steal a peach—the best thing she’s tasted in her hard, hungry life. But when she’s caught by the earl’s head gardener and mistaken for a boy, she grabs on to something more: a temporary job scrubbing flowerpots. If she can just keep up her deception, she’ll have a soft bed and food beyond her wildest dreams . . . maybe even peaches. She soon falls in with Phin, a garden apprentice who sneaks her into the steamy, fruit-filled greenhouses, calls her “Brownie,” and makes her skin prickle. At the same time, the gruff head gardener himself is teaching lowly Scilla to make things grow, and she’s cultivating hope with every seed she plants. But as the seasons unfurl, her loyalties become divided, and her secret grows harder to keep. How far will she go to have a home at last?

Here are some key quotes from The Peach Thief - the first ones are words that Scilla luckily remembers when she is in the worse position of her life accused of a series of crimes she did not commit. 

“An honorable man takes responsibility for his actions, you understand, no matter the consequences."

"You have to care about each plant ... the life and beauty in it. You have to give it what it needs to reach its full potential."

"It is our curiosity that leads us to new discoveries, to new opportunities, to what we most need to learn."

You can read some background to this story here. And Candlewick gives you the first seven chapters to sample on their webpage. There are some fun words in this book such as meddling fussock; as wick as the woods; gawped; summat; and Lorjus.

If you are looking for a character description to use as a writing model this one is great:

"The cook, Mrs Keckilpenny, was round as a teapot. Her skirts rose in the back each time she bent to check the black range at the front end of the low-ceilinged room, revealing red-and-black-striped stockings above her high-topped clogs. Her frilled cap, tied beneath her double chin, looked like a crimped crust around a great pink pie."

I had no idea there were so many varieties of peaches (back notes in The Peach Thief tells me there are 95) with beautiful names such as Royal George, Grosse Mignonne, Bellegarde. And the apples have names such as Ribston Pippins and Gravenstein. You will also read about the lengths these early gardeners went to, to grow exotic fruits like pineapples. 

Here in Australia you will have to be patient and wait to add this book to your library. The US edition published by Candlewick is way too expensive at over AUS$45+ but what I hope might happen is the book will be taken up by Walker Books in the UK and their copy will then come to Walker Books here in Australia and the price will come down. How this happens is a mystery to me, but I have seen this pattern with many other middle grade titles. The publisher says this book is for ages 8-12 but I think the love tensions, age of the protagonist and complex relationships mean it would be a better fit for ages 11+ and certainly a great read for younger High School readers. I absolutely adored this book from beginning to end. 

The Peach Thief is a debut novel for Linda Joan Smith. She has worked as a journalist specialising in writing about gardening. She mentions loving The Secret Garden as a child. 

Here are some of her favourite books that transport readers to other times and places - what a fabulous list:

• A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
• Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
• Chains (and The Seeds of America Trilogy) by Laurie Halse Anderson
• Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• Hello Universe by Erin Entrada Kelly
• Holes by Louis Sachar
• Okay for Now and The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
• Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow
• The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak
• The London Eye Mystery and The Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
• The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman
• When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
• Wringer by Jerry Spinelli

The Apprentice Witnesser by Bren McDibble

Once again Bren MacDibble takes us to a dystopian future world - this time set in Queensland. We have wrecked the world. There is no electricity and no cars and worse there are now diseases. Blame comes from both sides - the sides in this book are women versus men. This disease seems to affect men more than women so in this divided world women live a subsistence life in make-shift villages and men have been sent into the mountains. If baby boys are born, they are dressed up as girls so they can stay in the community. Bastienne, a young girl, has been rescued by Lodyma. Lodyma's own son has been banished from the community following the death of her older son and husband. 

"Both Lodyma's own kids were boys. When the sickness spreads it always takes the men. Lodyma says women and girls got different immune systems better able to put up with the sickness .. "

Bastienne Scull is nearly twelve years old, and she lives a simple life as an apprentice to the Witnesser of Miracles in a small village mostly populated by women and girls. Basti knows that miracle-hunting is a lot like mystery-solving, and her little world is full of wonder and intrigue and unexpected adventure. Lodyma is a witnesser. 

"She's witnesser of miracles. People want to think she's special. ...  We have markets here three nights a week. That's a lot of miracles we gotta hunt down on the other four days. Lodyma's been witness to more that a hundred miracles, so she can get through them over and over."

The 'miracles' are not really miracles, but Lodyma is a brilliant storyteller and so people 'pay' for her performances with produce and occasional coins. Basti keeps the crowd together and she sells peanuts from a local farm, and these also bring a few coins. Lodyma 'proves' her miracles with photographic evidence. I enjoyed the references to 'old tech' in this story. Lodyma has an instamatic camera. She has a limited amount of 'film' but Basti has the task of recording any 'miracles' they encounter. Basti is a very observant girl, so even though she should not waste this precious resource, she takes other photos too - photos of precious interactions between people - photos that show love. 

"I don't say nothing about the other photos tucked away in my bag. The one where the fruit vendor gave those two little kids a memory they'll keep in their hearts forever, and hopefully the one of Lodyma in the shade, along with some other special photos I've taken."

Here are descriptions of the landscape:

"Far as I can tell, the collapse was when the climate got hotter, the cities washed into the sea and pollution and diseases took out most of the people."

"Over the hills, the streets are a mess. Abandoned trucks, dumped tyres, wire fences fallen down, warehouses torn open and bits and pieces pulled out and scattered everywhere. Rusty hunks of machinery things, I dunno what. Plastic contains that's cracked and faded, bits of piping and taps and sinks and old cupboards left out in the weather to swell and collapse."

Someone is selling plastic shoes at the market and then two young boys arrive and summon Lodyma to another distant settlement. Lodyma and Basti make an amazing discovery about the factory that makes the shoes but more importantly, in the monastery at Ravenshoe, they find a young wild girl. Her eyes match the strange pattern of Lodyma's - is it possible that she is the daughter of her lost son? 

So now we have a group of three and Basti is no longer sure of her place - will Lodyma really want an apprentice? Perhaps Basti will need to resign herself to tedious work at the peanut farm. She becomes deeply unhappy and angry (but she holds her anger inside). Meanwhile caring for little Raveena is a full-time job. This little girl, aged five or six, is such a wild spirit and her life story is a mystery which Basti is determined to solve. As it says in the blurb below - finding this little girl will change all their lives. Is she the real miracle?

Publisher blurb: Bastienne Scull is a young orphan who lives with the local Witnesser of Miracles, Lodyma Darsey, who investigates 'miraculous events' and spins them into stories she tells at the night markets. After Lodyma's husband and elder son died of a sickness that continues to sweep the land, she sent her teenage son Osmin into the hills to live with the mountain men. That was ten years ago, and Lodyma doesn't know if he's alive or dead. And she's taken Bastienne as an apprentice to fill the void of her lost family. One day, two young boys arrive in town asking Lodyma to go on a mysterious mission to a monastery. And when Lodyma and Bastienne arrive, what they discover will change their lives.

I do enjoy books where the author makes you work hard to fill in the gaps and also books where at the end things come together - not in a saccharine, we all live happily ever after way, but in a very satisfying way, allowing a character whom you have come to care deeply about to have the promise of a better life. And I did care very deeply about Basti. The final chapters of this book are especially wonderful. If I was 'hand selling' this book to a reader in my library (or even in a bookshop) I would explain that readers do need to stick with this story because the ending will make your heart melt with happiness. I recommend this book for all fans of Bren MacDibble aged 11+. Congratulations to the publisher Allen and Unwin and the cover designer/artist Julie Hunt - this book has such an arresting cover which is sure to grab the attention of readers. Take a look at the labels I have assigned to this post - suspicion, survival, and belonging. There is also the issue of the best ways to express love in a family. There are tiny moments in this story when you deeply feel the way Basti just longs to be loved by Lodyma. 

Huge thanks to Three Sparrows Bookshop who let me read the advance reader copy of The Apprentice Witnesser. It will be published on 30th April 2024.

Here is an audio book review from New Zealand. 

How to Bee

The Dog Runner

The Raven's Song

Across the Risen Sea

And Everything will be Glad to see You: Poems by Women and Girls

And everyone will be glad to see you: Poems by Women and Girls

selected by Ella Risbridger illustrated by Anna Shepeta

Let's begin with the title and cover illustration. The title of this generous poetry anthology comes from a poem by Liz Lochhead. Interestingly it is on page 19 of the book and not page one. The poem is an ode to a new baby and the title is taken from the last verse of the poem which is entitled Nina's song. You can hear Liz Lochhead reading her poem here - I suggest just listening without the video visuals. This could be a gentle way to introduce this poetry book to your reading companion or to a class. 

Now look closely at the cover illustration. There is such tenderness yet strength in this young girl. Her hair looks like grasses covered in sweet flowers with a stream flowing alongside. Her head is a forest of strong trees. The way she has her hand on her hip implies courage and determination. She has a book and it has to be a book of poems. Her pure white dress is decorated with natural and cosmic symbols. Her hair is free flowing like many of the poems in this book and in fact most of illustrations which enhance each poem show girls and young women with long free flowing hair. There is a poem on page 25 called Granny Granny please comb my hair by Grace Nichols - it is delightful. Read more about the illustrator Anna Shepeta here. 

This example comes from the first poem in the book - 93 percent Stardust by Nikita Gill

You can see inside this book here on the Nosy Crow web page. 

Why did the compiler want to focus on poems by women and girls?

"You might even be wondering whether it's really fair to make a collection of poems that are only by women and girls. Doesn't that leave other people out? What about boys and men? These are good questions and to answer them properly we have to look at the big picture. We have to look at the whole way our world is organised, and the whole history of the why we write things, and the whole history of who gets to write things. .... Books tend to be full of poems by boys and men because they have always been the ones who got to publish their poems in books. This is what we call 'structural bias', which is a fancy way of saying the problems are built into the structure of our world i.e. the way our world works."

"This book is my best shot at being fair. This book is my est shot at sowing you all the brave, lucky =, clever girls and women who wrote poems when nobody really wanted them ... (this is) my best shot at making sure when someone asks you to think of a poet, you think of a woman just as quickly as you think of a man."

In her review for Magpies (Volume 37 issue 4 September 2022) Dr Robin Morrow said "Highly recommended for libraries, for a teacher's own collection, or as a gift to a young reader from say 8 to 14 - ideally with the offer of an adult's reading aloud and sharing poems from this wonderful treasury."

Dr Robin Morrow mentions several of the poems in her review: Journey's end by Nikki Grimes; The Orange by Wendy Cope; Looking foward by Sue Cowling; and the powerful poem about Boudicca on page 46.

Take a look at this detailed review by The Book Curator. 

Sometimes an anthology of poems just hits a sweet spot. With its foreword, afterword, separate lists of poetry and poets, gorgeous tactile cloth bound cover, posh ribbon bookmark and adorably lush, sumptuous, immersive illustrations - not to mention poems by the bucketload - this book is truly a feast for the senses. Kids' Book Review

So now onto some of my favourite poems from this book:

Treasure Trove by Irene Rawnsley - this would be a wonderful poem to share with a class if you plan to use that tried and true strategy of class news. It is also a poem about imagination and the joy from noticing tiny things.

Wherever by Jackie Hosking - this is a poem to read slowly savouring the lyrical words. Here is a line from the poem "Here she comes whispers the sea droplets colliding with gossipy glee."

Don't be scared by Carol Ann Duffy - a poem to read to your child at night

Colouring in by Jan Dean - gift this to your art teacher

Rosa Parks by Jan Dean - "the sorting on the bus is just plain wrong" - read this poem them read this book about Rosa Parks:

This book is large, it has 140 pages, an index of poems, an index of poets and an index of first lines. 

Finally in her Afterword Ella Risbridger says: 

"I hope the poems in this book light your way to all sorts of things. Think of these poems not like still pictures, but more like doors: things you can push on, and that will open on to other things."

One more poem to complete this post:

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

With your one wild and precious life?

One More Mountain by Deborah Ellis

I am listing this book as Young Adult because some of the scenes are confronting. I am sure many of you remember the horrific scenes of desperate people trying to flee Afghanistan in 2021. People standing in sewage trying to hold on to babies, young children and small bundles of possessions. All clutching precious passports and other papers in the hope of being able to catch a plane to freedom.

One More Mountain opens with Damsa. She has fled an arranged marriage. She is rescued by a young police woman who is also on the run. The Taliban are now in power and they are hunting women in uniform. Shauzia knows a safe place. Parvana is sheltering women, young children, her son, sister and husband. Damsa is given shelter, food, safety and the promise of a new life. But then the Taliban come knocking and they must flee.

Meanwhile Rafi, Parvana's son has gone to the airport with Parvana's sister Maryam. They plan to travel to America where Maryam hopes to become a famous singer and Rafi dreams of a career in ballet. They don't know that this is the day the airport will close and later bombs will fall. Asif, Rafi's father travels with Rafi and Maryam to the airport. He only has one leg and the journey becomes especially dreadful when they are forced to abandon their car and continue on foot. Close to the gates Asif says his goodbyes and heads away to return to Parvana but at that moment the bombs falls and he is killed.

Blurb: In Kabul, 15-year-old Damsa runs away to avoid being forced into marriage by her family. She is found by a police officer named Shauzia, who takes her to Green Valley, a shelter and school for women and girls run by Parvana. It has been 20 years since Parvana and Shauzia had to disguise themselves as boys to support themselves and their families. But when the Taliban were defeated in 2001, it looked as if Afghans could finally rebuild their country. Many things have changed for Parvana since then. She has married Asif, who she met in the desert as she searched for her family when she was a child. She runs a school for girls. She has a son, Rafi, who is about to fly to New York, where he will train to become a dancer. But Shauzia is still Parvana's best friend. And Parvana is still headstrong, bringing her in conflict with her spoiled sister Maryam. While Asif tries to get Maryam and Rafi on one of the last flights out of Kabul, the Taliban come to the school, and Parvana must lead the girls out of Green Valley and into the mountains.

One More Mountain will be published in November, 2022. I almost read this book in one sitting but several times I had to walk away to recover from the harrowing scenes. Please don't let that stop you reading this book. Yes it is harrowing but this is also an important account of recent history and the honesty of this story telling is wonderful and while the ending is not a fairy tale Deborah Ellis does leave her reader with some hope for the future. 

I loved reading that 100% of the author royalties will be donated to aid organisations who support people in Afghanistan. 

Here are some text quotes to give you a flavour of this book:

"The only other way to get there was to wade through the little river of raw sewage that flowed through the gully. ... It was cold and disgusting and came up to his belly. ... Within minutes, the area in front of the gate was alive with surging bodies as people tried to get closer to the gate and were pushed back by those who were ahead of them  ... the stench rose with the heat. Rafi watched a man faint and slip down into the foul water."

"Parvana had lost homes, family and love, but at least she had once had those things. She still had more than most. She appreciated it all every day, knowing that at any moment, it could be snatched from her. They were all, always, seconds away from a bomb, from prison, from death."

While this book does stand alone I do think your reading will be richer if you can read the earlier books from this series. You can read about Parvana here. 

You might also look for the graphic novel of Parvana (The Breadwinner).

And I suggest this book as a companion read:

One Half from the East

The Girl Who Could Fix Anything by Mara Rockliff illustrated by Daniel Duncan

The Girl who could Fix Anything - Beatrice Shilling, World War II Engineer

"Despite graduating with honours in electrical engineering and going onto earn her masters of science doing research on internal combustion engines, Beatrice found it hard to get a job in her field. Hearing that she placed first at Brooklands racetrack on a motorbike she had modified herself, one interviewer said, 'I suppose the men let you win."

As a young child Beatrice loved to pull things apart and put them back together. She clearly had an engineering mind. Luckily her mother and father were happy to encourage her even though it is early 1900 and girls do not usually study engineering especially not at a university. 

Beatrice is most famous for inventing the restrictor that saved the spitfire and Hurricane. In 1949 she was honoured by King George VI with the Order of the British Empire. 

Read more here:

Magnificent Women WES

Meet Beatrice Shilling Stemettes

Beatrice Shilling - Revolutionising the Spitfire

I hope this post amazes you.  I had never heard of Beatrice Shilling and yet she played a very important role in WWII and later she worked on runway safety and she designed and built a bobsled for the Royal Air Force Olympic team. 

In US schools students in Grade 4 or 5 study genre and in particular they study the genre of biography. Publishers have seen this gap in the market and so in recent years hundreds of wonderful picture book biographies have been published.  I have talked about a few here on this blog and my friend from Kinderbookswitheverything has an enormous collection of them in her library. She incorporates this topic into her work with her higher ability Grade 2 students. This new one about an amazing engineer Beatrice Shilling who was born in 1909 by American author Mara Rockliff and British illustrator Daniel Duncan.

Blurb from the author web site: Beatrice Shilling wasn’t quite like other children. She could make anything. She could fix anything. And when she took a thing apart, she put it back together better than before. When Beatrice left home to study engineering, she knew that as a girl she wouldn’t be quite like the other engineers—and she wasn’t. She was better. Still, it took hard work and perseverance to persuade the Royal Aircraft Establishment to give her a chance. But when World War II broke out and British fighter pilots took to the skies in a desperate struggle for survival against Hitler’s bombers, it was clearly time for new ideas. Could Beatrice solve an engine puzzle and help Britain win the war?

An appealing biography that will inspire young scientists and those who may quietly rebel against the status quo. Kirkus

"Text and pictures work together to capture the life and spirit of a remarkable woman....The text is lively and succinct, full of vigorous action verbs. The expressive illustrations convey time and place beautifully and are infused variously with humour (such as when apprentice-engineer Beatrice, helping to bring electricity to villages, falls through a ceiling) and drama (as in a stunning double-page spread of London aflame during the Blitz)." Horn Book

I've added this Daniel Duncan book to my "to read" list: