Naeli and the Secret Song by Jasbinder Bilan

Blurb from Chicken House: Naeli longs to know her English father, who abandoned her when she was little. All she has is his name – and his precious violin. Her chance comes when a ticket to England arrives mysteriously. Leaving behind her beloved India, Naeli embarks on an adventure that will take her from the streets of Victorian London to the wilds of Northumberland to discover the truth of her musical inheritance.

This book contains plot details that act like perfect coincidences:

• On the ship, Naeli meets a boy called Jack who is also travelling to England. On the long three month voyage he is able to teach her English.
• Naeli is taken to work in a bakery when she arrives and her violin is stolen. Then, very mysteriously, she is taken to the house of a wealthy member of parliament - he is her Uncle Daniel and he has the violin. He seems friendly but only at first. But then he turns nasty and demands Naeli play every possible tune on the violin - but why?
• Jack is also in London at a boarding school near Westminster and Uncle Daniel lives close by so when Naeli escapes, she is able to find the school and by chance she finds herself in a laundry room so she can disguise herself as a boy from the school and then in the huge dining hall she is able to find Jack.
• Luckily Jack has money and so they set off by train to the remote country mansion, Swallowfield Hall, in Northumberland. The two servants seem like very shifty characters and clearly they are hiding something - then Naeli and Jack hear mysterious noises in the night and Naeli sees an extra breakfast tray in the kitchen. Who are they hiding? Is her father really dead? Can a tune from her violin help to reunite them? And how lucky to find a map of the estate in the Swallowfield Hall library - because also luckily Jack recognised the clue of 5,3 as a map coordinate. 

Adults reading this book might laugh over all the 'contrived' plot details but I am sure the story will intrigue young readers aged 10+ who have less experience with mystery stories and skullduggery by greedy family members who are desperate for money. 

This story does have overtones of The Secret Garden - there is a mystery; someone is lost; there needs to be healing by a young child; the story starts in India with the death of a parent; and best off all the kids find a key and a secret door!

Here is the scene with the key (spoiler alert the clues were in the pegs of the violin):

"The door was only small, like an opening to a cupboard. ... Naeli's throat was dry. She thought about how long the key had been hidden in the violin and how Uncle Daniel had been desperate to find it. If the key did fit this tiny lock, she was sure it would reveal something important ... "

Read a book extract here. Read more plot details in this post from the Historical Novel Society.

Jasbinder Bilan has created a wonderful fast-paced tale, a mix of adventure, mystery and historical fiction, as we leave behind the traditional Indian world and enter Victorian England, where women are treated very differently of course than they are today. Our heroine Naeli is strong and determined, facing a new life and the many obstacles in her path with determination and courage as the twists and turns of her story unfold. Books for Keeps

Here are four other books by Jasbinder Bilan:

Companion books:

Withering-by-Sea (and sequels)

The Fortune Maker

The Haunting of Charity Delafield

A Case of Grave Danger

The Truth about Verity Sparks

The Ghost of Gosswater

The Monsters of Rookhaven by Padraig Kenny illustrated by Edward Bettison

Two human children, who have suffered greatly after the deaths of both of their parents, arrive at the doorstep of Rookhaven House which is a huge mansion some distance from the nearest town called Rookhaven. Until now the house and its monstrous inhabitants have been protected by and separated from the nearby village by the Glamour but somehow it has opened. This is how the children get in after their car runs out of petrol but of course if things can come in it also means things can go out. One of the creatures in this house is named Piggie. He lives in a locked basement, and he is fed raw meat through a low flap in the door. One of the human children, a boy named Tom, is curious and somehow the door to Piggie's room is opened. Piggie escapes and viciously attacks a cow belonging to a local farmer because Piggie craves fresh meat. The scene is utterly dreadful but what this also means is that the Covenant between the village of Rookhaven and the monsters has been broken.

Meanwhile a truly evil figure arrives in Rookhaven. He latches onto the family of the local butcher. The butcher, Mr Fletcher, and his son Freddie are two of the people from the village who do visit the monster's house using a special key to open the Glamour. The key is held in trust by the local doctor, Dr Ellenby. Each week, Freddie and his father deliver huge boxes of raw meat for the inhabitants. 

Freddie knows this 'man' is dangerous but his father, who is wracked with grief over the death of his older son on a World War II battlefield, is completely entranced by this smooth-talking fellow who names himself Arnold Pheeps. After Freddie confronts Pheeps he learns the truth. Pheeps is also a monster but he is far more dangerous. He feeds on souls, and he plans to do this at Rookhaven House. He has come because - think about actions and consequences - when Piggie escaped his scent was spread and now this man aptly named The Malice is ready to attack. He is able to incite the village people into a frenzy of anger and they all march up to attack the monsters. This is a battle scene that is sure to linger with you long after reading this book. Oh, and I do need to mention the enormous carnivorous plants that guard the path leading up to the house. In an opening scene we meet Mirabelle, and she is feeding the plants huge bones with flesh still attached. Mirabelle herself is only partly a monster. She does not need to eat and she cannot transform herself into other forms, but she has amazing powers which we discover over the course of the story including her control over these horrid flowers. 

"Mirabelle was in the garden feeding bones to the flowers ... The flowers swayed above her, sniffing the night air. She could hear the creaking of their tree-trunk-thick stalks and the soft wet sibilance of their petals smacking together as they fed. Though they were nursery plants, each one of them was already over six feet tall, their heads moving blindly in the starry night."

You could use this text extract in a book talk with your (not squeamish) students pointing out the key words - feeding bones, sniffing, sibilance, blindly.

Bookseller blurb: Sometimes the monsters take us. Sometimes we become the monsters. Mirabelle has always known she is a monster. When the glamour protecting her unusual family from the human world is torn and an orphaned brother and sister stumble upon Rookhaven, Mirabelle soon discovers that friendship can be found in the outside world. But as something far more sinister comes to threaten them all, it quickly becomes clear that the true monsters aren't necessarily the ones you can see.

Take a look at the Kirkus review. You can read more plot details by clicking these review quotes:

Three things made this book special: the characters, the post-war setting, and the illustrations. Its cast is a real kaleidoscope of personalities. From the monsters to the humanism, each is significant to the story in a way where there’s an equality at play. The shifting perspectives help this. Just Imagine

As with the best monster stories too, the world he creates and its bizarre inhabitants are so well described that Rookhaven feels like a place we might already know or come across.  It’s a work of astounding imagination, written with a confidence and flair that is definitely out of the ordinary and genuinely thrilling too.  Congratulations to illustrator Edward Bettison whose black and white drawings properly reflect and even add to the drama of the story. Books for Keeps

If the first half of the book was intriguing, the second half was absolutely gripping ... Libraries 4 Schools

If you assign genre labels to fiction then this book is most resoundingly a horror story. There were parts where I just had to stop reading and take a break. Horror is not a genre that I seek out. I picked this book because I enjoyed a previous book by Padraig Kenny:

Tin

Tin did have some horror moments and then I read Stitch - and I now realise both of these books should have prepared me for the violence and bloodthirsty scenes in The Monsters of Rookhaven.

Stitch

Some time ago someone asked for character descriptions - here are a few from The Monsters of Rookhaven.

"Mr Teasdale, the local postmaster, stepped out of one car. He was a short, nervous-looking man dressed in tweed with a high pink colour to his face and round spectacles."

"Reverend Dankworth, a long tall wisp of a man, climbed out of the passenger seat with the slow long-legged grace of a spider emerging from a crack in a skirting board."

"Odd was the same height as her, and like her he looked no more than twelve years old, but he was of course far, far older. He was wearing a bulky seal-skin coat that stretch right down to his ankles, heavy mittens, a cap and goggles."

"Uncle Bertram was very tall and fat. He wore yellow-pinstriped trousers, a red cravat, a mustard-coloured shirt, a purple smoking jacket and a green waistcoat. His large bearded face twitched with excitement."

I now discover there is a sequel to The Monsters of Rookhaven. I am not sure I have the courage right now to re-enter this world but I have added this title to my massive 'to read' list. I think the two book covers are fabulous as are the internal illustrations by Edward Bettison. You can see inside the book here. Readers with courage aged 11+ are sure to enjoy The Monsters of Rookhaven - it might hook in a reluctant but capable (boy) reader who enjoys gruesome scenes and stories filled with edge of your seat tension. 

Companion books:

Curse of the Night Wolf

A Very Unusual Pursuit

Fire Girl

The Graveyard Book

Small Spaces - this is a YA title

Wren by Lucy Hope

Wren has the perfect name - she really wants to fly like a bird. Wren does not have a perfect life. Her mother has died from her own attempt to fly. Wren lives with her angry and distant father, cruel younger brother and an aunt who is confined to a coal powered wheel chair because, while Aunty Afa survived the flight with Wren's mother, she was badly injured. 

Wren secretly begins to build her own flying machine using plans from France, but strange things are happening to their ancient home. There are weird noises, huge cracks in the walls and the whole place seems to shudder from time to time but when Wren tries to ask questions about this she is told it is all just her imagination. 

If you look at my labels for this post you will get an idea about the cause of this disturbance. 

Nosy Crow blurb: A dark, Gothic adventure set on the island of Anglesey in North Wales and featuring a very fantastical beast… Wren lives in an ancient castle in the mountains near the sea. The wind whistles through it and the walls sing to her. Wren is busy inventing things, and her father is busy disapproving. But the castle contains a mystery and as Wren is drawn further into it, she realises the answer lies in the very foundations of her home, foundations that are being shaken to their core…

If your young reading companion (age 10+) has good reading stamina then they are sure to enjoy the final scenes in Wren but the journey to reach these moments is quite a long one although I did enjoy "watching" Wren construct her amazing flying machine using her Aunt's dresses, her own small coracle, and hundreds of bird feathers.

Warning Spoiler Alert: I knew/know nothing about Welsh mythology and especially about the famous Mabinogion stories but I have now read one story from this famous collection contains two dragons - one red and one white and a character named Emrys. In Wren, a strange reclusive man called Emrys is mysteriously connected with the dragon. And a boy named Medwyn also knows the story of the dragon under the castle and he helps Wren with her plans for flight and for saving the trapped dragon so I will say if you can find a simple version of this story written for children it might enrich your enjoyment of Wren. Medwyn is a character from Lloyd Alexander's book series The Chronicles of Prydain which are also based on parts of the Mabinogion. 

Here is an interview with Lucy Hope where she talks about the inspiration for her book. Read this review and you will also find some comprehensive teaching notes. Thanks to Beachside Bookshop for my advance copy of Wren which was published in October, 2022. 

Companion read:

Sky Chasers

Wren also made me think of an older Gothic title (which has continued to haunt me):

The Lost Children

The Midnighters by Hana Tooke

"Curiosity is the best antidote to fear."

Ema Vaškova is the twelfth child born at midnight on the 12th December, 1877. Of course she will have a special destiny. Ema has an amazing talent but because it does not seem to be scientific her family are not interested in hearing her ideas. Ema does, however, have several very special talents. She can predict disasters - usually connected with the number 12; she can move around her home and through crowds unseen and over looked; and she can 'read' people by observing tiny changes to facial expressions. She is also sensitive to shadows. She can spot lies and her skin itches warning her of impending disasters. 

Over time all of her eleven siblings leave home to pursue their scientific studies and then quite suddenly her parents declare they are leaving too and Ema finds herself living with her eccentric uncle and his Maine Coon cat named Ferkel. From her attic window Ema sees a young girl hanging upside down in an upstairs room of the building next door. Silvie is not a ghost, she is a real girl and she will be the best friend Ema could ever hope to meet.  Silvie meets Ema once a month and she takes her on wild and daring adventures through the city in the middle of the night. Then one day Silvie disappears. All Ema has is fragments of information from Ema and a set of cryptic words which she found under the wallpaper in her attic room - the same room where her mysterious grandmother Liliana died on the night Ema was born.

There are some wonderful words used in this book such as a favourite of mine - splendiferous. Here are a few text quotes to give you a flavour of this story:

"It was a night so dusky the streetlamps looked like fallen stars. A night seized by fierce frost, which crept up the spires of Prague until they glimmered like diamond stalagmites ....  It was a night that would bear a new small life. And, alas, a smidge of death."

"The twelfth child born into the Vaskov family was a girl with hair the colour of spider silk, and candle-smoke eyes flecked with the palest blue."

"When I'm out in the city, I'm constantly being bumped into and trodden on. when I'm home, it seems I'm always startling someone with my presence. That's why I got this bell collar but I've come to realise that no matter what I try, no one notices me. There must be a scientific reason."

"During the day, Prague was a phantasmagoria of colour. The spires gleamed, the red-tiled rooftops battled the turquoise church domes for attention, stone gargoyles grinned downwards and saintly statures gazed upwards."

"Fairy tales breathe truth into the world. They are more real than you and me."

If you have seen the movie The Greatest Showman the scenes in The Midnights, where we enter a strange midnight full moon circus, have a similar, slightly surreal feel. 

When I saw Hana Tooke had a new book I eagerly purchased it from my local bookstore. I adored her previous book The Unadoptables. 

Read some reviews of The Midnighters:

Kirkus Star Review

The Kids Books Curator (this review contains a detailed recount of the plot).

Books for Topics - An interview with Hana Tooke

Up to page 99 I was enjoying this book thoroughly and I filled the pages with markers to note passages I wanted to share here on my blog then from page 100 to page 347 the story expanded into something unexpected and complex with a huge cast of characters and my reading became a little more disjointed. In the final scenes from pages 348 to 392 everything finally fell back into place and my enjoyment was restored. So all of this means I was going to give this book 5 stars, then 4 and now I am not sure. I think readers aged 10+ with good reading stamina, a love of fantasy, and readers who pay attention to tiny plot details will enjoy this book.

There is some delicious sounding food in this book including kolache.

And babovká and rohličky:

The Violet Veil Mysteries: A Case of Grave Danger by Sophie Cleverly

Fans of feisty girl heroes; detective stories; unsolved mysteries; and clever dogs will certainly enjoy this first book in The Violet Veil Mysteries series.

Publisher blurb: Violet Veil wants nothing more than to prove her worth and become her father’s apprentice at Veil & Sons Undertakers. And one rain-soaked night she gets her chance when she meets a boy, Oliver, who is wandering around the graveyard. Only, the last time Violet saw Oliver, he was indoors and very much dead, waiting to be buried. Violet has just found her first case, and it doesn’t get bigger than this: can she, with the help of her dog, Bones, help Oliver solve his own ‘murder’?

Other things you need to know about Violet:

• She is a girl living in Victorian England
• Girls are not allowed to aspire to an education and she will never be allowed to work with her father in the family Funeral business. 
• Violet's father has been accused of murder. Four men have very recently been buried in the graveyard beside the family undertaker's shop. The four men were all found in a dangerous and poor part of the town but these men, Violet discovers later, are all very wealthy.
• If Violet cannot prove her father is innocent he will hang. The police dismiss her as merely a girl who should not interfere.
• Violet is not afraid to spend time among the graves even at night - the dead feel like her friends.
• Oliver, the boy who someone has also tried to murder, needs to regain his memory but time is short. Oliver and Violet need to form a team and follow all leads to solve this terrible crime.

I read A Case of Grave Danger by Sophie Cleverly (author of the Scarlet and Ivy series) very quickly because it is a story with a terrific pace. Violet does solve this crime about halfway through the story but the police will not act without evidence. Luckily her dog Bones has a good nose for clues and luckily Violet herself is a very brave and determined young girl.

Fans of The Graveyard book by Neil Gaiman will also enjoy A case of Grave Danger. 

The Victorian setting with the morbid fascination with death, and life in a mortuary, evokes a sense of place, and oozes mystery throughout. Ashleigh Meikle

Full of mystery, excitement, adventure and suspense, this fantastic beginning to the series, sees Violet evolve and assert her individuality. Kids' Book Review

You can read the first chapter here. Or you can listen here.

Companion reads:

The Detectives Guide to Ocean Travel

Violet and the Pearl of the Orient

The Mystery of the Clockwork Sparrow

The Truth about Verity Sparks

The Case of the Missing Moonstone

Black cats and Butlers

The Ghost of Gosswater by Lucy Strange

Lady Agatha Asquith has had a privileged childhood but it has been strange too. Her parents have felt distant all her life and Agatha has not been allowed to spend time away from the family estate called Gosswater Hall. As this story opens her father has just died. Her mother died two years ago. Cousin Clarence has arrived to claim his inheritance as the sole male heir and he has told Agatha she must leave now, today. He has told her that her real father is coming to collect her. And in a parting shot he declares her father is a convicted thief just out of gaol. Aggie's whole world is completely and utterly turned upside down. 

There are so many mysteries here. Who is Aggie's father? Is it truly Thomas Walters the man who collects her and who lives in a small cottage with his geese? What did the Will, made by that father she has known all her life, really say? And where is the famed Queen Stone? 

Yes there is a ghost in this story but that is certainly not the main focus. Aggie is a strong, brave, resourceful girl who is determined to find out the truth. I especially loved the tension in this story when Aggie visits the remote island graveyard at night with the mist and rain swirling around her - creepy and delicious.  What a delight this book is! The surprise revelations about the true identity of Agatha completely took me by surprise.

You can read an extract from the book here. In this short video Lucy Strange reads from her book.

Perfect for independent readers seeking a book to really escape into as the nights get darker, or a gentle bedtime read to snuggle up with. Book Trust

This is a Gothic story, very well told, with a beautiful and brave heroine, a villain, tombs, a missing opal, a huge fire and a very terrifying dog. Books for Keeps

Here are the other two books on this blog by Lucy Strange which I also thoroughly enjoyed:

The Secret of Nightingale Wood

Our Castle by the sea

I would pair The Ghost of Gosswater with The Truth about Verity Sparks and The Haunting of Charity Delafield.

The Boy who Flew by Fleur Hitchcock

Written with great gusto but also much subtlety, The Boy Who Flew is a thunderingly good period adventure. And it has a lot to say about the virtues of friendship, family, and courage. The BookBag

Athan is living in very impoverished circumstances. We don't know the date but it feels like the late 19th Century. Suspicion and superstition abound. Athan has a disabled sister. His grandmother thinks the real Beatty has been kidnapped and that the child in their house is a changeling. This is nonsense but it is dangerous nonsense.

Athan is a boy of science. He has been working for a scientist called Mr Chen but everyone around Athan is suspicious of this foreigner. What they don't know is that Mr Chen has been designing a flying machine. Mr Chen is close to completion when a murderer strikes. Mr Chen is dead but Athan has seen the plans and he knows he can build a machine that will fly and better yet a machine that can win the huge reward on offer. But the murderer is still on the loose and worse he has befriended Athan's mother.

This is an action packed story. I loved the way Fleur Hitchcock only gives us fragments of information and as a reader we are expected to 'join the dots'. This is also a highly atmospheric story. Here is a perfect example when Athan looks for the flying machine plans which are hidden in an outside latrine:

"The smell almost makes me vomit, but I gulp it back and breathe thinly through my mouth ... With my chest bare, I stretch my arm down the privy pit and my head gets closer and closer to the seat, and the stench. My fingers brush the cold slimy sides of the pit before I can feel something different."

Huge thanks to Beachside Bookshop for my advanced reader copy of The Boy who Flew which was published in March this year.

I would pair this with the Barnaby Grimes series by Paul Stewart. Athan does most of his thinking on the rooftops of the city just like those wonderful tick tock lads in the Barnaby Crimes series. Steam Punk fans will love this book.  I don't often talk about age appropriateness of a text but there are some quite violent scenes in this book and (spoiler) a character does die in awful circumstances. The publisher lists this as suitable for 9-12 but I think 11+ would be a better guide. Some of my labels might give you further ideas about this book.

Here are some review extracts.  You can click the links for more plot details:

a thrilling, murderous tale set among the steep rooftops and slippery characters of Athan's intricately imagined world. Love Reading 4 Kids

This story is set on the gritty, grimy streets  and rickety snow-covered rooftops of the big city where life is cheap and danger lurks around every corner. Library Girl and Book Boy

Fast-paced and thrilling, this truly is a edge-of-your-seat adventure, full of twists and turns that will keep you holding your breath to the very last page. Book Lover Jo

The story flies across the rooftops with an exhilarating plot of danger and intrigue. Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books

Magrit by Lee Battersby

Sometimes books come along to test boundaries 

Magpies Volume 31, issue 2, page 32.

When I read a book from our school library my mind often wanders to thoughts of which student might enjoy it. Magrit is almost impossible to categorise.  While I did enjoy Magrit it is such an odd book and at times feels quite harsh and dark.  Some reviewers suggest age 10 but I think this is really a book for a very senior primary student and certainly one who has read quite widely.

The setting for Magrit is a cemetery.  Magrit lives there with her 'friend' Mister Puppet.  Magrit herself created Mr Puppet.

"Magrit had pieced him together from elements she had found in every corner of the graveyard : a bone here, a stick there, a tin can in one corner and rotten twine from a garbage bag in another. Now he sat at the apex of the roof, with his long arms wrapped around the stone cross, and kept vigil."

Mr Puppet is the voice of doubt, the voice of reason perhaps the voice of authority.  He gives Magrit advice which is presented in a bold hand drawn font.

When a stork drops a tiny baby into the graveyard Mr Puppet orders Magrit to kill it but she does not.  Instead she nurtures and cares for the tiny infant.  She finds ways to feed, clothe and wash her new 'friend' and gives him the name Bugrat. Through care of this child Magrit discovers love and finds happiness. There is, however, one dark corner of the graveyard Magrit never visits.  Everything changes when Bugrat learns to walk and sets of exploring.  He wanders over to the forbidden place and finds the skeleton of a young girl and Magrit is distraught.

"It was a small skeleton, obviously a child, curled up on its side as if sleeping, with its legs drawn up towards its chest and arms folded as if hugging a non-existent teddy ...  Magrit realised that the whole world had fallen silent ... The murmur and hum that always emanated from the surrounding buildings, so prevalent that she never really noticed, was painful in its absence ."

You can read more of the plot here.

Watch this short video to hear the author Lee Battersby from Western Australia talk about Magrit.  I am not sure that I would read this book with a class but here are a set of teacher notes from Walker Books which might give you some further insights into this complex and yet compelling book.

Magrit is a unique book but it does have some links with The Graveyard book, The Unfinished Angel and perhaps Skellig.

You can read some reviews here by clicking these quotes:

Themes include resilience, responsibility and independence, wrapped up in a suspenseful and fantastical mystery. 

Magrit has plenty of soul, sadness, despair, and hope. It’s a delightfully dark fairy tale, full of Battersby’s whimsy and charm.

Magrit is a wonderfully crafted story that is magical, unusual, strange and captivating.  I haven’t read anything quite like it before.  

The haunting of Charity Delafield by Ian Beck

This little book The Haunting of Charity Delafield has been in our school library for over a year and each time I shelve it I think - 'I really must read this one' - so yesterday I finally picked it up and two hours later I sighed with happiness.  The cover looked so promising and I am happy to say I was not disappointed.

Charity is about to turn thirteen.  Her whole life has been spent in one house and one garden.  She has not met any other children or been to school. Her father is a distant almost frightening figure who controls every aspect of her life even the number of times her unruly hair is to be brushed by one of the servants called Rose.  The 75 strokes of the brush twice each day are an agony for Charity but she knows this is something she must endure. Just as she knows her questions, and she has many, will remain unanswered.

"She was not allowed to run, or to explore much of her own house, or to leave the grounds.  In fact, she was not allowed outside at all, except under strict supervision.  She was discouraged from reading books of fairy tales and mythology."

All of this is about to change when one morning her father announces Charity is to be sent to a special boarding school.  On this same day she meets a mysterious old woman beside the fence which surrounds her home.  The woman seems to know Charity and more importantly reveals that Charity's mother is not dead, as she has been told.  The old woman tells Charity to look for a horn.

The other hugely significant event on this momentous day is the arrival of the Chimney Sweep and his apprentice Silas Jones.  When Silas meets Charity he immediately offers to be her friend. Together they explore the forbidden parts of the house using the chimneys.  They find a small diary but as the words are read they disappear into smoke and a book of fairy tales.  Each night Charity reads the fairy tales which seems to be hinting at her own history.

One of my favourite parts comes after their first foray into the soot filled hearth.

"They stood in the fireplace, smiling at each other, both covered in soot"
Silas slips away up the chimney just as Edward, the groundsman, arrives to check on Charity who has now been locked in her room.
"her eyes flicked down.  With a shock she realized that the soot had all disappeared.  Her nightdress was as white as snow, and her hair was shining gold; she looked as if she had just stepped out of the  bath."

You can read a sample from the book here.  Here are some insights into the writing process.

This book reminded me of The Secret Garden, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Little White horse by Elizabeth Gouge (I loved this book as a child) and Withering-by-Sea.

The Lost Children by Carolyn Cohagan

The Lost Children is an oddly haunting book.  Here is a trailer which is worth watching as an introduction to the story but it does make it all slightly more scary than the actual book.

Josephine lives a strange life with her distant father.  All people in their community are forced to wear gloves. "How did this silly law get passed in the first place?  It happened one night many years ago when Mr. Russing was in the middle of a heated game of five card stud with the city mayor. .. when he won, he decided to forgo his monetary winnings and demand that the mayor pass a new law on his behalf.  ... Mr. Russing was the only man who manufactured gloves in the town, so one can imagine how much this law improved his business."

This explains why Josephine owns 387 pairs of gloves but it does not explain why her father ignores her completely.  One day out in the garden she meets a mysterious boy.  Later she follows him to a strange world ruled by a tyrannical master and two vile monsters called The Brothers. These are the most loathsome of creatures. "They had thick coats of what looked like black fur running from their foreheads down their backs and into their tails.  But as the sun hit the creatures, she saw that it wasn't fur at all.  It was more like spikes or quills.  ... Pointed ears stuck out of square heads.  Each creature had beady yellow eyes and a muzzle that ended in a piglike nose. But most horrifying and terrible of all was ... these animals had no mouths."  Fergus has come from an orphanage in another place and time.  Following him Josephine meets Ida, another orphan, and the three children set out to uncover the truth about the Master and the fate of many other children who have also disappeared.

Here is a good review if you need more details of the plot.  You can read an extract from the book here.  I was wondering how I came to buy this book but now I see it was reviewed by my friend Mr K and once again I totally agree with his comments.  If I had to label this book I would say it is a combination of Peter Pan, Great Expectations, Jumanji and The Pied Piper of Hamlin.

Midnight is a place by Joan Aiken

“So how you can you teach people not to worry?’ ‘You ask some large size questions’ .. ‘You can do it in two ways. … Either you make their lives so much better that they don’t have to worry – or you teach them that worrying doesn’t help, but is only a waste of time.’ … ‘I think both ways together would be best,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘For some people will always be worrying – if only about whether the soup is going to be thick enough or the milk will go sour. So you make them comfortable and you tell them not to unquiet themselves.”

Wisdom like this abounds in Midnight is a Place by Joan Aiken. This is another old book from our library collection. We have disposed of this copy but re-reading it over the last two days has convinced me to purchase a new copy. It was first published in 1974 but Joan Aiken is such a skilled writer this book must be considered a classic.

If you are an adult reader who loved Oliver Twist and other novels by Charles Dickens then you will want your child to read Midnight is a Place. The only difficulty for a young reader might be the phonetic spelling Aiken uses for the various English and French accents but I am sure with a little perseverance a young reader will manage these. The Secret Garden is one possible way to introduce this way of writing.

Lucas has lost both his parents and has been sent to live with his guardian Sir Randolph who is a drunken gambler. Sir Randolph fraudulently won the estate of Midnight Court following a wager many years earlier. As the story opens Lucas has been living in this house for two years with only his tutor, Mr Oakapple, for company. It is Luc’s birthday tomorrow and as he looks forlornly out the window he sees a carriage arrive containing a young French girl. Before Lucas can discover why this girl has been sent to Midnight Court or exactly how she is connected to the family, he is taken down to the mill.

The mill is a carpet factory. It is an incredibly dangerous place. “It was not so much that the sights were frightening, though some were that; but they were so strange, so totally unfamiliar compared with anything that he had ever seen before; the shapes and movements of the machines were so black, quick, ugly, or sudden; the noises were so atrociously loud, the heat was so blistering, the smells so sickly, acid or stifling.” The most awful part is the pressing machine. The carpets are spread out under a great metal slab. Very young children work as snatchers. They must quickly run onto the carpet before the press falls to remove any fluff or dirt. Just prior to Lucas’s arrival a young child has been killed.

The grimy town, factories, unions and poverty are reminiscent of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and Lyddie by Katherine Paterson or Bread and Roses, too.
Lucas and Anna-Marie do have a special destiny but before this can be fulfilled both will be in great danger. Lucas will be forced to work as a tosher looking for treasure in the underground sewers. These scenes are so vividly explained you will feel the claustrophobia, smell the stench and hear the rats and hogs as they charge after human flesh. Meanwhile Anna-Marie will go to work at the carpet mill where she will experience some of the horrors I just described first hand. Luckily both children will find some true friends and their good sense, kindness towards one another and ingenuity will save the day.

I highly recommend Midnight is a Place. You can read more of the plot here. Also there was a television series.

Barnaby Grimes Curse of the Night Wolf by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell

This fabulous gothic horror story is set in the London of Charles Dickens. Barnaby is a tick tock lad or messenger. He uses the roof tops as a quick route across the city and he knows all the nooks and crannies like the back of his hand.

The first page sets the tone for this book “Have you ever felt your skin being peeled slowly away from your arms and legs. Your muscles being torn and shredded as every bone in your body fights to burst through your flesh? Have you ever felt every tendon and sinew stretched to breaking point as your skeleton attempts to rip itself apart from the inside? I have and I’ll never forget it.”
Barnaby finds himself in the employ of the mysterious Dr Cadallader. Read more about the plot here.

Paul Stewart gives marvelous descriptions of his characters. Dr Cadallader had long white hair, parted in the centre, a pale, almost chalky pallor to his face and a pair of pince-nez spectacles. The illustrations by Chris Riddell are so detailed and fine. I especially liked the one on page 62 which shows Barnaby descending from a rooftop in a maneuver called a rolling derby. You can read more about these moves on the web site for this book listed below.

If you enjoy a touch of horror, werewolves, sinister characters and things that go bump in the night look for this book in our library you will not be disappointed. The web site for this book is outstanding - don't miss it. Turn on your computer and listen to the web site sound effects as you begin to read this story. Good news there are at least two more books in this series for you to enjoy too! Look for Legion of the dead and Return of the emerald skull.