Thorugh All the Spaces by Alison Chisholm

 

This month I was torn again – this time between a poetry collection and a cosy crime. I’ve come down on the side of the poetry collection because I think it might appeal to the readers of this newsletter more. Poetry is unusual for me but a connection with the poet helps here.

Alison Chisholm is a patron of the Lancashire Authors Association and I am the membership secretary. I attended and enjoyed a workshop she ran for us.

I was delighted as well to attend the launch of Alison’s Thorough All the Spaces.
Certainly these lovely poems transport you to all sorts of times and places.
Read Gretel’s point of view about her clever brother who helped them get back home… and realise that she was just as clever.
And what of the heart-felt letter to Henry VIII form is first wife?
Or the story of the feisty Rosa Parks?
And so much more.
It was a real privilege also to hear Alison reading from this inspiring book.

I hope you will enjoy the book too.

Find your copy here.

Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you,  may go to Bridge House Publishing.  

 

Thes Motherless Land by Nikki May

 

I’ve read some great book this month and was quite torn between two:  Abi Daré’s And So I Roar and Nikki May’s This Motherless Land.  And So I Roar is the sequel to Daré’s award-winning story The Girls with the Louding Voice. May’s text just had the edge in readability and story-telling.

Tragic circumstances bring two cousins together. They become the best of friends and then the worst of enemies.   

May’s characters are so well drawn and we get wonderful feelings of times and place as the narrative shifts between modern Nigeria and a faded genteel English countryside.

There are the twists and turns, coincidences and questions about identify we welcome in popular fiction and the fine writing we love in literary fiction.

I saw both Daré and May at a Manchester Literature Festival event. It was such an interesting evening and I returned home with two hefty hardbacks.  Well worth the effort however.      

Find your copy here  

Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you,  may go to Bridge House Publishing.  

Mission Find Mum by Jo Somerset

I’ve only read a few books this month and one of those was Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories. I quite enjoyed that but it didn’t wow me and it did take me over half the month to read.

I’ve decided on Mission Find Mum, a middle grade story of abandonment and reconciliation.   Isla and Lac’s mum goes missing. I’ve picked this partly because I am so chuffed that one of my former students from the University of Salford has published a children’s book. 

‘Aunty Lou’ – not really their aunty but a friend of their mother who looks after them from time to time – cannot help his time as she has to go to hospital for an operation.  Mum had not realised this.

Isla, who is partially deaf, and wears an aid, is bullied at school and now has to act as parent to Lac, short for Lachlan, her younger brother.  A look at her mum’s browsing history indicates to Isla that Mum has gone to the Hebrides.

So, she Lac, her hamster Weasley and Lac’s Luke Skywalker toy set off. They manage but don’t shine at camping and fending for themselves. Jo Somerset really has got rid of the adults and left the children to have the adventure on their own.  Unlike in the Enid Blyton books this isn’t fun and it isn’t even too comfortable.

The police and social workers are now looking for them.  

There are some charming coincidences, just like in all the good works by Dickens, Molière and Shakespeare. The children inadvertently end up at their Granny’s home. The co-pilot in the helicopter that is looking for them is their father. Granny recognises the ring Isla has brought with her.

It’s all a slightly uncomfortable read.  Was Mum negligent to go off and leave them like that? Why had Dad abandoned them?

It comes right in the end but still leaves questions.    

The book is 209 pages long.  It uses a blocked text and an adult serif with difficult   ‘a’s and ‘g’s.   Each chapter heading has a black and white picture of something to do with the chapter.

In the acknowledgments Somerset refers to her work with Greenback Primary school.

There is also a note for children about where they might get help if they are facing problems like Isla’s. 

 

Find your copy here 

Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you, may go to Bridge House Publishing.    

 

The Others by Sarah Merett

 

I have to confess to knowing Sarah from a long time back: we did our MA in Wring for Children together at the University of Winchester, 1998 to 2000.  The college was rather charmingly then known as King Alfred’s College. 

Reuben and his grandmother are constantly looking from their observatory for visitors from another planet.

One day those visitors arrive. Grandma rushes off to meet them and Rueben is home alone.  A friend appears in the forms of Archie, the son of a local grocer. There is something wrong with Reuben’s eyes and he has to wear special glasses. 

Reuben gradually finds out that not everything is what is seems.

Sarah Merrett offers us pace, tension and loveable characters in The Others.

  

Find your copy here.      

 

Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you, may go to Bridge House Publishing.    

The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood

 

This month I’m recommending The Royal Librarian by Daisy Wood.

Two sisters are torn apart by the Nazi’s cleansing of Jews in Vienna.

One becomes the Royal Librarian at Windsor castle. We do not find out what has happened, to the other until her granddaughter starts to investigate other than that she emigrated to America.

So, we have two time-lines here and we do have several points of view.

This works very well in this case.

The fictionalised versions of Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret are also very convincing.

This is well written and for me a page-turner. Daisy Wood entertains and gives you food for thought in her compelling The Roya Librarian.    

 Find your copy here.      

 

Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you, may go to Bridge House Publishing.