Away with the Penguins by Hazel Prior

 

I’m recommending today Away with the Penguins by Hazel Prior

An eccentric old lady decides to investigate a colony of penguins in Antarctica.  

Themes abound. Life for Veronica McCreedy verges on the absurd at times. Both she and grandson Patrick are shocked to find each other. They change each other’s lives. And they are changed and touched by their encounter with the penguins. We discover Veronica’s past as Patrick reads her diaries and as she confesses other details to Terry, one of the researchers.    

Hazel Prior draws her characters well and presents them to us through two very effective first person narratives.   

Find your copy here.     

Chasing Danger by Sara Grant

This book is fast-paced from the start. The opening scene has fourteen-year-old Chase Armstrong shouting “Don’t leave me here.” Sara Grant then gives us a desolate setting.  We can be fooled into thinking the modern pirates mentioned in the blurb have arrived already. But not quite yet. When they do arrive, there’s more to them than the same blurb suggests.

Grant does well to maintain the tension and the pace. The situation with the pirates is bad enough but Chase also has to contend with a mysterious background. Who exactly was her mother? Will Ariadne even be a true grandmother?

Both the emotional and the action stakes are high. Grant maintains a firm narrative balance which achieves fast pace and emotional closeness at the same time. Her characters are extremely clearly drawn. This is also a real page turner. Nicely short chapters also add to the attractiveness. It’s so easy to read just one more chapter.

Who is the book for?  Well, Chase is fourteen, so presumably twelve-year-olds would like to read about her. Later primary, early secondary? Chase feels a little more mature than the Famous Five or characters from the Nancy Drew mysteries. Yet the adventure is similar and at the same time of a higher concept than these. The cover firmly suggests Chase is a teenager who cares about her appearance.    

No matter. I’m a lot older than any of them and I’m looking forward to the next one.        

  

Powder Monkey

By Paul Dowswell 

ISBN 9780747577218

Bloomsbury

I’m not usually attracted to boys’ adventure stories which is what the cover suggests this book is. However, I’d already read Paul Dowswell’s Ausländer and found it extremely useful for my Holocaust project as well as being very well written. Also, having lived for thirty years near Portsmouth I’ve developed a fascination for Nelson’s ship, the Victory. So, in the end, I couldn’t resist picking up Powder Monkey off the library shelf.

I wasn’t disappointed. Powder Monkey is also beautifully written. Main character Sam is totally convincing. We start to care about him just a few lines in. The story is told in Sam’s voice. We are right there with him all the way. There is also plenty of camaraderie amongst the men on the Miranda and in some ways the story is quite gentle. Yet there are plenty of spills and thrills and at any one point we are not sure what is going to happen next. And there are enough darker characters to bring  sufficient tension in.

I imagine this novel could appeal to a wide readership. It would be suitable for mature children at the end of primary school, ye there is enough adventure, blood and gore to suit older boys. Older girls may well fall in love with Sam or some of his friends and there is a hint of a love interest. There is enough fast-paced adventure for everyone.  

It is clear that Dowswell has been thorough in his research. Yet he does not overwhelm us with his knowledge. He simply creates a thoroughly believable world.    

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner

ISBN 978 1 84255 634 4  

Orion

This is pacey story with a good deal of magic in it. It takes place in France and England at the time of the French revolution. It is very different from Dickens’ story with the seam setting but the book nevertheless reminds me of Dickens: The Marquis de Villeduval is just like one of his middle-weight characters - someone who is important to the plot yet not really the owner of the story. In Dickens, these characters seem to be almost a caricature. So is the marquis. Count Kalliovski is pure evil. His character brings much of the tension into the story. All of this helped me to like the book.

What made me love it, though, were the characters of the main players. One cannot help but love Yann, Têtu, his friend and mentor, and Sido. They are warm-blooded, rounded and very believable characters. The story comes out of the problems that they face. There is magic, but it is not used to create easy solutions.   

This novel keeps the reader intrigued. The plot twists and turns and keeps us guessing. The love interest makes it appeal to teens. It balances adventure and romance well.