Tag Archives: children’s fiction

Operation Sippacik by Rumer Godden

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Operation Sippacik by Rumer Godden was published in 1969. The setting is Cyprus. Rumer Godden was on holiday there when she was told the story of a brave donkey and she decided to write it.

The men of the 27th Battery Royal Artillery were part of a United Nations force who were in Cyprus as part of a peace keeping force, trying to stop the Greek and Turkish Cypriots from killing each other.

Sippacik is a very small donkey which is owned by a small boy called Rifat, he had witnessed the donkey’s birth and had a strong bond with her, so when Rifat’s grandfather sold the donkey to the British Army Rifat was not happy, but money was scarce, particularly as Rifat’s father was not around to help on the family farm.  Rifat’s father has been a bit of a local hero, but he had been taken away by the Greek Cypriot police.

Rifat has been dodging school and when the soldiers realise that they can’t cope with the donkey’s awkward temperament it’s arranged for Rifat to live at the army camp and look after Sippacik. They get involved in a dangerous adventure.

This book was probably aimed at ten year olds, it’s entertaining and educational. I bought it just because it was written by Rumer Godden. She seems to have been inspired to write wherever she went on holiday, or moved to. In her old age she moved to Scotland to live to be close to her daughter, and I was impressed by the way that she obviously threw herself into the culture of Scotland and even managed to write in dialect in her book for children The Dragon of Og.

A Christmas Card by Paul Theroux

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A Christmas Card by Paul Theroux was published in 1978. This is one of the books that I was reading to try to get me into the mood for Christmas, but so far non of them have been exactly what I expected, anyway, this was still a good read, certainly a very quick read at just 73 pages and is probabbly aimed at older children really. It’s very slightly spooky. It has some black and white illustrations by John Lawrence.

The tale is told by the elder of two young brothers, Marcel who is nine years old. Louis is his younger brother (yes, that Louis). Their father had decided to take them to their home in Indian Falls to spend Christmas there, they’ve never been there before and driving through a blizzard is not the most sensible thing to do, inevitably they end up lost. As it’s  a very rural area and the few houses and businesses around are closed up for the season they’re in trouble, but eventually they see what seems to be a hotel or road house and stop to ask for help.

An ederly man invites them in, his name is Pappy apparently, and they end up staying overnight, but in the morning Pappy is nowhere to be seen, but he has left a Christmas card behind and they realise that the card is as good as a map, according to the boys’ father the building on it is an image of their holiday home, and they can just follow the road to it – which they do.

It’s Christmas Eve and the older boy, Marcel, notices that as night falls outside the Christmas card becomes dark too, and he has also noticed that there’s a tiny spot of light on the card which moves, he guesses that it’s Pappy moving around and he’s coming in their direction. Earlier when they had gone to cut down their Christmas tree Marcel had thought he had seen the strange man and he is nervous.

This is quite an atmospheric read, but all’s well that ends well.

I was just surprised that the author, Paul Theroux had written a book using his sons as the charaecters, like A.A. Milne did disastrously to Christopher Robin, but it doesn’t seem to have done Marcel and Louis any lasting harm, that we know of anyway.

 

Robinsheugh by Eileen Dunlop

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Robinsheugh by Eileen Dunlop was first published in 1975.  The setting is the Scottish Border Country, but it begins in London’s King’s Cross Station where Elizabeth has just boarded a train bound for Scotland. She’s not at all happy, her parents are going to America for months and Elizabeth had been desperate to go with them, but it couldn’t be afforded and Elizabeth is having to go to stay with her aunt, a historian who usually lives in Oxford but at the moment she’s doing research at Robinsheugh into the family that lived there during the 18th century.

When Elizabeth reaches her destination she’s absolutely miserable, it’s evident that her aunt has very little time for her and she’s more interested in the past. But when Elizabeth finds an old hand mirror which by coincidence has her own initials on it strange things begin to happen and she finds herself being drawn back into the past to become part of the 18th century family.

I liked this one although I was almost rolling my eyes at what at first seemed to be the usual cliche of the old mirror and a time slip, admittedly there is something strange about really old mirrors. It’s the thought of all the people who have looked at their reflection in the glass that you’ll never know, and what were they thinking, what did they look like?

Anyway, it turned out to be not such a cliche. Apparently this was the first book by Eileen Dunlop who was born in Alloa and was  a teacher at Dollar Academy.

October, October by Katya Balen – 20 Books of Summer 2023

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October, October by Katya Balen was published in 2020 and it won the Carnegie Medal  in 2022.

October is 11 years old and she’s named after the month she was born in as after trying out many names October was the only one which didn’t bounce off the walls and hit the floor with a thud – according to her father.  October and her father live in a wood, it’s an alternative way of life with no frills, but as October has only known that life she doesn’t feel like she’s missing out on anything. They do a big shop in a nearby town once a year for the things that they aren’t able to grow themselves. The woman who is my mother, as October refers to her mother decided that she couldn’t live that sort of life any more and went to live a ‘normal’ life in London, leaving October with her father.  October refuses to have anything to do with her.

Although October doesn’t go to school and has no friends except her father she is being educated by her dad, she even helps him with the solar panels that provide their electricity and of course she knows a lot about the wildlife in the woodand, they’re living a wild life themselves. After a storm October finds a dead owl and when they find a tiny baby owl alive on the ground her father tells her to leave it alone to let its mother pick it up, but the next day it’s still there and October decides to rescue it, her dad isn’t happy about it but sets about getting food for the baby owl.

When October’s father has an accident it leads to October having to communicate with her despised mother and what seemed like a disaster eventually has a silver lining.

This is a lovely read which is illustrated by the artist Angela Harding, the illustrations are all small and they’re all of Stig the owl, but she also designed the book cover, I really like her style.

 

The Witch’s Brat by Rosemary Sutcliff – 20 Books of Summer 2023

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The Witch’s Brat by Rosemary Sutcliff was published in 1970. The setting is England in the reign of Henry I. Lovel is a young lad, just eleven years old, and his  grandmother has just died. She had been the local healer and herbalist so she had been tolerated in the village. But Lovel was born with a crooked back and his mother had died when he was born, his father is dead too, so he’s all alone in the world and the villagers hound him out. They think that his crooked back means he must be a witch.

Lovel has no option, he has to keep walking, but eventually a swineherd finds him and takes him to a Benedictine Abbey where they take care of him and he finds a place as a bit of a dogsbody within the community. When Rahere the King’s Jester (jongleur) arrives he sees something in Lovel that nobody else does and he gives some hope of a different kind of life in the future for Lovel, maybe he’ll take Lovel to the king’s court one day. Soon after that Lovel is taught to read when it’s realised that he has a good knowledge of medicinal herbs and his life begins to change for the better.

This book is partially based on reality as a man called Rahere who was the King’s Jongleur founded Saint.Bartholomew’s Hospital in London and you can visit his tomb in the Church of Saint Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, London.

This was an enjoyable read,  Rosemary Sutcliff books are always good.

The Serial Garden by Joan Aiken – 20 Books of Summer 2023

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The Serial Garden by Joan Aiken is The Complete Armitage Family Stories. I must admit that I had never read any of this series, nor even heard of them, but what a delight they are. Joan Aiken had such a wild imagination and a great sense of humour, these stories  although aimed at younger readers, like all well written books are entertaining for all ages. I got the impression that writing these stories was the author’s happy place, and that she must have been very attached to the characters. It turns out that the family was based on her own family, she told the stories to her younger brother and the children  featured in the stories were based on their older brother and sister who were away at school.

They were written and published from 1958 with the last ones being published in 2008, four years after her death. They feature the children of the Armitage family, Mark and Harriet, and they came about because when she was on honeymoon Mrs Armitage found a wishing stone (one with a hole in it) and wished for a big house in the country and two children with cheerful and energetic natures who will never mope or sulk or get bored – and it would be nice if they had a fairy godmother.

As it happens they have  a lot more than that, including a pet unicorn, griffins, a friendly ghost, there’s an enchanted garden and the neighbourhood is populated by elderly fairy ladies – don’t call them witches!

On the back of the book Philip Pullman said ‘She was a literary treasure.’ I think he was correct.

 

 

 

 

 

The Stronghold by Mollie Hunter – 20 Books of Summer 2023

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The Stronghold by Mollie Hunter was first published in 1974 and it is a Carnegie Medal Winner.

The setting is the Orkneys at a time when the islands were often being raided by Romans (around the middle of the first century BC) who were searching for people they could drag off to enslave. This meant that the islands were being deprived of the strongest and fittest members of their society. Somthing had to be done. When Coll was a child he had witnessed a violent Roman raid which had culminated in his mother being dragged away and enslaved, Coll was thrown on the rocks by a Roman, breaking his hip badly, and now as an 18 year old cripple he’s left behind as a look-out while other males of his age are taking a more active role in the defence of their island.

Coll has spent a lot of time thinking about how things can be improved and eventually in desperation the leader agrees to allow Coll to organise and direct the building of a huge defensive structure, called a broch. It will be big enough to house the whole community and they can safely fight against the Roman Navy from the top of the tower.

In reality nobody knows how brochs came about, there are the remains of over 500 of them in the north of Scotland and the islands to the north of the mainland. It’s thought they originated on Orkney and they have all been built to the same design. They are drystone roundhouses with outer and inner walls with a stone staircase between the two walls.

Mollie Hunter took this information and developed a plausible and entertaining tale around it, featuring some great characters, both good and evil. The Stronghold won the Carnegie Medal in 1974.

You can read a bit more about brochs here.

 

 

 

Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease – 20 Books of Summer 2023

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Cue for Treason by Geoffrey Trease was first published in 1940 but my copy is a Puffin reprint which was published in 1965.

This book begins in Cumberland where there are a lot of skirmishes around the Scotland/England border, but it’s the local landowner Sir Philip who is causing the villagers big problems as he’s enclosing the land which had been used by the villagers for grazing their cattle on. The land grab has huge consequences for the locals who are already living a hand to mouth existence. They decide to break down Sir Philip’s wall  but Sir Philip and his men are about and Peter Brownrigg can’t resist the temptation to throw a stone at him, unfortunately he’s spotted doing it and a gun is fired at him, narrowly missing Peter’s head. The next day Sir Philip’s men come looking for Peter and he has to run away, if he’s caught he could be hanged!

London is the place to aim for and he falls in with another runaway lad on the way. They decide to stick together and look for work. They get taken on as apprentice actors in a travelling theatre group.  Of course it turns out to be William Shakespeare’s  company and the youngsters get involved in a dangerous intrigue involving the politics of  Elizabeth’s court.

This is the second book I’ve read recently which involves William Shakespeare and his company of players, even so this was a really good read.

The Return of the Railway Children by Lou Kuenzler – 20 Books of Summer 2023

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The Return of the Railway Children by Lou Kuenzler was published in 2018 and is of course a sort of sequel to E. Nesbit’s The Railway Children which was first published in 1906. I’m often quite wary of sequels like this but as this one has a World War 2 setting I thought it was worth giving it a go. I’m glad I did.

Edith lived in London with her mother as the bombs rained down on the city.  They had sheltered down in the underground stations during the night, but when Edie’s school shuts down her mother decides that it’s time that she sent her daughter to live in the countryside where it should be safer. Edie isn’t happy about it but with her mother planning to do her bit by flying newly built aircraft to their RAF bases she realises that she’ll just have to go, at least she’ll be staying with her Aunt Roberta, but due to a mysterious family schism Edie doesn’t know her aunt at all, but we do – she’s Bobbie from the original book! Aunt Roberta ends up taking in two more evacuees and along with Edie they are the new railway children who have a similar adventure – minus the red petticoat, and featuring some wartime adventures.

This book is well written and different enough from the original book so it doesn’t feel like a rip-off. My one compaint is that in a letter written to Edie from her mother she ends it with   xoxo.  The author should have stuck to using just x for kisses because that xoxo thing is very modern and I think originally American.  I remember seeing it first about 12 years ago and I was a bit mystified at the time.

This is one of my 20 Books of Summer 2023.

Digging for Victory by Cathy Faulkner

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Digging for Victory cover

Digging for Victory by Cathy Faulkner is set in Devon in 1941. Ralph Roberts has just got his papers and will be joining the RAF, Two-Six-Six squadron. His twelve year old sister Bonnie is excited about that, Ralph has always been her hero and she feels that she has to do something for the war effort too. Something more than just growing vegetables.

With Ralph’s bedroom now being empty it isn’t long before the family has a lodger allocated to them. Mr Fisher is in an RAF uniform, but he doesn’t seem to do anything but sit around in the house during the day. When Bonnie’s schoolfriends realise this they begin to bully Bonnie. Her lodger must be a shirker, or maybe even some sort of spy. Mr Fisher never speaks to anyone, so there’s nothing that Bonnie can say in his defense. Her contribution to the war effort doesn’t get any more exciting than trying to grow stuff and collecting rags, she feels such a failure.

Eventually Bonnie realises that Mr Fisher’s work is being done overnight, while most people are asleep. It is of course very important and dangerous work but it’s completely hush hush, so Bonnie still can’t tell her classmates about it. But she and Mr Fisher have become friends and he’s teaching her all about circuitry and electronics, which all helps in the coming emergency.

This book is aimed at 9-12 year olds, and it’s a great way of them learning about World War 2 and the Home Front.

I was lucky enough to be sent a digital copy of this book by the publisher Firefly via NetGalley. Thank you.

Digging for Victory is due to be published on the 4th of May.