Fiction Review | August 2003
by Vivian French
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Hi! It’s me - Viv. Hopefully you’ve been reading Simon and Helen’s reviews for May and June - and now it’s my turn again. It’s surprising how quickly it comes round; I was looking up someone’s birthday in my diary, and I saw the date - and OOOPS!!! It was suddenly JULY!!!!

Over the last couple of months I’ve been reading LOADS and writing masses of reviews for a new guide to children’s books. I had to re-read huge numbers of stories that I haven’t looked at for ages, but it was SO exciting - I found some of them are still just as fantastic as when they first came out. In fact, I thought more than a few were absolutely stunning - I enjoyed them even more than when I read them the first time.

The guide won’t be in the shops for a while yet, so I thought I’d remind you of these truly AMAZING books - and although they may not be piled high in bookshops surrounded by glitz and glamour they are really really WONDERFUL reads. Just the thing for the long summer holidays ...
(They’ll probably need ordering, but that’s no problem - Jubilee Books can do that for you - or you could look in your local library.)

The first book is National Velvet by Enid Bagnold. It’s almost impossible to believe it, but this was first published in 1935. A lot of the children’s stories written then now sound fusty and horribly wordy, but National Velvet is SO different - it rattles along with a totally written-just-this-minute feel.

Basically it’s an adventure about a girl, Velvet Brown (small, skinny, braces on her teeth - quite unlike her three older sisters), who buys a raffle ticket. Velvet wins a horse that no one else wants, and the two of them go on to win one of the most famous horse races of all time - but it’s so much more than just a girl plus horse equals success story.

The winning is in no way a glorious triumphant ending; there are much deeper and more human triumphs beyond the actual race. It’s one of those books where you find yourself in a completely believable world; a world where there’s a very ordinary family that squabbles and argues and gets on with its own life - and that life glows with a fantastic warmth.

It’s very funny, too - it made me laugh out loud, and I don’t often do that. Oh, and it doesn’t matter a hoot if you don’t like horses - you’ll still enjoy this book.

Simon: Erm... but it’s still a GIRL and HORSE type book. I am a BOY (albeit also ancient) who has always been wary of that particular combination - what’s in it for me?

Viv: What is it about girls+horses that puts boys off so? When girls+pumpkins (see below!) don't? But I take your point. I guess that this story is about a child (who just happens to be a girl) who has a dream ... and it's not a dream for herself, it's a dream for another character (who just happens to be a horse.)

H'm. If you can work your way through all those brackets what I'm trying to say is that it's about a real passion - a real desire to prove that something or someone can achieve even when enormous odds are stacked against them.

Helen: You could also try reading The Exiles by Hilary McKay - I did like that, and it’s great about families.

Viv: Brilliant idea. I liked it very much too - must find my copy and re-read that as well.

The second book that I LOVED re-reading was Squashed by Joan Bauer. It’s a book that makes you feel really truly good about yourself and the whole world ... and the main character is a large orange pumpkin!

Ellie has entered him for the annual giant pumpkin growing competition, and she’s got the dreadful Cyril Pool to beat ... he’s a fully fledged adult winner, and direly mean as well.

I couldn’t put this book down the first time I read it, and it was just the same this time; Ellie’s trials with the weather, her battles with her mad-as-a-chair father, and her agonizing concerns about the increasing tightness of her jeans (she’s a fabulous cook) all kept me reading until three in the morning.

It’s hugely funny, and at the same time it really makes you feel for Ellie; will she ever get it together with the gorgeous Wes in among all the special care that pumpkins need?

Simon: Exactly! and I would say that JB’s other novels are equally excellent, if not more so!

Viv: Good. Now, dear Simon, having ENJOYED a book about a girl with a passion for a pumpkin, go forth and read National Velvet!!!!

My last re-read suggestion for this kind of reading level (and it’s not that old, this book - but it still seems to have slipped off the shelves) is Pure Dead Magic by Debi Gliori.

Curiously, there’s something about this book that reminds me of National Velvet ... and I think it’s the family. The Browns and the Strega-Borgias couldn’t be more different in most respects; one family lives in the 1930s and their dad owns a slaughterhouse, the other lives in a Gothic Castle in the Scottish Highlands - but I get the same feeling of a genuinely loving and caring family who find each other intensely irritating on a day-to-day basis. (Does this sound at all familiar, all of you with brothers and sisters?)

Debi Gliori has stitched together a glorious concoction of weird and bizarre plots and sub-plots, and the story rattles along at breakneck speed with beasts in the cellars and a spider who adores scarlet lipstick - it’s huge fun, and I enjoyed it even more third time round. And any book that has a baddie called Don Lucifer di S’Embowelli has to be pretty compulsive reading, don’t you think?

Simon: I read PDM and I thought it was very silly. Which I thought was no bad thing!

Viv: I think it goes way beyond silly into the realms of genius madness - and I forgot to say there are two more books about the same family!!

Last, but not at all least, I'm utterly overjoyed to see that Bold Bad Ben The Beastly Bandit by Ann Jungman is back in print. It was first published in 1989 in Australia, and in 1991 my youngest daughter came across a copy when she was a non-reading seven year old - and read it from cover to cover!!!

We lost our Bold Bad Ben about a year later, and I’ve never been able to find a replacement - but now (thanks to brilliant Barn Owl Books) it’s BACK!!! It’s a great story, but what we all especially loved was the hysterically funny pictures and speech bubbles (check out the old toymaker’s spectacles wearing horse in particular).

It’s a genuinely funny book all the way through; it made my testers aged seven right up to fourteen hoot with laughter ... and me too.

So those are my top tips for holiday reading ... and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

Now, here’s another thought.
When I was reading Pure Dead Magic and thinking about families I suddenly remembered that one of the less exciting things I was expected to do in the summer holidays was look after my younger brother.

He wasn’t easy to keep happy, and I really wish I’d had two books that have recently come out by Nellie Shepherd. One’s called My Art Class, and the other one My Animal Art Class. The subtitle is “Creative fun for little hands” which made me wince a bit, but the books are BRILLIANT. I settled down with a group of kids aged from two to thirteen, and we tried making Garth the Giraffe, Mane Man, and Liz the Lizard from the first book, and Sea-through Sub and King of the Kitchen from the second, and we had an absolute ball - MUCH to the surprise of the older ones.

We’re going to have another go next week, and I can’t wait - our two and three and four year olds just loved every minute, and so did the rest of us. (Ages six, eight, ten and a half, thirteen and Very Ancient). Get someone to buy a copy of one book or the other for your little brother or sister - everything is SO easy to make, and there are lots of helpful hints and suggestions and bits of useful information. (The books would make a STUNNING birthday present if you’re stuck for an idea!)

Actually, I think I’m going to make myself a Wishing Tree to put on my desk ... and I may not wait until next week ....

Simon: Dear Viv - I am wondering now what after-dinner activities you may have in mind next time I come to visit...? Should I wear an old shirt of my father’s, or a fetching pinafore?

Viv: I've got an old apron you can wear. I thought we could make sparkly clothes pegs - I've got dozens all over my workroom - they cheer me up on gloomy days!!!

Do let us know what you think of our suggestions, and if you’ve got a book that you really really love write a review and send it to us - then we can share the news with everybody else. In the mean time, Happy Reading!
Love from Vivx

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