Frances Hardinge Fest 3/3

To celebrate the release of Frances Hardinge's latest novel, Deeplight, here is a bit of a Frances-fest!

Let us skip Frances' next offering, A Skinful of Shadows, which I place quietly beside Cuckoo Song in my mental Hardinge library, and move on directly to her latest, Deeplight, just out this week. 

30 years after the dramatic disappearance of the gods in what has become known to the natives of the Myriad as the Cataclysm, teens Hark and Jelt scrape a living thanks to the very valuable pieces of 'godware' that can still be found under the waves. Life is hard enough, but then something wants to be found and it becomes… complicated. 

Dead gods, smugglers, mad scientists, winged submarines, sea-kissed people, insular slang and sign language, priests, militiaemen…  Deeplight suffers a little from 'too much imagination'. But can you really hold it against this vast, well-developped world? Right from the killer two-page prologue, you want to know what the story is with those gods, who the sea-kissed are, what caused the Cataclysm, how come you can breathe in the mysterious Undersea, how a submarine with wings can possibly work and more… 

The reader's enthusiasm is fuelled by this thirst for knowledge (take me there, tell me more), perhaps even more so than by their attachment to the various characters. Fractured, rough around the edges, they can be hard to like or to understand, and it's mostly with time and continued acquaintance that Hark and Selphin and the others earn their place in the reader's heart. The depiction of the friendship between Hark and Jelt could have done with more showing of the good times rather than telling, and that would have probably placed me more quickly on Hark's side. 

But back to this thirst for knowledge, this desire to know. As you read on, some questions are answered, some not, new ones arise, in a constant flow, as new characters add new stories, new perspectives to an already-known (or seemingly known) state of affairs. The remaining questions (around the gods, around Jelt and Hark's story) become like an itch in the back of the reader's mind, like sand grains between your toes after a trip to the beach.

But by the time you reach the ending, everything you thought you knew has been revisited and uncovered anew by the tide of the narrative, an outgoing tide, ready to carry the characters (and the reader) towards new shores. This overarching ebbing movement of rediscovery is pretty masterful and will probably stay with you for a fairly long time.

Frances Hardinge Fest 2/3

To celebrate the release of Frances Hardinge's latest novel, Deeplight, here is a bit of a Frances-fest!

Now we come to my joint all-time favourite. A Face Like Glass. This is a staple of my recommendations as Book Doctor when I meet a young patient whose reading age tends to be quite a bit above their actual years. It's brilliant for those clever clogs who have read everything in the middle-grade section, who have hoovered up the classics, but are still too young for teen and YA titles. (The exploding cheese is what cinches it, usually). Once again, Hardinge manifests her amazing talent for world-building, complete with a cornucopia of incredibly rich and quirky detail. Her style is fantastically evocative and imaginative without ever being obscure or pretentious. The plot is gripping, the characters very engaging (read my full review in the 2012 Children's Books Ireland Reading Guide p25!). You had been warned about the gushing.

Next up and second all-time favourite is The Lie Tree. Its success as children's and overall Costa award perhaps speaks for itself. This one is darker and older, compared to previous novels (except Cuckoo Song which didn't work so well for me for some reason). Always the wordsmith and expert tale-spinner, Hardinge weaves seamlessly the strands of her narrative, from the investigation into a mysterious death, to a reckless search for a mythical plant via the battles of a terrific heroine against prejudice, the weight of conventions as well as her own grief and rage. My only quibble with this one, is the introduction of magic into a story that seemed rich enough without it. This feels, very briefly, problematic, especially as the darkness and scariness attached to it were already present. But it provides fantastic imagery and underlines the starkness of a cruelty that is all too real. The Lie Tree is an empowering read for any teen who feels equally excited and awed by the world of possibilities that opens to them when they reach the brink of adulthood. (Inis review)

While you wait for my take on Deeplight, why not take a look at Dani Solomon's 'Frances Hardinge’s books ranked by scariness' for the day that's in it?!

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Frances Hardinge Fest 1/3

To celebrate the release of Frances Hardinge's latest novel, Deeplight, here is a bit of a Frances-fest!
I am a long-time fan of her prose and have been known to gush a bit...

Reading her books in the order they were published, you will see a writer growing and honing her craft. From her very first books (Fly by Night, Verdigris Deep), it seems as if Hardinge has always had a way with words and 'too much imagination' as Patrick Ness once said in his review of her wonderful third novel, Gullstruck Island (read the review here): 'There's more,' writes Ness. 'There's a lot more. There is, in fact, probably too much more, not in terms of page length but in that Hardinge lets herself get bogged down too often in necessary explanations.' 
So, it is fascinating to see her nail down plot, gradually, book after book. Certainly, no-one can complain, from Twilight Robbery onwards, that there is 'too much.' Having dealt with backstory and all 'necessary explanations' in Fly By Night, Hardinge hits the ground running with this sequel to Mosca's adventures. And what a delight it is to allow the terrific rhythm of action and the equally awesome efficiency of the style to carry you away in this brilliant romp.

Before moving on to my all-time favourites, why not have a read of my interview of Frances Hardinge for Inis magazine from a couple of years ago?

Magic!

Baby Book Club is nothing if not topical, so with Halloween fast approaching, we started off our session with Satoshi Kitamura's wonderfully effective Hat Tricks, about Hattie, a small bunny and great magician, who can make some pretty spectacular stuff come out of her magic hat.
We tried to guess what would next appear and to figure out how it could all fit in there. We particularly enjoyed the humongous octopus and the elephant whose bum gets stuck in the hat.
We continued our magic-themed session with a bit of witchcraft, courtesy of Meg and Mog, who cook up a wriggly-worm of a storm for their dinner before going to bed.
We then proceeded to prepare for our own magic show and made some very fetching hats, complete with stars and bats and black cats. Who knows what will come out of those?
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.

Satoshi Kitamura reading Hat Tricks with the help of a kamishibai: 

Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo from Cinderella: 

Paul Daniels - Rabbit from a Hat: 

Happy Halloween, all!

Spooky reads for Halloween!

Fancy something a little (or very!) scary this Halloween?
Why not sink your fangs into one of these?
They are roughly split in primary-school age groups: Junior and Senior Infants (4-6 year olds); 1st and 2nd Class (6-8); 3rd and 4th (8-10); 5th and 6th (10-12).
Feel free to read up or down the age groups, but beware!
Some are proper spooky, some are funny, and there are a few terrifying ones in there too. So maybe don't read those too late at night...

Baby You Can Drive My Car

It was all go in Baby Book Club this week thanks to Pippa Goodheart and Nick Sharratt's Car Car Truck Jeep. We enjoyed following the blue car as it drove around busy roads, naming all sorts of vehicles and adding our own sound effects. But of course, the best bit was driving our own cars on our own road.
The little ones enjoyed manipulating the toy cars while the slightly older kids had a ball cover our 'road' with big, purposeful scribbles and collecting all the crayons available. Eating the crayons was also nice, apparently. And I suspect the grown-ups enjoyed adding their doodles to the big roll of paper on the floor too...
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.
Until next time!
The Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang song! 

Drive My Car by the Beatles: 

For an action-packed day at ‘Digger School’, watch Here Comes A Digger: 

A Bit Lost... A Lot Found

And we're off for a third round of weekly Baby Book Club sessions in Crumlin with a fresh new gang as most of last year's veterans have now graduated to preschool and the like.
Our new recruits, aged 2 and a lot under, enjoyed discovering a space that was new to them and meeting new potential friends.
We sang, we read, we laughed, we cried, we teethed, we shared, we hugged… all in a day's work at Baby Book Club.
After reading the always-excellent A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton, we made our own owls out of collage. Some of our members revelled in wielding the glue sticks while others thought long and hard about the colour pattern of their creation.
Everybody was well ready for a nap at the end, which is of course the secret plan behind all this!
As promised, here are the links to the songs and videos.
Until next time!

The Owl Song, by the Whizpops

The Old Owl Said, "Who?", by Eric Ode

And A Bit Hungry, a tiny play inspired by A Bit Lost

And why not relax with non-stop birdsong! http://birdsong.fm/