Bookwitch

Another newsflash, so to speak. You were so good with the pink comments last week, that we have moved across to the Guardian today.

No, not the people who live in Finland. Those others, who keep popping up in fiction. What’s with the name Finn? It tends to be a certain type of fictional character who’s called Finn, or Finnigan. I wonder why?

My most recent example is Finnigan in Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender. He’s a real wild one.

Linda Newbery has a mysterious, if older, Finnigan in her new book Nevermore.

And the free boy in What I Was by Meg Rosoff is called Finn.

I’m fairly sure Celia Rees has a Finn in one of her horror books, set in South West Wales. Again, a sort of free spirit.

I love the name, but find it strange how it gets used. I wonder about the thought processes that determine what name an author gives their characters. Is it along the lines of “I’ve got this outsider type, romantic character, so let’s go in the Celtic/Irish direction and name him Finn”?

Even Kian in Cathy Cassidy’s Scarlett has the same ring to it. What other romantic names of this kind are there?

Puffin have a new website. It’s not bad at all. Lots of information, as you’d expect, and it even has a playground. And they have a blog. It’s so brand new that it only had three entries when I looked. Ah well, we all have to begin somewhere. Worth checking out.

The kitchen calendar star for March is Cathy Cassidy. She has all of 31 days to sit and stare at the lack of order around these parts, while looking very beautiful. Perhaps Cathy could also aid me with my witchery, while she’s here.

Cathy came to Simply Books during half term, so we missed her. But even without the witch’s family she was a great success, as always. Masses of girls turned up to worship, and one boy. I suspect he mainly wanted to survive, and he deserves a medal for crossing gender lines.

I’m not much of a dog person, but Cathy Cassidy has created the most lovable dog in Lucky Star. A dog that gets found by Cat and Mouse, who are not animals, but a girl and a boy living near each other in London, although worlds apart.

Cathy has done what so many readers like, and revisited a character from one of her earlier books. This time Mouse gets a book to himself, and it’s also interesting to see as girly an author as Cathy write a book about a boy. The book cover is suitably black, rather than the usual pinks, so hopefully Cathy will gain some male readers with Lucky Star.

Mouse, like his dog, is very lovable, but prone to doing the wrong things, like adorning his school with graffiti. This story covers drug dealers and violence and threatening behaviour on the estate where Mouse and his mum live. But it also shows how people can band together and resist what might seem inevitable.

Lucky Star is a really heartwarming book. I just hope Puffin haven’t shot themselves in the foot by making it a hardback, costing £3 more than the paperbacks. It feels like a pocket money kind of book, so there’s a risk some readers can’t afford it. But it does look good.