Lockwood – The Creeping Shadow

I begin to see the pattern now. Jonathan Stroud’s Lockwood is going somewhere, rather than each individual book being an adventure on its own. And I don’t know how he’s going to do it, but I wonder if I can guess a little at what must happen. Who the bad guys are, and I don’t mean just the dead bad guys who upset the balance of normal life.

In this fourth instalment of the ghost hunting series, you sense that there might be a bigger picture, some plan as yet only hinted at. And that’s exciting.

To start with we have a typical Lockwood beginning, with Lucy out fighting some bad and sad ghost which is being a nuisance, along with her trusted helpers. Except, it’s not as usual at all. (It reminded me of the NCIS season four opening episode, if you want to know. It did, even if you don’t, actually.)

Lucy and the others have plenty of individual ghost hunting adventures in The Creeping Shadow. More than in the past, I believe, and the reader sits there wondering if ‘this one’ will be the biggie. The one that determines how things will end. Or it could be the next one. Plenty of bad ghosts in here.

And is everyone who they seem to be?

Listening to Jonathan in Gothenburg last week, I at least learned how old – or rather, quite how young – Lucy and Lockwood & Co are. It leaves you amazed at how they manage.

There is more tension between our two main characters, with some innocent-ish innuendo. Are they? Will they?

I really, really like these books, and in The Creeping Shadow there is more depth, and I am wanting the fifth and final (?) book soon. To be proven right, obviously. That’s all…

If you’ve not started yet, do so before it’s too late. Before they get you. Ghost-touch is no joke.

(And it’s about time Lucy made it onto the cover of the book.)

Master Will and the Spanish Spy

You can learn new things, even in the short 80 pages of a Barrington Stokes book. Here is Tony Bradman with another brief Shakespeare tale. This time it’s set while Will lives at home with his parents and siblings, going to school and getting bored and skiving off to go and see the theatre company come all the way from London.

He meets Mr Burbage, and although we can’t know what actually happened back then, it feels like true history is taking shape as Will gets to know the travelling actors, and meets ‘real’ people. The way he falls in love with the theatre is truly inspiring, and feels like it could have happened that way, and it would explain all those famous dramas we still have to enjoy.

The Shakespeare parents have their troubles, and life isn’t always easy or safe. Will sees something odd when he’s out and about, and feels it needs dealing with, just in case. Sensibly, he speaks to the older generation, and something can be worked out.

I had no idea that Spanish Spies could have such a devastating effect on both themselves and on others. And then there’s the plague…

Fir for Luck

I decided to start reading Barbara Henderson’s Fir for Luck just before setting off travelling last week. I was going to see what it was like, and if it seemed promising, I’d continue reading it on my return, because I wasn’t going to add another book to my travel pile.

Well, you can guess what happened, of course. It was really quite promising, and I came to the conclusion that there was ‘plenty of room’ in my handluggage for Barbara’s book, so I could read it on the plane. Before the other planned books.

Barbara has based her debut novel on real events from the Highland Clearances, and it is both exciting and terrifying and upsetting. Even when you know roughly what happened then, it still becomes more serious and real when you meet people and see exactly what was done to them. As with most things, you feel more when it’s someone you know.

The main character is 12-year-old Janet, who accidentally ends up the heroine of her village as it’s about to be demolished and everyone in it sent packing, with hardly any notice. What makes it more powerful is the fact that Janet’s grandmother has already had this happen to her once before, when Janet’s father was a little boy.

In the midst of the dreadful threats to Janet’s village, we learn what life there is like, and what sort of people live in it, and what they do for a living. There are grades of importance within the little community, and having a better house doesn’t necessarily save you when the day comes.

You know there can’t be a happily ever after solution, but you wish that some good will come of the fight to stay, which Janet starts.

It’s fascinating, and really so very exciting that you simply can’t go on a trip mid-book and leave it behind.

Wave

Set on the 1st of July in 1916, and also in 2016, the adult reader can work out what happens. At first I regretted not having read it on the day, so to speak, but am glad I didn’t. It’s such a loaded kind of date.

Paul Dowswell has come up with two pairs of brothers – Eddie and Charlie Taylor. One pair for each century. Today’s boys are the great grandsons of one of the soldiers in 1916. Their grandmother is Rose, as was the girlfriend of one of the young men in 1916. The modern Rose is the daughter of the older Rose.

Clearing out their great grandparents’ house in Hastings, they find a photo of the older two, taken at the Somme on that fateful morning, as they waited to be part of the First Wave. Today’s Eddie wants to join up, unlike the older Eddie who only went to war in order to do the same as his big brother Charlie.

This short and sad story shows us the same day, one hundred years apart, and how the two sets of brothers handle the war, and the memories of it.

Very powerful, and it is yet more proof of the horrors of war, and how easily persuaded young men can be.

3 bookbug picture book treats

It will always be the first time for someone, even with a well known tale like the one about the Hare and Tortoise. I like the version by Alison Murray which, along with the other two books mentioned below, has been shortlisted for the Bookbug Picture Book Prize.

The illustrations are both sweet and funny, and there is something satisfyingly endearing about the silly hare and the hardworking tortoise. It works every time.

In Ross Collins’s There’s a Bear on My Chair I didn’t predict what was going to happen, which made it much more fun for me. The pictures are lovely on their own, or you could just ‘read’ without reading if you wanted to. The poor little mouse who has to think of ways to get silly big bear off his chair. It’s poetic, too, and reads rather like a Dr Seuss story.

Lovely book.

With Nick Sharratt’s Shark in the Park, on the other hand, I could see exactly how it must end. It’s the cry wolf scenario. You keep thinking there’s a shark in the park, and then it turns there isn’t.

Until, well, until there is.

As always, cheery colours, in that loveable style Nick has. Just watch how you go in the park. It might even be preferable to have a bear on your chair. Or to be the silly hare.

Counting one’s cheetahs

One Cheetah, One Cherry by Jackie Morris is ‘a book of beautiful numbers.’ In other words, it’s a learn-to-count book, made by an artist.

Count those pandas and the tigers. Or why not elephants and china teacups?

Very sumptuous art, and I can see how adults might be tempted to cut out the art and put it on their walls, and never mind any counting!

If you know Jackie Morris and her work, you’ll know what to expect. Maybe you’ll make a future art lover?

Write your own

Deborah Patterson has two new books, full of pictures, just waiting for the words.

Well, there are words, of course. My Book of Stories; write your own myths, and write your own fairy tales explain many of the traditional stories, have illustrations to inspire, and then masses of pages where you can just write. Lined pages, speech bubbles, the lot.

I have said before how tempting it is to write in books. I reckon I would have found these very inviting as a child. Unless you have a contrary one who won’t write when it’s actually allowed. But that’s your problem.

You could always steal the book and write your own bedtime tales to read from.

This is a nice way of both educating and entertaining a child, while encouraging any creative vein they might harbour.

In fact, I suspect I could do with educating a wee bit. Now that I think of it.