Fiction for older children reviews – monster quests and inner challenges
Coping with threat and change aren’t themes solely reserved for the present moment. Overcoming obstacles is one of the most inexhaustible themes in children’s literature and middle-years books are, of course, brave with bells on. The season’s roundup throws up deep reserves of grit and stamina.
The kind of bravery that faces off fantastical monsters is a tradition that needs no introduction. Thomas Taylor’s Malamander, in which the young orphan Herbert was washed ashore in a most mysterious British seaside town in a crate of lemons, was a justly feted debut. Its sequel, Gargantis (Walker), is another expertly unspooling tale of derring-do in which a beast of a storm, a hooded stranger and a mechanical crab feature, as well as a very good joke about a toolbox, inside which a moggy is either alive or dead (or both, à la Schrodinger). Herbie is, understandably, terrified of the deep. Guess where he’s headed? Just the bottom of the Vortiss, where the not-so-mythical Gargantis lurks.
Then, there’s the more everyday kind of fear. American author Rebecca Stead is a Newbery Medal and Guardian children’s fiction prize-winner and her excellent latest outing, The List of Things That Will Not Change (Andersen Press), enumerates the comforting constants Bea wrote down when her parents (amicably) divorced.
But Bea’s childhood tendency to lash out has had lasting consequences, and change is afoot once again. Bea’s dad is marrying someone else – the lovely Jesse, a man whose daughter is a prospective stepsister for Bea. Stead’s characters are recognisable kids of flesh and blood who Skype and try oysters and face down homophobes, and her resolutions manage to be both unsaccharine and heartening.
Debutant M Evan Wolkenstein’s autobiographical Turtle Boy (Usborne) grew from a comic strip, which might explain why the cover art is a smidge younger than the story inside. Herpetology fan Will is wrestling with the prospect of surgery when his hippy rabbi suggests visiting an older boy, RJ, in hospital to overcome his fear of medical settings.
Scowling from within a hoodie to hide a jaw problem, Will is shy, hurting and angry, but the friendship that very slowly ensues between him and RJ is never cheesy. Spoiler alert: RJ never makes it out, but gives Will the gift of drumming and much else; Wolkenstein’s transposing of emotion into rhythms is just one of this book’s strengths.
Autism is often associated with boys, partly because girls can better mask it. Two recent British debuts feature two very different neurodivergent female main characters – because there’s a lot of diversity in neurodiversity.
Author Elle McNicoll is herself on the autism spectrum and in A Kind of Spark (Knights Of), her protagonist, Addie, becomes outraged when she learns how her Scottish village persecuted women who were different – witches. Might some of them have been autistic? Although Addie is adamant the women deserve a memorial, the village is not so keen to commemorate a bleak episode. Vividly drawn are Addie’s sensory overstimulation and the bone-weary shifts worked by Addie’s loving parents; the cruelty of a teacher who refuses to make allowances for Addie is particularly keenly felt.
The Infinite (Canongate), by contrast, is the debut children’s novel by poet Patience Agbabi, whose inspiration comes from her autistic son (and her undiagnosed, but complicated late mother). This is a highly original tale that deserves to be longer, and more acutely marketed, because The Infinite sometimes reads like an Alex Rider or Artemis Fowl-style novel.
In a world somewhat like our own, Elle (loves that her name is a palindrome, hates her too-tight cornrows) is a 29 February leapling. She has the gift of time travel; she also has trouble fitting in at the top-secret Intercalary International academy because of her neurodivergence. Safe harbour is to be found on the running track or under tables; both places figure on this time-travel school trip turned quest.
Agbabi’s vision of the future is startlingly plausible: neurodivergence is catered for, but veganism is the default because humanity turned its back on emissions too late. It’s 2048 and kids have gone missing. It’s up to Elle and a cadre of friends and new acquaintances to unravel what’s really going on across time. The message, though, is clear: changing the future requires action in the present.
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