August reads - Candy Gourlay, Catherine Gilbert Murdoch, Will Mabbit, Valija Zinck

Bone Talk – Candy Gourlay

Candy Gourlay delves into her own Filippino heritage to bring us Samkad’s thrilling story of life among hilltribes and takes you on a journey to the other side of the world and back over a hundred years.

It’s her supreme storytelling skills that not only bring this rich tale of a primitive existence so vibrantly to life, but make Samkad’s story seem so immediate and relevant.

Samkad’s life is dominated by the landscape, ruled by superstition, strict lore and community. 

To Samkad nothing about his life seems extraordinary, even though violence is commonplace, with tough consequences for anyone not conforming or challenging the ancient ways. A journey to the next village is considered too dangerous to even consider.

But then the local tribe are head-hunters. 

His worries are about rituals and displeasing the ancestors. His dreams are about his status, particularly with the other young men. 

It feels an impeccably researched story of the daily tribulations of a tribal life. Which makes it more shocking when his way of life is so brutally interrupted by the inexorable march of western exploration, with the arrival of Americans.

How utterly alien tribal ways, with their sometimes cruel rituals, must have seemed to those foreigners when they first arrived in the Philippines. The same story could be told of so many colonial explorers who landed on foreign shores feeling dominant, confident in their superior civilised way of life and ready to impose their views.

One of Bone Talk’s strengths is that it doesn’t take a romanticised view of a complex, enduring way of life – nor of the strangers who first encountered it.

Following individual desires rather than the strict rules and displeasing the elders can be met with a brutal response. Women must know their place. There are no equal chances for success and happiness. But it's a sustainable existence that has changed little, but endured.

It’s a strong twist that the first American Samkad meets plays an important part in the story, befriending the tribespeople and bringing some modern benefits, such as medicine. 
It all heralds the winds that bring inevitable change.

It’s the superlative storytelling that crosses both time and geography to connect with Samkad’s story. But it’s the plea for tolerance and understanding, rather than fear of what we don’t know and understand, which make this such a brilliant story for our times.

I can’t wait to see it on the Carnegie short-list as it so deserves to be, it would make a perfect book for shadowing.

The Book of Boy - Catherine Gilbert Murdoch

Known only as Boy, this is the story of a kindly young goatherd, who is taken on as a servant by a strange pilgrim on a long journey to track down the scattered bones of a saint.

This is the fourteenth century where anything connected to a saint is prized and has enormous value. The income of whole towns can depend on the visitors who come to pray to the saint for anything from answering wishes to cures. Rivalries for more authentic relics are rife. But it’s all down to belief, with plenty of openings for fraudsters.

The reader is plunged into the sight, smells and politics of the medieval world. Boy has been regularly taunted and called a monster in the manor where he was brought up because he has a humped back. But his disability doesn’t impair his agility at all. He a terrific climber – and he has another brilliant skill used with great comic effect throughout the story – he is able to talk to animals.

This means that although the book is mostly about religion, it’s a fun and playful read, at times a rollicking adventure, full of doubt and danger as Boy realises lengths his new master will go to and his mission gets more desperate. The lines between good and evil blur and with an extraordinary blend of history, religion and fantasy, this really is a book like no other. 

The Embassy of the Dead – Will Mabbit

When Jake accidentally accepts a gift from a ghost his troubles quickly spiral to very dangerous levels, in this quirky comedy story of the spooky underworld. 

Jake can see ghosts, which is how he got into trouble in the first place, but now only ghosts can save him. He has broken the complicated bureaucratic rules of the Embassy of the Dead and there is no way to call off the grim reaper who is coming after Jake.

With the help of an odd assortment of the long-dead (including a cute dead pet!) Jake learns quickly about the people who work for the Embassy to solve all sorts of the ghostly problems and mysteries of those departed, but who have not successfully passed to the other side.

But most importantly he must work out the mystery of why the creepy relic that has fallen into his possession is so important . . .and see if he can outwit the several baddies on his tale and save himself a horrible fate – all while pretending to his parents that he is spending a few days on a geography field trip.

Such a fast-paced, fun story. The ghostly set-up is really imaginative and the mysteries of why ghosts might end up haunting is really well realised (and promises sequels!). This is a page-turning adventure story with a great twist; good ghostly characters and worldbuilding and plenty of shocks and laughs in equal measure along the way. A thoroughly entertaining read.
Really hope to see more of Jake and his ghostly goings-on.

A Tangle of Magic - Valija Zinck

Penelope has always felt herself to be strange and different, and not just the fact that she is ten-years-old and has grey hair.

But when her hair suddenly turns red, Penelope knows it is not the only thing in life that has changed. She feels a totally different person, suddenly full of not just energy. Penelope realises she has powers.
But she has no-one around to teach her about magic. 

Valija Zinck’s ‘A Tangle of Magic’ is such an enjoyable story about someone who discovers they are magic but has to learn all by themselves, with plenty of room for fun and adventure as Penelope experiments and tries to work out what she can and can’t do – and how it is all connected to her hair.
What are her powers? How do they work? Has she has inherited powers from her missing father? And are there other magical people in the world?

Penelope is such a great character, adventurous and curious, kindly, popular and independent in spirit. She lives on the edge of the swamp forest with her lovely family, her doting mother, a grandmother who can’t cook and a loyal cat called Coco.

There are many ways this book is both unexpected and zany – like the fact that the only magic Penelope seems to be able to do is to talk to the road! 

Her mother is bitter about Penelope’s father abandoning them suddenly and why he sends them weird post every month. But this gives Penelope the glimmer of an idea and she starts to hatch a complicated plan to deceive her mother and see if she can find out more about her father.
It’s both a warm and intriguing story where the menace builds quite unexpectedly.

One of the great things is the hints about a much wider magical world that Penelope knows nothing about. Her grandmother is definitely hiding secrets and knows more than she is letting on! 
And there are hints about magical people being very menacing and a sinister organisation that trains them, which hopefully means there are many more stories about Penelope to come.

Nicki Thornton  @nicki_thornton