Carnegie 2016 Shadowing: Review - The Lie Tree - Frances Hardinge

After storming its way to win the title of overall best book of 2015 in the Costa Book awards, it's a delight that Frances Hardinge's 'The Lie Tree' is on the shortlist for the  CLIP Carnegie Medal, awarded annually to the writer of an outstanding book for children. Because this is a book that deserves to be read and enjoyed widely.

The Lie Tree - Frances Hardinge

One of the best and cleverest things about 'The Lie Tree' is that it has the pace and page-turning absotbtion of a thriller, but Frances Hardinge cleverly uses the murder-mystery platform to weave in truly complex themes - scientific jealousy, how lies can damage small communities, and the role of women in Victorian society. And deals with these big issues in a really gripping way

The main character is a feisty heroine, courageous, intelligent and stubborn. Faith would love to be a scientist and serious, like her father. She rather despises her mother's fripparies and choice of pursuits. But in Victorian times, this is definitely a man's world and Faith may know a lot about science, but she has much to learn about society.

Faith can be more intelligent than most of the people around her and know and learn plenty, but she's encouraged to keep these talents a secret. It's a real challenge to be taken seriously, particularly when she becomes convinced her father has been murdered. 

But as she starts to investigate on the sly, she learns what women can be good at - manipulating and working behind the scenes and secretly doing things no-one would expect a woman to do. She sets about covertly trying to find out what her father was really working on and who might have guessed his secret.  Because, as a woman, no-one really suspects what she is up to.

Without any of her growing number of enemies knowing, she gets closer to bringing her father's secretive scientific studies to fruition, while also plotting how to reveal what really happened to her father.

This is a page-turner with a serious heart. It's a thought-provoking and imaginative tale that manages to weave a historical scientific adventure with a thread of feminism and fantasy. Not an easy thing to pull off, but Frances Hardinge does it with lashings of style.

There is much discussion about the elusive 'cross-over' novel - one that can be read and enjoyed by both children and adults. But these are more rare than you might think. It is not an easy path to walk to write something that can be enjoyed on so many levels - being both simple and complex at the same time, but 'The Lie Tree', in its complexity and ambition, moves writing for children definitely into an adult sphere, yet bringing also a page-turning quality. 

So can Frances pull it off - 'The Lie Tree' being the best novel of the year and being the best novel for children?

We will wait and see, but whatever happens it should bring many new readers to Frances Hardinge's tremendous writing. She is well worth discovering.

Really enjoyable, very clever, and a seriously impressive read.

An Island of our Own and The Lie Tree reviews

We start a look at the great feast of wonderful writing for children that is the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize shortlist by starting with a couple of adventure stories - although neither are quite your traditional adventure stories.

An Island of our Own - Sally Nicholls

After the death of their mother, Holly and Davy are being brought up by their eighteen-year-old brother, Jonathan. They have been struggling to look after themselves and each has had to grow up very fast. 

They all put their own needs on hold while their priority becomes the fight to find a way to make ends meet, get everyone to work or school on time, put food on the table and stay together.

You might describe Sally Nicholls 'An Island of Our Own' as starting off with almost a Jacqueline Wilson feel. It makes you believe you are heading for a quite serious family story. 

But things quickly change. 

It is clever and unexpected that the siblings' journey becomes a road-trip search for treasure and adventure. Their latest quest develops not as one of day to day survival but how to crack codes and travel to the other end of the country.

Jonathan, Holly and Davy get on the trail of clues left by their great-aunt which may lead to buried treasure - and they desperately need that money. And whereas none of them felt they could ask for help before - suddenly all their friends, acquaintances and family (well, most of them)  pitch in with helpful suggestions and all sorts of canny ways to find out where their eccentric aunt might have buried her money and get to the next clue.

It's great to see a writer that has the courage to be so unexpected and take the reader in a totally different direction from where you think you are going at the beginning. 

The book is a really joyful modern take on an old-fashioned adventure story, but with a really bold and original feel. It can be thoroughly enjoyed as a fabulously warm contemporary road-trip, treasure-hunting adventure - or as a family drama, and will appeal to readers of both.

And probably what is the most satisfying is that by the end of the book it has, indeed, all been about how the siblings are going to cope, cleverly delivering the message that communities can be there to support, but often people don't know how to ask for, or to offer help. While the most fun is had with the mad ways everyone has to try to solve the aunt's cryptic clues. 

This has been a big hit with independent booksellers and was voted the winner of the Independent Booksellers Week Children's Fiction Award  2015. It is really great to see that other judges, too, have picked this out as a really outstanding book. 

The Lie Tree - Frances Hardinge

In Frances Hardinge's 'The Lie Tree', Faith also finds herself with an unexpected adventure on her hands.

Faith would love to be a scientist and serious, like her father. She rather despises her mother's fripparies and choice of pursuits. But in Victorian times, this is definitely a man's world and Faith may know a lot about science, but she has much to learn about society.

Faith can be more intelligent than most of the people around her and know and learn plenty, but it's a real challenge to be taken seriously, particularly when she becomes convinced her father has been murdered. 

But she discovers what women can be good at - manipulating and working behind the scenes and secretly doing things no-one would expect a woman to do. She sets about covertly trying to find out what her father was really working on and who might have guessed his secret.  

Without any of her enemies knowing, she gets closer to bringing her father's studies to fruition, while also plotting how to reveal what really happened to her father.

This is a page-turner with a serious heart. It's a thought-provoking and imaginative tale that manages to weave a historical scientific adventure with a thread of feminism and fantasy. Not an easy thing to pull off, but Frances Hardinge does it with lashings of style.

These are both great stories that can be enjoyed by anyone who likes a good mystery - but they both cleverly weave in some serious themes and the layers make them both really enjoyable, very clever, and seriously impressive reads.

Carnegie Review - Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge

Cuckoo Song opens with the awakening of eleven year old Triss, who after a near-drowning has gaps in her memory, and also, somehow, in herself. Her little sister, Pen, knows she’s not right, and hates her for it. So do her dolls. And her overanxious parents are increasingly suspicious, which leads Triss to investigate what happened on the day of the accident at the pool known as ’the Grimmer … black as perdition and narrow as a half-closed eye'.

Cuckoo Song is a changeling story with a twist; it is told from the perspective of the changeling herself. But the twists don’t end there. Its characters are rarely who they initially seem, forcing Triss to rapidly change her allegiances. The readers loyalties change too, as the characters' competing ideas of what is right and good is explored, and how far they’ll go in following them is exposed.

The world these characters inhabit also twists, from the evocative 1920’s England of the opening, to the increasingly creepy magical structures built within it. And the theme of building extends throughout the story, with characters including a menacing architect and the mysterious Shrike, who animates objects into living beings, to the themes of rebuilding a family after betrayal and building a life after the death of another, or of oneself.

This is a long book, and the tension mounts gradually in the first quarter, until eventually taking off at breakneck speed. But throughout, Cuckoo Song is filled with rich folklore and the unique, descriptive flair of Hardinge, a multi-award winning children’s novelist.

Reviewed by Claire McCauley