The Explorer – Katherine Rundell - review

From an exciting opening that features a plane crash into the heart of the Amazon jungle, Freddie, Con, Lila and Max are plunged from the skies right into the heart of the rainforest and begin their story of survival in a world that is menacing, unfamiliar and fraught with danger.

All have had a sheltered upbringing where the closest they have come to adventure is reading about it in books. Now they need to work out what berries they might eat without dying, and come up with a plan of how on earth they might achieve the impossible, escape the miles of dense, threatening jungle and get home.

The team make an enchanting group. They quickly learn they must depend on each other and put their differences aside to survive. They all have to be brave and find skills they didn’t know they had as well as look after each other.

When help arrives it is in an unexpected form, along with the growing realisation that the only possible way out is to first learn to live successfully in the jungle rather than trying to fight it.

It’s an old-fashioned adventure story that will appeal to anyone who dreams of being thrown into an adventure where you only have your wits and bravery to survive.

From being an unfamiliar and threatening place, the children learn to work with the jungle as they learn to work with and trust each other, gradually building as much of a strong bond to each other as they do to the unfamiliar and dangerous world that surrounds them.

From an exciting tale of survival against the odds, grows a charming, compelling and warm-hearted tale of friendships forged in danger, responsibility – and respect for the natural world.

Not simply an exciting adventure story, this will leave readers with plenty to think about.

One of my Books of 2017 - Nicki Thornton

Children On the Run - reviews of The Wolf Wilder and The Blackthorn Key

There is always that moment in Katherine Rundell’s books where the main protagonist makes a break for it – leaving aside all that is familiar to risk everything and RUNS.

I love those moments.

In her debut ‘The Girl Savage’ Wilhelmina Silver is sent from her idyllic, wild life growing up in Africa to an English boarding school where she fits in about as well as a hyena. She runs away from authority and girls who scare her more than any lion.

There is that great moment where odds stack up against staying, until the balance finally tips. The huge risk of setting off into the unknown becomes a better option than the fate of staying, with the greater goal of achieving, saving or reclaiming what they love. It always makes for a great concept in a book.

In multi-award-winning ‘Rooftoppers’, it is also the authorities Sophie is running from. Raised in a quirky home, Sophie has grown into a free-spirited tomboy with a taste for Shakespeare and the unshakeable belief that anything is possible. But as the authorities doubt her quirky guardian is so suitable for a young girl, they flee to Paris in search of her mother, previously presumed dead.

Sophie finds friendship and help from the Rooftoppers,  - homeless urchins who live on the rooftops of Victorian Paris dodging among the gargoyles. Sophie learns to tightrope between buildings in a quest to stay a step- ahead of the authorities and find out if her mother is alive.

In Katherine’s latest book ‘The Wolf Wilder’, the stakes are cranked up even higher.

Set in the snowbound woods of Russia, Feodora and her mother live with only wolves for company, staying on the fringes of the taut age of the Russian revolution. In a world where there is a huge divide between rich and poor, the rich have taken to having wild wolves as pets. But if they turn savage, they are brought to Feo and her mother - wolf wilders, bringing them into contact with soliders.

When her home is threatened, Feo takes on a vile guard in the Russian army and her fearless spirit means that when he makes the mistake of taking away everything she loves, Feo will eventually march on the Russian capital, having roused by an army of children.

The huge stakes make this a terrifically exciting and engaging story. In a country of such huge divide, revolution is brewing and when Feo is caught up in the fight, suddenly, having wolves on your side can make you very sought after – for good reasons and by bad people. 

It is a story of revolution and adventure, about standing up for the things you love and fighting back, rich in language and lore and with a spirited protagonist you will be rooting for all the way.

Katherine Rundell’s writing has won her own legion of followers and this will undoubtedly win her many more. She writes brilliantly compelling, touching yet exciting stories with heart-warming endings.

Her gutsy heroines are always pushed to the limits, but find strength and courage beyond measure. This one is published as a gorgeous hardback edition, complete with atmospheric illustrations (find out how they were created) by Gelrev Ongbico. This is a book to treasure in every way.

Moving on to the second of my favourite autumn reads for middle grade and tweens, there are similarities in ‘The Blackthorn Key’ by debut author Kevin Sands.

This also features a protagonist relying on his own wits as he goes on the run, pursued by the authorities in the historical period of Restoration England, when the country is unsettled and still divided following the English revolution, when Cromwell ruled instead of a king.

As well as a great historical setting, this novel is a gem because it is also full of potions and explosions, coded messages and clues.

Christopher is apprenticed to master apothecary, Blackthorn. When his master is murdered, Christopher, is determined to find out who committed the crime, and why, but then discovers he is the main suspect.

His master is not the only apothecary to have been targeted, and he’s left his clever apprentice a series of clues. Can Christopher solve them before his master’s sinister and ruthless enemies?

With coded clues to solve, hidden vaults and libraries, secret societies and a great hero who uses his knowledge of chemistry to escape, attack, bomb, inure and thwart his enemies, this is a clever, action-packed adventure. Explosive stuff!

Now knowing who are friends or foes, I love the bit where Christopher hides out in the only place he can think of, in the gutted remains of a building destroyed by fire, with a mad-man who believes his family didn’t perish in the blaze. Great creepy stuff!

Well-plotted, exciting and with a fascinating, original background, this is a terrific, clever, action-packed adventure 

If you want to know more about author Kevin Sands (and the seventy agents he sent this to in order to secure a deal) – find it here  

Both of these reads can be enjoyed by younger readers as long as they are pretty advanced with their reading, up to teens, librarians and adults!

Book in Every Stocking - Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door by Ross Montgomery recommended by Katherine Rundell

It's back! our annual festive campaign to persuade Santa to put a book in every stocking! Press here to read 2013 suggestions, and here for 2012's! We do this by aiding him (you know he is rather busy so keeping up with the publishing industry is tricky!) by asking authors, editors, readers and all round book lovers to write to the man in red and suggest good stocking filler book. Over the weeks approaching Christmas we have many cracking suggestions, but to kick us off we have one by the lovely Katherine Rundell! 

Today's Book in Every Stocking suggestion comes from Katherine Rundell. We at Space on the Bookshelf we are great fans of Katherine Rundell  and feel very privileged to have featured her on the blog several times, Press Here to read our 3D review of Rooftoppers, which then went on to win the 2014 Blue Peter Book Award. 

Dear Santa,

I am writing to recommend a book that I think you, as a man with an unusual job, an understanding of the fragility of the space-time continuum and a love of travel, will adore. It's for 9-12 year olds, and is called Alex, the Dog and the Unopenable Door. It's the debut novel of Ross Montgomery.

There are stories that make sense, and a few stories that do not (looking at you, Cinderella. Shoe size is not a valid criteria for forging long-term relationships) - and there are stories that make a totally different kind of sense from that which you had expected. 'Alex' falls into the third category. To describe it without plot spoilers is difficult - but it's about the son of a famously failed explorer, on an adventure to the Forbidden Lands, in the company of a talking dog. There is survival, and real fear, and there is a secret to be discovered. If the Coen bothers wrote children's fiction, it might be like this.

From the very first page, the book flies. 'The world's biggest dog was a Great Dane called Gibson, who was 107cm tall, or 42 inches, which is about as big as a 42-inch television screen.' It's like a less sly, more mad Roald Dahl novel. There are chapters that will give a child the nearest possible approximation to the experience of being slightly drunk that they can legally access. There are bits, too, that will make you cry. If you are anything like me - and, Santa, you have given me no reason to think you are not - you will find Alex, The Dog and the Unopenable Door a book to cheer for. It is beautiful, and clever, and warmly, wittily insane.

Yours,


Katherine Rundell

‘Rooftoppers’ by Katherine Rundell - Carnegie review

Baby Sophie is rescued from a sinking ship and, grows up believing that her mother died in the shipwreck.

But when he slightest of clues means there is a chance of tracking down her mother, Sophie, and scholarly Charles, who has brought her up in London, head to Paris in search of the truth, and the start of an out-and-out adventure story.

Sophie and Charles are used to staying one step ahead of the authorities, as the eccentric way Charles has looked after Sophie means she is only a step away from being taken to an orphanage.


But in Paris Sophie finds helps in her impossible quest from an unexpected quarter – from a bunch of children she meets who scrape a living on the Paris rooftops. Now on the run from police, Sophie sees a way she can still search for her mother. But first she must learn to scale ancient buildings in the dark, must learn to tightrope and to win the trust of the Rooftoppers.

It’s a magical tale, of children getting together to help each other and has a feel of a fairytale about it. But the thing that surprises on every page is the imaginative writing. Katherine’s way of telling the story, her fantastically imaginative word play, means there is plenty to enjoy and delight.

It’s in a great tradition of storytelling. It has huge appeal and, from the children I’ve talked to about their Carnegie experiences this year, it is the book people have most been pleased to have discovered through the shadowing.

It’s a great story about being yourself, not fitting in and a theme of believing the impossible. Great to have such an enjoyable, uplifting and well-written story for younger readers on the list.

We asked author Katherine Rundell what was her favourite thing about her shortlisted book.

"My favourite thing about Rooftoppers is the night-time tightroping scene, when Sophie walks across a rope high above Paris. I've always loved tightroping and wire-walking, but imagining what it might actually be like gave me unexpected jabs of dizziness. It took seven or eight rewrites to get that scene as close to right as I could make it, but it's now one of my favourite things I've written."