Five Children on the Western Front
By Kate Saunders
Delacorte Press (an imprint of Random House)
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-553-49793-9
Ages 9-12
On shelves now
Anytime someone writes a new prequel or sequel to an old children’s literary classic, the first question you have to ask is, “Was this necessary?” And nine times out of ten, the answer is a resounding no. No, we need no further adventures in the 100-Acre Woods. No, there’s very little reason to speculate on precisely what happened to Anne before she got to Green Gables. But once in a while an author gets it right. If they’re good they’ll offer food for thought, as when Jacqueline Kelly wrote, Return to the Willows (the sequel to The Wind in the Willows) and Geraldine McCaughrean wrote Peter Pan in Scarlet. And if they’re particularly talented, then they’ll do the series one better. They’ll go and make it smart and pertinent and real and wonderful. They may even improve upon the original. The idea that someone would write a sequel to Five Children and It (and to a lesser extent The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet) is well-nigh short of ridiculous. I mean, you could do it, sure, but why? What’s the point? Well, as author Kate Saunders says of Nesbit’s classic, “Bookish nerd that I was, it didn’t take me long to work out that two of E. Nesbit’s fictional boys were of exactly the right ages to end up being killed in the trenches…” The trenches of WWI, that is. Suddenly we’ve an author who dares to meld the light-hearted fantasy of Nesbit’s classic with the sheer gut-wrenching horror of The War to End All Wars. The crazy thing is, she not only pulls it off but she creates a great novel in the process. One that deserves to be shelved alongside Nesbit’s original for all time.
Once upon a time, five children found a Psammead, or sand fairy, in their back garden. Nine years later, he came back. A lot has happened since this magical, and incredibly grumpy, friend was in the children’s lives. The world stands poised on the brink of WWI. The older children (Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane) have all become teenagers, while the younger kids (Lamb and newcomer Polly) are the perfect age to better get to know the old creature’s heart. As turns out, he has none, or very little to speak of. Long ago, in ancient times, he was worshipped as a god. Now the chickens have come home to roost and he must repent for his past sins or find himself stuck in a world without his magic anymore. And the children? No magic will save them from what’s about to come.
A sequel to a book published more than a hundred years ago is a bit more of a challenge than writing one published, say, fifty. The language is archaic, the ideas outdated, and then there’s the whole racism problem. But even worse is the fact that often you’ll find character development in classic titles isn’t what it is today. On the one hand that can be freeing. The author is allowed to read into someone else’s characters and present them with the necessary complexity they weren’t originally allowed. But it can hem you in as well. These aren’t really your characters, after all. Clever then of Ms. Saunders to age the Lamb and give him a younger sister. The older children are all adolescents or young adults and, by sheer necessity, dull by dint of age. Even so, Saunders does a good job of fleshing them out enough that you begin to get a little sick in the stomach wondering who will live and who will die.
This naturally begs the question of whether or not you would have to read Five Children and It to enjoy this book. I think I did read it a long time ago but all I could really recall was that there were a bunch of kids, the Psammead granted wishes, the book helped inspire the work of Edgar Eager, and the youngest child was called “The Lamb”. Saunders tries to play the book both ways then. She puts in enough details from the previous books in the series to gratify the Nesbit fans of the world (few though they might be) while also catching the reader up on everything that came before in a bright, brisk manner. You do read the book feeling like not knowing Five Children and It is a big gaping gap in your knowledge, but that feeling passes as you get deeper and deeper into the book.
One particular element that Ms. Saunders struggles with the most is the character of the Psammead. To take any magical creature from a 1902 classic and to give him hopes and fears and motivations above and beyond that of a mere literary device is a bit of a risk. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve not read “Five Children and It” in a number of years so I can’t recall if the Psammead was always a deposed god from ancient times or if that was entirely a product from the brain of Ms. Saunders. Interestingly, the author makes a very strong attempt at equating the atrocities of the Psammead’s past (which are always told in retrospect and are never seen firsthand) with the atrocities being committed as part of the war. For example, at one point the Psammead is taken to the future to speak at length with the deposed Kaiser, and the two find they have a lot in common. It is probably the sole element of the book that didn’t quite work for me then. Some of the Psammead’s past acts are quite horrific, and he seems pretty adamantly disinclined to indulge in any serious self-examination. Therefore his conversion at the end of the book didn’t feel quite earned. It’s foolish to wish a 250 page children’s novel to be longer, but I believe just one additional chapter or two could have gone a long way towards making the sand fairy’s change of heart more realistic. Or, at the very least, comprehensible.
When Ms. Saunders figured out the Cyril and Robert were bound for the trenches, she had a heavy task set before her. On the one hand, she was obligated to write with very much the same light-hearted tone of the original series. On the other hand, the looming shadow of WWI couldn’t be downplayed. The solution was to experience the war in much the same way as the characters. They joke about how short their time in the battle will be, and then as the book goes along the darkness creeps into everyday life. One of the best moments, however, comes right at the beginning. The children, young in the previous book, take a trip from 1905 to 1930, visit with their friend the professor, and return back to their current year. Anthea then makes an off-handed comment that when she looked at the photos on the wall she saw plenty of ladies who looked like young versions of their mother but she couldn’t find the boys. It simply says after that, “Far away in 1930, in his empty room, the old professor was crying.”
So do kids need to have read Five Children and It to enjoy this book? I don’t think so, honestly. Saunders recaps the originals pretty well, and I can’t help but have high hopes for the fact that it may even encourage some kids to seek out the originals. I do meet kids from time to time that are on the lookout for historical fantasies, and this certainly fits the bill. Ditto kids with an interest in WWI and (though this will be less common as the years go by) kids who love Downton Abbey. It would be remarkably good for them. Confronting issues of class, disillusion, meaningless war, and empathy, the book transcends its source material and is all the better for it. A beautiful little risk that paid off swimmingly in the end. Make an effort to seek it out.
On shelves now.
Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.
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Everything, Everything
by Nicola Yoon. Delacorte Press, 2015. Reviewed from ARC.
The Plot: Maddy, 18, is a girl who hasn't left home in years. She has Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, which is a fancy way of saying she is allergic to everything. Her house has to be kept a sterile, few people are allowed in, and all she knows of the world is what she read or what she watches.
One of the things she watches is the house next door and the new family, including a boy, Olly, her age. A friendship develops, and maybe something more, as Maddy has to decide what her future will be and whether she will always be afraid of the world.
The Good: Maddy's father and brother died while she was still an infant, before her illness was diagnosed. For years, it's only been her mother, a doctor, and a nurse who also her friend and confidant.
Olly. Olly is a fresh breath and their relationship is slow and sweet (though Olly would probably hate that!). It begins with handwritten signs and progresses to texts and emails until Maddy begs her nurse to please, please, please let Olly visit her. He'll follow all the rules, they both promise.
One thing leads to another, and Maddy is tempted to do the unthinkable. To kiss Olly. To leave her home. To venture into a world that may kill her.
This is a terrific story of a girl get wrapped up and safe; it's a story of a mother and daughter who are close and loving, whose past tragedies have made them dependent on each other and close. It's a story of a girl who has to take a chance with life and love. It's about whether what is safe is the best; about when it's OK to take a chance. And it's also a book with a diverse main character (half African American, half Japanese American) in a type of book that is usually all white main characters with, at best, diverse side kicks/best friends.
SPOILERS.
It's also about how tragedy can shape a person, both mother and daughter. And how far a mother will go to protect someone she loves, to protect her child. All I'll say is that, Maddy's life is not what she thinks. That secret, that spoiler, meant that some people really did not like the book (see the Disability in Kidlit review). That spoiler didn't change how I viewed the book, it simply shifted it for me -- that the book was not about one thing, but was actually about another.
And that other thing, it's disturbing. It shifts how Maddy sees and interacts with the world. And it also makes one think about what causes hurt and what causes harm.
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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
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These Shallow Graves
by Jennifer Donnelly. Delacorte Press. 2015. Reviewed from ARC.
The Plot: New York City, 1890. Josephine Montfort has the type of life that others dream about: her family is old and respected, their money is old and respected, and she has a life of privilege and ease, of being waited on, of going to balls and parties.
Jo has friends and family and her own dreams: a dream of being a writer, of being a reporter, like Nelly Bly. It's not something a proper young lady does, however.
And then her father dies. The official report is he accidently shot himself while cleaning his gun ... but Jo has her doubts.
Those doubts, and Jo's own desire for the truth, will lead her away from the proper homes of rich New York, to places dark and dangerous.
The Good: Jo is a great heroine: while These Shallow Graves begins with Jo working on a school paper, hoping for better stories than the proper way to brew tea, Jo is very much a product of her world, her class, her time. She is limited in ways she doesn't know; and one wonders how Jo's future would have gone, had her father not died.
But her father does die, and Jo grieves but she also has questions and the instincts of a reporter, and those two things drive Jo outside the safety of her home and those she knows. Questions get answers and more questions, and there are more bodies; as well as a mysterious past and tragedies.
ARGH. You can tell that because this is, at it's heart, a mystery, I don't want to get too into the details of the mystery itself. What I can say is that I appreciate the contradictions within Jo: she is smart and clever, yes, but she has been protected by her wealth and her privilege. For example, most readers will pick up earlier than Jo does when characters are talking about brothels and prostitutes. But that is purposeful, to illustrate that Jo's being "protected" work against her by creating a level of ignorance that puts her into danger. If the reader is sometimes a step or two ahead of Jo, it's because they haven't been kept isolated behind walls of wealth and sexism.
These Shallow Graves is also very much a feminist book, looking at the options, and lack of options, of women in the late nineteenth century. There are mothers who seem to be coldly calculating as they arrange and plot suitable marriages, until one steps back and sees what happens to those women who aren't protected by money and family connections. Or, rather, what these women fear will happen to their daughters. It becomes clear early on just how narrow Jo's world is, and how that narrowness comes from fear and how that is it's own "grave", burying her dreams and hopes and desires deep.
That women do have choices, even if those choices are tough ones, is shown: yes, there are pickpockets and prostitutes and homeless women; there are people whose poverty destroy them. But there's also a mention of Edith Wharton and a young woman going to medical school. Yet it's clear that freedom, for women, is not easy or simple.
There is a bit of a love triangle, between the suitable young man that everyone, including Jo, thinks of as her future husband because, well, everyone assumes it. Such a good match, such good families, and they are friends so why not? And then there is the driven reporter, who latches onto the story of Jo's father as his ticket to a better job. Can he be trusted? And can Jo trust her feelings about him? Yes, a triangle.... but the two young men also represent the two choices Jo has: do what is safe, or do what she wants. What will make her family happy, or what will make her happy.
One last bit: without getting spoilery, I liked that many people rose to the occasion when the situation warranted. While there are some expected and unexpected betrayals, there are also people who prove themselves worthy of Jo's trust and friendship. People aren't black and white, for or against Jo. They are not shallow; they have as much depth as Jo -- it's just they are sometimes in a world that doesn't allow that depth.
These Shallow Graves are the secrets of the past; the places bodies have been buried; and also the world of Jo and her friends and families, limited by society, sexism, and prejudice.
A Favorite Book of 2015, because of the complexity of Jo. And I both want a sequel -- this could easily be the start of historical mystery series -- and a companion book, because Fay, well. Fay. Once you've read this, I think you'll agree: FAY.
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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
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These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly. Delacorte Press. 2015. Reviewed from ARC. Publication date October 27, 2015.
A historical mystery!
In 1890's New York City, Josephine Montfort has everything: she's young, she's rich, her parents adore her, she has good friends. Soon, she'll be engaged to the handsome and rich young man who has been a good friend since childhood. She wants to be a reporter, like Nelly Bly, and puts together the school paper.
All that changes when her father is found dead in his locked study, a gun in his hand. An accident.
Jo can't understand how the accident happened....she does what a proper young lady should not do.
She asks questions. Searching for answers leads her out of her protected, cossetted world, into the rough and tumble streets of New York, the world she's been protected from. A world of shallow graves.
Yes, put this on your radar -- it's a great mystery, but it's also a great look at female roles and expectations, and sexism, and how people can be too protected.
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© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
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Read this aloud to my 4th graders last year with great success. I did so because one child had read Five Children and It and pestered me to read this one aloud so I did. But none of the others had nor did they have any desire to after I read this one. This year one of my fourth graders read it and loved it. She did take Five Children and It to read afterwards, but seems to have lost steam with it. So I think this works just fine without familiarity with the earlier books. I suggest giving it to those who like The War That Saved My Life.
Just read this (I’d loved the earlier books as a child). I thought the author did a terrific job, balancing the lightness and fantasy of the story with the waste and bleakness of war–handling it in a deft way for the age group. Definitely worth reading.