The Cat in the Hat by Dr Zeuss

2016, first published 1956  
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Dr Zeuss brings us The Cat in the Hat in 1958 (Zeuss 2016). The story starts off down beat. The children cannot go out to play because it i pouring with rain. Sinisterly they hear a bump and then a giant anthropomorphic cat appears wearing a a hat. He promises to show them some tricks  and points out that their mother will not mind at all. The children are not sure what to do. Their mother is not at home. This would probably not happen in the 21st century. Indeed at this point the 21st century reader may think of stranger danger. The gold fish speaks up and tries to protect the children: “No, no.

         Make that cat go away

          Tell the Cat in the Hat

          You do NOT want to play”(p12)

The cat makes a terrific mess after trying to hold too many things at once. The fish constantly admonishes him and to some extent the children. The cat brings in a mysterious red box. It contain two curious humanoid creatures (p33). The fish becomes even more concerned. The Things are mischievous. They fly kites in the house (p37). Indeed, the Things make a mess (39). Mother is on her way home.  The children become afraid and try to catch the Things (49). Fortunately the cat helps them to get their house tidy just in time for mother coming home.  

It was Zeuss’s aim to create fun books for children.

The book is 61 pages long. It is written in rhyme.  The pictures are in just black, blue red and white illustrate and supplement the story. The text uses a quite large adult font.        

Cat Tales by Linda Newberry

This a one in a series of stories about cats.  Further subtitles are: The Cat with Two Names, Rain Cat, Shop cat, The Cat Who Wasn’t There and Ice Cat.  Author Linda Newberry is a cat lover and keeps cats herself. 

There is nothing in the book or on the cover to indicate that this is a book for early readers. The child can have the delight of picking the book to read. It has a respectable spine.  Yet the props are there: There are short chapters, the text is printed in a large font (though it has a small serif and difficult ‘a’s and ‘g’s), the lines are double-spaced, it is formatted ragged right and there are line-drawings which mainly illustrate but occasionally tell more of the story.  

There is plenty of story, a ghost story at that.  Protagonist Simon has moved into a new house – which is actually quite an old house and sees a strange old lady in the garden next-door.  No one else can see her. She seems to talk to the plants but she is actually talking to the cats who are buried beneath them. She is troubled about Smoke, who is also confused and distressed. Simon helps them both.   

The Magical Kingmo of the Birds: The Silent Songbirds by Anne Booth

Illustrated by Rosie Butcher

2019

This is one of a series of book about the Magical Kingdom of the Birds. Protagonist Maya travels there frequently.  Every time a new picture appears in her colouring book and she colours it in she is transported to the Kingdom.    

This time she is invited to a concert by songbirds.  But evil Lord Astor is stealing their voices and will only give them back if they agree to make him the sovereign instead of Princess Willow.  Maya’s role is to help Willow see that Lord Astor has not reformed.

Maya is disabled – she has problems with her legs.  This is handled very sensitively.

The text is a little puzzling – it is blocked, double-spaced and uses a complex but large font.  There are illustrations throughout and a very attractive border around each page but all in monochrome. It is 111 pages long.  Is this meant for lower junior school or is at a book that should be read aloud to infants?  

There is some useful supplementary materiel at the end of the book including information about songbirds.      

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne

The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne 

2015  

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Pierrot Fischer, later Pieter, is half French and half German and spends the first part of his childhood in Paris.  He has a best friend who is Jewish, but doesn’t realise this and the significance of it.  His father, a great War veteran, commits suicide and his mother dies of TB. The Jewish family will not take him in – partly because they can’t afford to and partly because they think it will be dangerous for him. He goes first to an orphanage in Orleans and then his German aunt finds out about him. She happens to work at Hitler’s retreat, the Berghof in the Obersalzberg of the Bavarian Alps near Berchtesgaden.  Pieter becomes a Nazi and is quite nasty with it. His Aunt Beatrix and her lover, Ernst, the chauffeur are executed when they try to poison Hitler. Pieter begins to see that what he has become is wrong but only when the Germans are losing World War II and Hitler and the others with him in the bunker in Berlin kill themselves and when he himself is taken prisoner by the liberating soldiers. He eventually finds his old school friend from Paris, Anshel Bronstein, who has become a writer. Bizarrely at this point John Boyne switches from a close third person narrative to first person.   

 

As with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, (the BBC film of which was first broadcast after the watershed) it is difficult to really pinpoint a reader. Pierrot is seven at the beginning of the story and at the end we see Pierrot / Pieter as a grown man.  Before the epilogue he is eighteen and wears a soldier’s uniform but isn’t ever involved in active combat. There is a scene near the end of the story where he almost rapes the girl he would like to have as a girlfriend.  Yet this would not be too startling for the younger reader as the scene is quite subtle. Clearer is his sense of entitlement that his Nazi upbringing has created. 

 

It’s quite hard also to assess the impact on a reader, again as is the case with The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas;   adults reading the text know what is happening. Boyne writes very much form Pierrot’s / Pieter’s point of view and we see everything through an innocent boy’s eyes. When he is transcribing for Hitler what some important Nazi figures discuss in a meeting, he queries why the showers in the new camps will not have water. However, once we get to the end of the story Pieter refers to Buchenwald, Dachau, Auschwitz and the Geneva Convention as though the readers would perfectly understand this.            

     

Pierrot changes rather too quickly perhaps into a Nazi and then rather too quickly away from these dangerous ideals. 

Nevertheless, the book is well written, engaging and gives the opportunity for some meaningful discussion of many important issues.

The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier,

2015, First published 1956

This is the story of what happened to a Polish family during World War II. Note that this wasn’t written until 1956, so some time has elapsed before the end to the war and people have had time to rationalise what happened to them. Right at the beginning the reader is warned that this may be a grim tale: “the Balickis had a grim time of it. But worse was in store for them” (Loc 42).

We are given a quite graphic description of the concentration camp where father Joseph is interned (loc 52). Joseph, does manage to escape and has to make some tough decisions. He threatens some of his compatriots. He finds his home-town changed when he gets back(loc 212). Worst of all he discovers that his children have probably died (loc 239).

The children escape the Nazis but only by taking a great risk - escaping via the roof tops (loc 357). Then they live in a cellar. In the summer they camp out in a field. They become very resourceful. However, Edek, the oldest, gets captured (loc 448).

There are some gleams of hope: not only do they find the silver sword in street-urchin Jan’s box but they are helped by some of the Russian soldiers after the war has ended. There are helpful coincidences: Jan found the silver sword in the rubble of what was Joseph’s home. It was a present he gave to his wife. He tells Jan to keep it and if it is recognised Jan can tell his children that he has gone to Switzerland. The children meet Jan. But there are also near misses: they find out what had happened to Edek. They arrive at the camp where he had been held - now liberated by the Russians - only to find that they have just missed him. He ran away the day before. Yet their meeting is also a great coincidence: a fight breaks out in the displaced persons camp. Ruth comes to holding a hand; it is Edek’s.

The story is fast-paced. Good fortune and problems alternate for the children.

As they make their way to Switzerland they stay for a while with a German farmer and his wife. They learn about their two sons who were killed in the war. They realise that the young men were actually really just like them (Loc 1275).

Throughout the story the children take risks - not least of all when they escape by canoe along white water (loc 1399) and in Chapter 23 ‘Dangerous Waters’. At this point too, the Americans become the enemy even though the family was originally persecuted by the Germans. Edek’s coughing is also a constant worry.

They arrive in a camp just outside Switzerland. They have been helped by an American of Polish descent. They are so near and yet so far. The Swiss will take no more refugees.

This is a story about displaced persons and it looks just before the end as if it is going to have a happy ending. But Serrailier warns us: “They did not know that what was in some ways their most dangerous ordeal still lay ahead” (loc 1691). He uses here the story-telling skills that produce Hollywood blockbusters; the children are almost completely scuppered by the famous freak storm of 1945 on Lake Constance.

The story ends happily. The whole Balicki family is reunited and they adopt Jan. But Serralier warns his young readers: “The war produced countless tragic stories, few of which ended as happily as that of the Balicki family” (loc 1846). Jan anyway remains damaged.

The story is fictional but based on some real people who did not form part of the same family. The final chapter tells us what happened after the war to the fictional characters.

This edition of the book contains many useful activities for the young reader.  

The text is              

Tulip Taylor by Anna Mainwaring

2019
Tulip is obsessed with make-up. She is a competent well-followed vlogger. As in many texts for this age group she has dysfunctional parents.  She adores her younger brother and sister yet they also irritate her at times.  She has her supportive girlfriends and there is the usual love-interest.  

This text, however, rises above the normal real-life story for this reader. Tulip is challenged to appear on a TV survival show. She seems to be the least likely to succeed in the whole group.   There are other challenges in the rest of her life and she meets them all head on. 

Anna Mainwaring has created rounded believable characters about whom we care.

Tulip finds solutions to all the problems she faces.  She dispels the myth that her generation are snowflakes.    

OIlivia Levez describes it as “A Pride and Prejudice of Our Times’. Maybe.  There is so much more to it than that, though. 

The book offers a solid read.  It is some 292 pages long. The chapters are reasonably short.  

Awaken by Meg Cabot

2013  

This is actually the third book in a trilogy. Protagonist Pierce Oliviera lives in the Underworld with boyfriend John who comes from a different era. As well as dealing with Fates and Furies, Pierce and John face many of the issues that 21^st century young adults encounter. 

The pace is fast and the characters develop well.    

Each chapter is prefaced with a quote from Dante’s Inferno. By the end of the novel the young reader will have encountered some important parts of this classic. 

The reference to mythology should spark some curiosity in the reader though they can enjoy the novel without knowing the stories behind it. 

A useful list of characters and places is found at the end but I found I did not need to refer to it, even though I’d not read the first two books.

The book is 343 pages long with blocked text and printed in an adult font.