Book Reviews: Kit's Wilderness, Almond; Spare and Found Parts, Griffin; Widdershins, Onions

[juushika]

Title: Kit's Wilderness
Author: David Almond
Published: Random House Children's Books, 2001 (1999)
Rating: 4.5 of 5
Page Count: 240
Total Page Count: 499,800
Text Number: 1781
Read Because: reviewed by rachelmanija; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 4.5 stars, rounded up. After his grandmother dies, Kit and his family move in with his grandfather in a small ex-mining town. Kit, thirteen, who shares a name with the victim of a mass mining accident, plays a game of Death. This is a story of intergenerational trauma: the imprint that mining deaths left on a community which has since radically changed; the loss of a family member, and stories passed between generations; Kit's antagonistic friendship with Askew, a schoolmate who's a victim of child abuse. Almond's voice is sparse, but his text is dense; the summary barely touches everything going on here. Characters double and foil each other; inset narratives and ghosts add a surreal magical realist element balanced by incredibly realistic dialog. The relationship between Kit and Askew is captivating, a dynamic, intense, queer bond between boys from different backgrounds, united by a shared vision from opposite ends of the spectrum: "You and me, we're just the same."

It's not a flawless book. The coda runs overlong and puts too neat an end to beautifully complex themes; it turns out that intergenerational trauma is surprisingly easy to heal! who knew; how convenient. But many middle grade books about capital-d Death feel like award-bait; this is affecting but it's also weird and nuanced and has a Alan Garner-like dreamy quality. I loved it.


Title: Spare and Found Parts
Author: Sarah Maria Griffin
Published: Greenwillow Books, 2016
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 415
Total Page Count: 501,220
Text Number: 1785
Read Because: enjoyed the author's Other Words for Smoke, also reviewed by Rosamund
Review: DNF at 25%, not for any particular reason except that I'm not big on YA, and YA kept getting in the way of the parts I found interesting, over-broadcasting our protagonist's teenage social angst and the dystopic worldbuilding when I wanted to spend time with the speculative plot. If I know I'm not going to like it, well, then....


Title: Widdershins
Author: Oliver Onions
Published: 1911
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 160
Total Page Count: 502,015
Text Number: 1787
Read Because: many years ago I saw a first edition of this in Powell's rare book room & went, great title, great author name; and wrote it down and looked it up, and was delighted to see it was actually good; and put it on my TBR until, finally, it got read for the spooky season, to which it's a superb fit. Anyway, this is free via Gutenberg
Review: A collection of short stories, the longest of which, the novella "The Beckoning Fair One," is the most famous and most successful: after moving into new lodgings, the narrator finds himself courting the jealous spirit who inhabits it; it has that perfect, seductive claustrophobia of a haunted house, pushing away the outside world, drawing the protagonist into an obsession which is toxic but irresistible. The other stories are shorter and more gimmicky, not in a negative way; it reminds me, weirdly, of the Twilight Zone, a sort of "wouldn't it be fucked up if that happened" vibe - to live a life in an instant, to be pursued by one's shadow-self, to sacrifice sanity for art, which is the most consistently recurring theme in this collection. Only the novella is particularly good, but the whole collection is very readable.

Comments

[starshipfox]

Son interesting to see your review of Kit's Wilderness! I loved it as a child, but I haven't read in twenty years. I remember being obsessed with the girl who killed the bear.

[juushika]

I'd be fascinated to know how you see it then vs. now, nonetheleast because I'm pretty sure you're referring to the inset narrative the protagonist writes about a boy that kills a bear to save his sister, which is either a small mistaken detail from 20 years ago or one of those "I built myself a whole brainscape built on child-me's favorite parts, which may not entirely reflect the original text" moments.

But I really did love it!

[starshipfox]

Definitely the second one, because my memory is that it's a book with a brief framing narrative about a modern boy called Kit, and then a long story about a bear-killing girl called Mox (who is apparently a boy?). I turned EVERYONE into girls as a kid... I was convinced Merry and Pippin were girls for years.

I liked a lot of David Almond's books as a kid, though. Was this your first?

[juushika]

I'm fascinated by that! It's a phenomenon I can only recall encountering a few times in my own reading, but I've always been delighted by how Jo Walton talks about it re: the suck fairy:

Worst of all, that wonderful bit you always remembered, the bit where they swim into the captured city under the water gate at dawn, and when they come out of the water in the first light and stand dripping on the quay, it all smells different because the enemy’s campfires are cooking their different food—it turns out to be half a line. “Next morning we went in by the water gate.” This most typically happens with re-reading children’s books. It’s like the moral opposite of skimming, where you’ve dreamed in extra details the book never mentioned. The thin thing you’re re-reading can’t possibly be what you remember, because what you remember mostly happened in your head.

Which I reference a lot, so apologies if I've referenced it to you/in your periphery before! But I find it more delightful than disappointing, even if it changes a book in retrospect. Something about reading children's literature, particularly as a child, and the fact that text can be a springboard. Something about the power of imagination. I find it intriguing; I half-wish I had that power, now.

Anyway, yes, this was my first Almond. I've since read Skellig, which was less my cup of tea. If you have any specific suggestions, I'd love to hear. I'm definitely interested in reading more.

[starshipfox]

I have never heard that quote before, and it's lovely! I agree, it can be wonderful to realise how deeply you read as a child, and how much the experience of reading existed in the imagination, and how that's what went into the memory.

Skellig is the one I remember most clearly. It was a VERY big deal here when I was a kid: I'm pretty sure we read it in school. Despite that, I enjoyed it a lot, and found it stayed with me. The only other Almond I remember reading is "Heaven-Eyes", which was a bit more of a problem novel, but I remember enjoying his prose.

I vividly remember this book, Kite, and would have bet money that David Almond wrote it too, but apparently he didn't.

[juushika]

Appreciate all the title drops! Even for Kite. I'm currently reading Goudge's The Little White Horse, which I picked up from your review, and absolutely adoring it. (I also did that thing where I put it on my TBR & then jettisoned all information about why/who/what/where it was about, so let me tell you, I was very surprised my 'her nurse beat her a lot because, you know, childcare :)' until I ... checked the publication date, haha. But my point is:) You've lead me towards some pretty remarkable MG/YA books over the years, so I'm always happy to add more to the list.

[starshipfox]

In the 90s, it seems like a lot of British kidlit was very dark or sad -- lots of stories about kids from impoverished industrial backgrounds who deal with terrible dilemmas. Maybe it was the influence of A Kestrel for a Knave? Anyway, I think Kite is one of those books -- Melvin Burgess tended to be ruthless.

Irish kidlit was a pretty wild ride too -- for a long time the only books available was a long series about the brutal lives of wild foxes. I wonder if that influenced my lifelong fox obsession!

I'm DELIGHTED to hear you are enjoying A Little White Horse. Elizabeth Goudge was born in 1900, and was the daughter of a vicar -- it definitely shows! But her work can be so beautiful and so surprising: A Little White Horse definitely balances all her best qualities; there is a reason it's the most well-known of her books! But I like her a lot as a writer.

I'm so happy that I've led you towards kidlit that you've enjoyed! It's one of my favourite genres and I'm so pleased to share it. LMK if you ever want any more recs. :)

[rionaleonhart]

Hi! Sorry to parachute in out of nowhere. You keep catching my eye on threesentenceficathon - you leave such great prompts and lovely comments! - and eventually I concluded that I should probably just subscribe to you, if you'd be up for that. It looks from your 'every game I've ever played' list as if we have a fair amount of common ground! (If you're curious, here's my own list of every game I've played.) You've also made me want to reread Kit's Wilderness; I remember very little about it, but I found David Almond's style so striking when I was a kid.

[juushika]

Hey, thanks and welcome! I'm pretty inconsistently online these days; mostly book reviews and the occasional sad post with life updates haha. So if you ever want to bail, no hard feelings. But we do have pretty significant overlap in types of media we're drawn to! The idea of annotating every game I've ever played leaves me paralyzed with fear; that must have taken a calendar age.

Anyway, you're welcome here, and I'm interested in your posts, too, and also thank you for saying such nice things re: 3SF! It's been such an accessible, fun way to actually engage in fandom instead of my usual lurking.