Project and content management for Contemporary Authors volumes
WORK TITLE: Merrow
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY:
STATE:
COUNTRY: Australia
NATIONALITY: Australian
http://www.walkerbooks.com.au/Authors_and_Illustrators/Ananda-Braxton-Smith
RESEARCHER NOTES:
Plenty: A Place to Call Home
Secrets of Carrick: Tantony
PERSONAL
Female.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer and journalist.
AWARDS:Notable Book award, Children’s Book Council of Australia, 2011, for Merrow, and 2012, for Secrets of Carrick.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Ananda Braxton-Smith is an Australian writer of books for children and young adults. She has also worked as a journalist.
"Secrets of Carrick" Series
In Secrets of Carrick: Tantony, part of a series called “Secrets of Carrick,” Braxton-Smith tells the story of twin siblings, Fermion and Boson Quirk. The two live in Carrick, a rural land by the sea. One day, Fermion finds Boson dead in a bog. The twins’ family is devastated by the loss of Boson. Fermion determines to do whatever it takes to keep them together. She sets sail for a mystical place called The Other Island, where she gains knowledge and learns to deal with her grief. Claire Saxby, critic on the Aussie Reviews website, commented: “Tantony includes some words from the almost extinct Manx language, but also includes very poetic language. It is a potage of history and wonder. Recommended for secondary school readers.” A reviewer on the Book Grotto website remarked: “The way the characters express themselves is a delight to decipher, and the word-building here is some of the best I’ve read in YA. The characters are compelling, the tension is high, and the language weaves a gentle rhythm through the stark raw world of Carrick. Braxton-Smith also artfully employs two narratives … that enrich and feed off the other.”
Secrets of Carrick: Ghostheart, another installment in the series, features a protagonist named Mally, who lives with her large family on the Isle of Man. A frightened young girl, she feels different from her brave and confident siblings. Mally, whose best friend is a pig called Lovely, begins being followed by a threatening figure called Dolyn Craig. The volume includes words in the Manx language, the language of the Isle of Man. Saxby, the writer on the Aussie Reviews website, suggested: “Like the other two novels, Ghostheart resonates with language both poetic and accessible, words and phrases that will have readers entranced.” Saxby added: “Ghostheart starts gently, enticing the reader on as an overture does, teasing the audience on as the pace and tension builds. A rewarding read.”
In Merrow, a girl named Neen Marrey lives on Carrick with her Mam’s sister, Ushag. Her Mam left, and her Pa died when she was a little girl. Neen has heard rumors about their demise. Among them is that Neen is part-mermaid, or merrow. A stranger is discovered in a cave nearby, and he brings news about Neen’s Mam. Neen feels a strong draw to the ocean and wonders if that is her true home. According to Jennifer Rummel, critic in Voice of Youth Advocates: “Imagery and world-building take center stage in this novel but also slow down the pacing of the plot.” However, Deirdre F. Baker, contributor to the Horn Book, described Merrow as “a vital, surprising tale, in which description itself is full of passion.” BookPage reviewer Jon Little noted that it was “packed with adroitly selected physical details and stirring, folklore-inspired nested narratives.” “This quiet, introspective novel from Australian writer Braxton-Smith sparkles with lingering imagery and expressive writing,” asserted a writer in Publishers Weekly. Heather M. Campbell, critic in School Library Journal, called Merrow an “exquisitely told work.” Campbell concluded: “Readers will want to curl up at the feet of this narrator and listen to her spellbinding account.”
Plenty
Describing her 2014 book in an interview with Megan Daley, contributor to the Children’s Books Daily website, Braxton-Smith stated: “It’s called Plenty and officially is for ten to twelve year old people. I have been writing stories set in the Irish Sea during the Middle Ages but this is set now, and in and around Melbourne. It’s the story of Maddy Frank who after living in the same house her whole life is made to move out of the city in to the country—into the Plenty Valley. She is very homesick and very, very angry. When she’s angry she gets very cold and starts calling her parents by their first names.” Braxton-Smith added: “It’s also about fairies and orchids and growing up to be the sort of person who can make themselves and others at home wherever they are. Which is a good sort of person to be when the world is on the move—as it is. It is a story about resilience: a very beautiful human characteristic.”
In Plenty: A Place to Call Home, Maddy becomes friends with Grace Wek, who sits at the same desk with her at school. Grace is a refugee from Kakuma, who tells Maddy her story. Maddy hears another refugee story from her grandmother, who left her home country of Cyprus. She is getting to know her grandmother again after having been away from her for many years. Reviewing the book on the Readings website, Athina Clarke suggested: “Beautifully written and wonderfully insightful, this story will definitely strike a chord with … independent readers.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
BookPage, November, 2016, Jon Little, review of Merrow, p. 44.
Horn Book, January-February, 2017, Deirdre F. Baker, review of Merrow, p. 89.
Publishers Weekly, September 26, 2016, review of Merrow, p. 95; December 2, 2016, review of Merrow, p. 99.
School Library Journal, October, 2016, Heather M. Campbell, review of Merrow, p. 108.
Voice of Youth Advocates, December, 2016, Jennifer Rummel, review of Merrow, p. 69.
ONLINE
Alphabet Soup, https://alphabetsoup.net.au/ (October 3, 2014), Rebecca Newman, review of Plenty: A Place to Call Home.
Aussie Reviews, http://aussiereviews.com/ (June 26, 2011), Claire Saxby, review of Tantony; (January 6, 2014), Claire Saxby, review of Ghostheart.
Book Grotto, http://bookgrotto.blogspot.com/ (June 16, 2011), review of Tantony.
Children’s Books Daily, http://childrensbooksdaily.com/ (August 27, 2014), Megan Daley, author interview.
Readings Website, https://www.readings.com.au/ (July 23, 2014), Athina Clarke, review of Plenty.
Walker Books Australia and New Zealand Website, http://www.walkerbooks.com.au/ (June 29, 2017), author profile.
Ananda Braxton-Smith
Ananda Braxton-Smith is a journalist and children's author. She has written several titles for Black Dog Books, including a series for older readers, the Secrets of Carrick. The first two books in the series, Merrow and Tantony, were Children’s Book Council of Australia Notable Books in 2011 and 2012, in addition to being finalists in the Young Adult Fiction category of the 2010 and 2011 Aurealis Awards. Her most recent book with Walker is Plenty.
QUOTED: "It’s called Plenty and officially is for 10-12 year old people. I have been writing stories set in the Irish Sea during the Middle Ages but this is set now, and in and around Melbourne. It’s the story of Maddy Frank who after living in the same house her whole life is made to move out of the city in to the country – into the Plenty Valley. She is very homesick and very, very angry. When she’s angry she gets very cold and starts calling her parents by their first names."
"It’s also about fairies and orchids and growing up to be the sort of person who can make themselves and others at home wherever they are. Which is a good sort of person to be when the world is on the move—as it is. It is a story about resilience: a very beautiful human characteristic."
Book People: Ananda Braxton-Smith
By Megan Daley - Aug 27, 2014 8 4448
Book People: Ananda Braxton-Smith
I have read and very much enjoyed Ananda Braxton-Smiths young adult series, ‘The Secrets of Carrick’. I do so love it when an accomplished YA writers turns their talent to our younger readers. Braxton-Smith’s new novel, ‘Plenty’ is aimed at 10-12 year olds and I have enjoyed it so much that I will be nominating it for our next Girl Zone Book Club read. It contains some pre-teen angst, the joy and the pain of family relationships and plenty (nice pun me) of real world issues which young readers are starting to explore. There is also a smattering of some of my favourite book characters – fairies. Yep a realistic fiction story with some fairies. Perfection.
Plenty
Thanks to Walker Books and Avid Reader Bookstore, a number of schools in Brisbane are lucky enough to be having Ananda visit next week. I thought I would get a little background information on her first!
Welcome to Children’s Books Daily Ananda, and thank you for taking the time to answer my questions. I shall have coffee and cake ready and waiting for your visit – because I am also a helpful librarian, like the ones you mention below!
ad_avid_reader
Ten Things You Need to Know
About Ananda Braxton-Smith
1. Tell us about your latest book.
It’s called Plenty and officially is for 10-12 year old people. I have been writing stories set in the Irish Sea during the Middle Ages but this is set now, and in and around Melbourne. It’s the story of Maddy Frank who after living in the same house her whole life is made to move out of the city in to the country – into the Plenty Valley. She is very homesick and very, very angry. When she’s angry she gets very cold and starts calling her parents by their first names.
A grandmother she hasn’t seen since she was a baby and her deskmate at her new school eventually help her settle in to her new home and learn to be flexible. Her deskmate is Grace Wek, a girl who was born in Kakuma refugee camp. Her grandmother, who was a Cypriot refugee, and Grace both have stories of displacement which move and inspire Maddy.
It’s also about fairies and orchids and growing up to be the sort of person who can make themselves and others at home wherever they are. Which is a good sort of person to be when the world is on the move—as it is. It is a story about resilience: a very beautiful human characteristic.
plenty
2. How did you get started as a writer?
I have been doing the writing since I was 11 and hardly a day has passed in which I don’t write some little thing. I have only been a professional sort of writer in the last few years. I wrote radio and TV for kids in the eighties, and then I won a short story competition. But I didn’t get properly published until I was 47! Maybe that’s because I never tried, though. At 46 I had just got a degree in Professional Writing and Literature when I bumped into Oz author and editor Karen Tayleur at a coffee shop near the school our kids attended. She was saying black dog books needed someone to write a history of the bubonic plague. I happen to love history and the bit where the plague hits London in 1666 is one of my favourite bits, so I leaned back … and I said I thought that someone was me.
Here’s the thing about degrees in writing. They don’t get you jobs but they do give you the notion to lean back in coffee shops and offer yourself as someone who might write something!
So I went in for a meeting and wrote a test chapter and that was that. That book was called The Death: the horror of the Plague. The medieval YA fiction series I went on to write, called The Secrets of Carrick, draws on the research for The Death. Because after I said I’d write the history book I realised I was very, very ignorant and had to give myself a serious talking-to, and a crash course on the Middle Ages. I had heaps, piles, folders of unused research. I’m still looking for places to put it.
the-death-the-horror-of-the-plague
3. What does a typical day look like for you?
I get up and drink tea for quite a long time, thinking. I know it looks like I’m just hanging around in my pj’s but it’s not, alright? I clean my house and prep the family’s dinner. Then I work all afternoon, either at the library or in my coffee shop. My first professor at uni, the poet Judith Rodriguez, told us in first year the most important thing was to find a coffee shop where they’d let you sit for ages on one coffee. I took her seriously and have written in the same coffee shop for seven years!
Sometimes I write all afternoon, five or six hours, but mostly I’ve learned to research a while and then write for no more than three hours at one time.
I come home about seven and cook or supervise cooking, and essays and lifts to and from places. I chat with my husband Nigel of this and that, and we watch Midsomer Murders or QI or David Attenborough. I drink tea.
It’s a day. It’s a good day. I like it.
4. Can you describe your workspace for us?
There are two.
One’s my library in Belgrave where the librarians are helpful and the afternoon light is warm. There are clean desks and fast computers. The computers work all the time or they give you another one. They have free wi-fi.
The second is the aforementioned coffee shop, called the Reel, also in Belgrave. They let me sit there all afternoon sometimes on one coffee and one herbal tea. It’s been seven years and I’m very ensconced down there. The chef has taken to getting me to taste new dishes! I guess I should do something to earn my table.
5. Any words of advice for young readers and writers?
Browse second hand book shops for great out-of-print books. Take no notice of the covers. Read the first paragraph and a then a random one from the middle to get a sense of the style. Don’t browse the end. Read all sorts of types of books. There are so many. Don’t just let your parents or teachers, or Amazon.com’s recommendations, tell you what to read.
Young writers should write, I think. They should read heaps and write heaps. It’s not only fine to model your writing on your fave authors, it’s a very good thing to do. While you’re doing it you learn what good writing feels like. You will develop your voice and themes as you grow older.
And I think it should be enjoyable. A space you want to visit. So writing in a consistent place is helpful. A great place. After a while as soon as you go to the place, you want to write. It shouldn’t feel like a chore or a school task.
Lastly, writing is an art. And art is part of life. Part of living. Young artists, young writers are unusually sensitive sorts of people (like older ones) and need to look after themselves. I don’t mean that other people aren’t sensitive, just that writers can be specially touchy and intense. Writing is part of the way in which they can look after themselves. It should be practised a little every day rather than in occasional long sessions.
The other is to get plenty of fresh air. Boring, but true. Let’s face it. Writing requires a person to spend way too long sitting still in increasingly airless rooms.
6. Do you have a favourite book or character (your own or somebody else’s)?
I have hundreds of favourite books. How can a reader not? So many brilliant, gorgeous and true stories. Here’s some, starting with my faves as a child:
1. My Family & Other Animals: Gerald Durrell
2. The Once & Future King: TH White
3. Under Milkwood: Dylan Thomas
4. The Little White Horse: Elizabeth Goudge
5. The Narnia books: CS Lewis
Now:
1. The Poisonwood Bible: Barbara Kingsolver
2. The Sea Around Us, & The Edge of the Sea: natural history by Rachel Carson
3. Fairy & Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry: edited by WB Yeats
4: Ballad of the Sad Café: novella by Carson McCullers
5. Meet the Ancestors: Richard Dawkins
And, strangely enough, as you mentioned it, today I
was reading Tantony, by me, in readiness for the Brisbane Writers Festival, and I couldn’t believe I’d written it! I wonder if other writers ever have this experience? It was like reading someone else, someone who’d written a book just for me. The book I would write if I wrote a book. I was disconnected from it. I loved reading that book. (It’s one of my favourites now, just between us.)
secrets-of-carrick-tantony (1)
7. If you were not a creator of books for young people what would you be?
A palaeontologist.
8. What is your favourite food to eat and/or your favourite music to listen to whilst you are working on your books?
Coffee, sadly. Because I can’t drink so much anymore —and I spend my writing time feeling a vague sense of loss. I worry it will infect the writing.
9. How much of yourself or people you know is in your books?
It’s all me and people I know. It can’t really be anything else. What I can’t say is what elements belong to whom. A particular mood of sea is just as likely to stand in for someone as any complete character. None of my characters, who are all somewhat outlandish actually despite their humanity, are like anyone I know in my life. Good grief! But the material of the text can only be down to me and the odd contents of my mind.
10. If you could have one wish for the world what would it be?
Well. It would be nice if they would stop whacking one another.
Book People: Ananda Braxton-Smith
Plenty
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QUOTED: "a vital, surprising tale, in which description itself is full of passion."
Merrow
Deirdre F. Baker
The Horn Book Magazine. 93.1 (January-February 2017): p89.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Horn Book, Inc.. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
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Merrow
by Ananda Braxton-Smith
Middle School, High School Candlewick 234 pp.
11/16 978-0-7636-7924-8 $16.99 g
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Neen Marrey is a heishan--in Manx, the language of the Isle of Man, neither girl nor woman, but somewhere in between. And as the relentless sun beats down on her and her aunt during this summer of in-between growth on their tiny island, Neen wants answers. Gossips say that her father drowned and her mother was a merrow, or mermaid, who returned to the sea, but practical-minded Auntie Ushag will have none of it. As Neen scavenges among the sea-wrack (and the local folklore), boring into the shifting sands and rock caves as never before, she gets glimpses of an amazing truth, answers that will change her aunt and herself forever. The forcefulness and musicality of Braxton-Smith's prose seems born from the very waters of her setting--the Irish Sea, at a time when Norsemen still roamed and raided; when selkies, merrows, and krakens were considered to be real. Neen's forthrightness, her precise, pungent way with words ("[The sun] had no pity, and under its rays all the dead of last night's great tide had shriveled to black guts and silvery-fine fish leather. The stink of them seemed to walk abroad like it was its own creature"), intensifies our sense of the grumpy obsessiveness of her adolescent restlessness. A vital, surprising tale, in which description itself is full of passion.
Baker, Deirdre F.
Merrow
Publishers Weekly. 263.49 (Dec. 2, 2016): p99.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Merrow
Ananda Braxton-Smith. Candlewick, $16.99 ISBN 978-0-7636-7924-8
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Twelve-year old Neen Marrey has been raised by her maternal aunt, Ushag, and brought up on stories of merrow (mermaids), selkies, krakens, and changelings. When Neen was a toddler, her fisherman father drowned arid her mother disappeared soon after, leaving whispers and speculation in their wake. Neen harbors the secret belief that her mother simply rejoined her true family, the merrow that live below the sea, and that she will soon return for Neen. The discovery of a hidden cave and the arrival of a near-drowned "Northman" lead to unexpected revelations about both the local lore and Neen's mother. This quiet, introspective novel from Australian writer Braxton-Smith sparkles with lingering imagery and expressive writing. Readers will be easily drawn into Neen's determined efforts to piece together a true understanding of the mother she barely knew, whose story has been muddied by the unkind stories and rumors shared by locals. Neen's sense of displacement fades as the wall between herself and Auntie Ushag, created by long-kept secrets, begins to crumble, earning them hard-won contentment and kinship. Ages 14-up.
QUOTED: "Imagery and world-building take center stage in this novel but also slow down the pacing of the plot."
Braxton-Smith, Ananda. Merrow
Jennifer Rummel
Voice of Youth Advocates. 39.5 (Dec. 2016): p69.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 E L Kurdyla Publishing LLC
http://www.voya.com
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3Q * 2P * M
Braxton-Smith, Ananda. Merrow. Candlewick, 2016. 240p. $16.99. 978-0-76367924-8.
Neen lives on an island with her sour aunt, who raises her after her father dies and her mother disappears. Legends swirl on the island, and Neen cannot help but wonder if the legends of mermaids could be true and if her family could be part of that legend. She desperately tries to get her aunt to open up about Neen's mother, but her aunt is not interested in the past. Then a man washes into their net while they are out collecting food. He is not from this part of the world, and he does not speak their language, but it is clear that he could change everything.
Braxton-Smith creates a world filled with legends, hardship, and hope. Neen questions everything, including her identity, her worth, and what she would be if the rumors about her mother are true. Imagery and world-building take center stage in this novel but also slow down the pacing of the plot. Neen grows from a child whose best friend is a cow to making self-sacrificing decisions that could change her world. Neen's summer of magic takes place without romance or a best friend, but standing by herself searching for her identity, her worth, and her place in the world.--Jennifer Rummel.
QUOTED: "packed with adroitly selected physical details and stirring, folklore-inspired nested narratives."
Merrow
Jon Little
BookPage. (Nov. 2016): p44.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 BookPage
http://bookpage.com/
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MERROW
By Ananda
Braxton-Smith
Candlewick
$16.99, 240 pages
ISBN 9780763679248
Audio available
Ages 14 and up
HISTORICAL FICTION
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All her short life, Neen has heard the rumors. They say her mother was a mermaid, a merrow. They say that when her father drowned, her mother followed him back to her home on the ocean floor. Neen's tight-lipped Auntie Ushag swears there's nothing to the gossip, but Neen isn't so sure. The sea's swelling waves beckon her in a way she doesn't quite understand. And if her mother were a merrow, it would certainly explain the strange, almost scaly skin condition that covers both her arms.
Packed with adroitly selected physical details and stirring, folklore-inspired nested narratives, Ananda Braxton-Smith's Merrow follows Neen on her journey of discovery and self-realization. From skeletons in caves to colloquial yarns about local sea monsters, each encounter forces Neen to reconsider her world and her place in it. Is her island home full of merrows and other fantastical beings, or just everyday people struggling to understand their everyday lives? Is she the offspring of a mermaid returned to sea, or just the daughter of a depressed widow who couldn't bear to live without her husband?
As Neen tries to parse the real from the imaginary and the mythic from the mundane, she comes to understand the power of stories--how they can bind and destroy us, or shape and sustain us.
QUOTED: "This quiet, introspective novel from Australian writer Braxton-Smith sparkles with lingering imagery and expressive writing."
Merrow
Publishers Weekly. 263.39 (Sept. 26, 2016): p95.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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* Merrow
Ananda Braxton-Smith. Candlewick, $16.99 (240p) ISBN 978-0-7636-7924-8
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
Twelve-year old Neen Marrey has been raised by her maternal aunt, Ushag, and brought up on stories of merrow (mermaids), selkies, krakens, and changelings. When Neen was a toddler, her fisherman father drowned and her mother disappeared soon after, leaving whispers and speculation in their wake. Neen harbors the secret belief that her mother simply rejoined her true family, the merrow that live below the sea, and that she will soon return for Neen. The discovery of a hidden cave and the arrival of a near-drowned "Northman" lead to unexpected revelations about both the local lore and Neen's mother. This quiet, introspective novel from Australian writer Braxton-Smith sparkles with lingering imagery and expressive writing. Readers will be easily drawn into Neen's determined efforts to piece together a true understanding of the mother she barely knew, whose story has been muddied by the unkind stories and rumors shared by locals. Neen's sense of displacement fades as the wall between herself and Auntie Ushag, created by long-kept secrets, begins to crumble, earning them hard-won contentment and kinship. Ages 14--up. (Nov.)
QUOTED: "exquisitely told work."
"Readers will want to curl up at the feet of this narrator and listen to her spellbinding account."
Braxton-Smith, Ananda. Merrow
Heather M. Campbell
School Library Journal. 62.10 (Oct. 2016): p108.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
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* BRAXTON-SMITH, Ananda. Merrow. 240p. ebook available. Candlewick. Nov. 2016. Tr $ 16.99. ISBN 9780763679248.
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Gr 8 Up--Twelve-year-old Neen has heard the stories the people of Carrick tell: "Her Pa was a drinker who'd killed Mam by mistake." "Pa married a merrow--a mermaid--and Mam went after him and drowned." "Mam lost her mind after Pa died and walked the island until she was nothing but a skeleton." But Neen believes none of these. The only tales she'll listen to are those of Skully Slevin, the island's blind fiddler, and his ma. Skully tells Neen that she has merrow blood mnning through her veins--the proof is in the itchy red scales that appear on her each year. The only one who doesn't tell stories is bitter Auntie Ushag--she's more concerned with day-to-day tasks that need to be done, and all she'll say is that Neen's mam left because of a broken heart. But as the girl stands on the border between childhood and womanhood, she is restless and desperate for answers, and her search for them will take her to unexpected places. The author has done detailed research on the customs and language of Carrick, and this novel perfectly captures the harshness and beauty of that culture. This exquisitely told work examines the power of stories and how a well-told tale can transcend truth and history. VERDICT Readers will want to curl up at the feet of this narrator and listen to her spellbinding account. Recommended for all YA collections.--Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO
QUOTED: "Beautifully written and wonderfully insightful, this story will definitely strike a chord with ... independent readers."
Plenty by Ananda Braxton-Smith
Reviewed by Athina Clarke
23 JUL 2014
Ten-year-old Maddie is confused and extremely angry when her parents reveal they’re moving from their inner-city Melbourne home to a small regional town. Her sense of dislocation is profound as all that she’s ever experienced – home, school and friendships – will now be so far away. Essentially, she feels homeless. But it’s in the small town of Plenty that Maddie discovers family and a wonderful friend who not only truly understands her plight but gives new meaning to ‘home’.
I found myself completely involved in Maddie’s journey from homesickness and anger to understanding and acceptance, and finally to a sense of belonging. I loved this story’s honesty and tender heart, its perceptive portrayal of Maddie’s emotional upheaval and uncertainty, and its gentle resolution. Beautifully written and wonderfully insightful, this story will definitely strike a chord with confident, independent readers. It’s also a compelling and satisfying read-aloud book. Highly recommended.
Book review: Plenty
October 3, 2014 by Rebecca Newman
Plenty by Ananda Braxton-Smith, ISBN 9781742032429, Black Dog Books
Plenty
REVIEWED BY PIPPA, 12, WA
A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.
10-year-old Maddy has always lived on Jermyn Street, but now her mum and dad are making her move to a town called Plenty. She has to leave behind her best friend Sophie-Rose, her school, and the fairy wall in her house.
At the new school everything is different and she has no friends. The teachers are called by their first names. No-one understands how Maddy feels. Grace Wek (a refugee) seems to be different from everyone else though — could she and Maddy have something in common?
I enjoyed this book because it explored Maddy’s sense of identity and what it means to call a place ‘home’. When I read it, it reminded me of my own experience moving house and schools a few years ago.
I think this book is aimed at a younger audience than me, and 9 to 12 year olds would enjoy reading Plenty. I rate it 4 out of 5 stars.
–
Pippa is one of our regular book reviewers. Her most recent review (if you don’t count this one!) was Crooked Leg Road. If YOU would like to send us a book review, check out our submission guidelines. Happy reading!
QUOTED: "Like the other two novels, Ghostheartresonates with language both poetic and accessible, words and phrases that will have readers entranced."
"Ghostheart starts gently, enticing the reader on as an overture does, teasing the audience on as the pace and tension builds. A rewarding read."
Ghostheart by Ananda Braxton-Smith
It was like this.
I saw it break cover from Spindlestone Stack and stop in the milky sea, washed in light, like one of the chapel wall saints, with its silverthread hair flying in glories. Then it waded ashore.
Watchful.
And just for a moment I thought it was her – Dodi Caillet – come back. That she’d found her way home. I thought it was all the years of my missing her that was making her shine like that. All the years of my wanting her, lighting up the morning. And I took a step toward her. I thought it would be me and Dodi, together again.
Like nothing ever happened.
But it wasn’t.
It was like this.
I saw it break cover from Spindlestone Stack and stop in the milky sea, washed in light, like one of the chapel wall saints, with its silverthread hair flying in glories. Then it waded ashore.
Watchful.
And just for a moment I thought it was her – Dodi Caillet – come back. That she’d found her way home. I thought it was all the years of my missing her that was making her shine like that. All the years of my wanting her, lighting up the morning. And I took a step toward her. I thought it would be me and Dodi, together again.
Like nothing ever happened.
But it wasn’t.
Mally lives on the Isle of Man, in a time when people stay close to their own and much is unexplained. Anything and anyone from otherwhere provokes suspicion and mistrust. Mally comes from a big family but she feels very different, like she doesn’t quite fit. Her brothers and sisters are brave and carefree, but she is frightened by the secrets in her world. The sea is big and terrifying and anywhere beyond her immediate home environment is even more so. Mally spends a lot of time alone evading the things that frighten her. She escapes into the caves by the sea, taking her pig Lovely with her. Only in there, with her only friend, does she feel safe. And now even that is feeling wrong. Dolyn Craig starts to follow her, saying out loud all the things that she is, and that she isn’t. She has seen spirits from the past. Mally is set spinning by the myriad frights.
Ghostheart is the third in the ‘Secrets of Carrick’ series from Ananda Braxton-Smith, although each of the three stories stand alone. There are characters in common and the landscape is the same. It’s a subsistence survival for all the islanders and they cling strongly to their land and their traditions. And their language. Like the other two novels, Ghostheartresonates with language both poetic and accessible, words and phrases that will have readers entranced: ‘…I felt myself to be some tiny fleck of foam hurled at the sky; a sanderling on the edge of the sea. A limpet unstuck. A holdfast, free-swimming.’ There are themes of belonging, guilt and responsibility. Ghostheart starts gently, enticing the reader on as an overture does, teasing the audience on as the pace and tension builds. A rewarding read for mature upper-primary and early secondary readers.
Ghostheart, Ananda Braxton-Smith Black Dog Books 2013 ISBN: 9781742032184
review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author
www.clairesaxby.com
QUOTED: "Tantony includes some words from the almost extinct Manx language, but also includes very poetic language. It is a potage of history and wonder. Recommended for secondary school readers."
Tantony, by Ananda Braxton-Smith
We found my brother in the skybog.
It was me that found him.
His body upright in the black water of boghole and his white face upturned to the dawn-pearl sky, like one moon watching another.
Skybog ground is dabbled with sinks of standing water as flat and shining as looking-glasses. When the bog mists curl away the pools show only white cloud or silver moonrays, lightning or stars, like bits of the sky have fallen right into the black earth. those sinks fill with falling rain or rising groundwater. Some are tiny, hardly big enough to hold even one star; some are deep as two men laid down end-to-end.
Fermion Quirk has just lost her ‘soft’ twin brother to the bogs that provide their family with a living. It’s true that Boson was always ‘soft’, but he became so much worse in the last years, since he went missing and was found. From then on, his talk was all of lonely people, voices in his head, and of being a bird. Fermion knows it is the reason that the townsfolk avoid them. Boson’s death threatens to tear Fermion’s family apart and she struggles to find a way to get through to them. Because it’s very soon clear that her mother is too lost in grief, and her father is lost without her mother to keep him on track. Fermion has lost her brother, her twin, and it seems that there is no room at all for her grief. Then the voices begin…
Tantony is set on Carrick, an island in the Irish Sea, in a time long ago. Superstitions and religion fight to explain variations in weather, in harvest, even the birth of ‘different’ children. Anyone different in anyway may be blamed for the sun not shining, the rain not falling and any manner of misfortunes that may occur. Tantony recalls another time, another place, but timeless issues. Fermion, who tells her own story along with that of her brother, her family, her community has a wonderful mix of practicality and openness to new ideas. She loved her brother deeply, but also loves her family too. She exposes the bullying, ignorance and more of the community and comes to understand other outcast community members. With a resoluteness that often appears to border on stubbornness, she saves the family she can. Tantony includes some words from the almost extinct Manx language, but also includes very poetic language. It is a potage of history and wonder. Recommended for secondary school readers.
Tantony, Ananda Braxton-Smith
Black Dog Books 2011
ISBN: 9781742031668
review by Claire Saxby, Children’s Author
www.clairesaxby.com
This book can be purchased from good bookstores, or online from Fishpond.
QUOTED: "The way the characters express themselves is a delight to decipher, and the word-building here is some of the best I’ve read in YA. The characters are compelling, the tension is high, and the language weaves a gentle rhythm through the stark raw world of Carrick. Braxton-Smith also artfully employs two narratives ... that enrich and feed off the other."
THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2011
Tantony, by Ananda Braxton-Smith
First published in 2011 by Black Dog Books
STORY:
Fermion Quirk and her brother Boson are twins, living in the remote coastal world of Carrick. When Boson sickens and dies ‘face down in a bog of stars’, Fermion is the one to find him. Now she must find a way to adjust to life without him, and help her family function again as a unit. To do so she must take a sea-journey, out to ‘The Other Island’ that is only there according to its whim, as local legend would have it. While she is there she discovers a world of secrets and answers and things unexplained, and above all how to become a whole person now that her brother is gone.
BACKGROUND:
What an entirely strange, weird and wonderful book Tantony is. It is hard to describe and explain; it is something you can only appreciate through experience. I really don’t think there is anything like this in the Aussie YA market, and I absolutely love Black Dog Books for publishing something that is really quite a literary oddity – in an amazing way. Tantony isn’t perfect but its flaws are easy to love, and there is the same mix of gorgeous, unconventional language, quirky endearing characters and immersive word and place-building that made me love Braxton Smith’s first novel, Merrow, so much. This is an author who genuinely leaves me hanging out for her next book, just to see what else she’s got up her sleeve. GORGEOUS!
CHARACTERS:
The harshness of life on the Carrick coast shapes the people who inhabit it – Braxton-Smith shows us this through the attitudes and mindsets of her characters. In Tantony we learn of those ‘afflicted’ – bearing some outward mark of the evil that inhabits them (this is a very simplified description – Braxton-Smith just about creates a whole mythology out of it). Fermion bears the burden of having an ‘afflicted’ brother, although his is much more a capacity for mental strangeness that has got the people of Carrick so up-in-arms. What I love about the characters in Tantony is that no matter how much page time they get, we always understand something of their complexity, something of all that might be sitting just under the surface. But this is really Fermion’s story and she is a real little fire-cracker, stubborn and strong but oh-so-very vulnerable. In particular I enjoyed the relationship between her and her father – and what an exquisite emotional moment when her father comes looking for her at the end. You will rarely find a more motley, odd-ball collection of characters than in this book.
STYLE:
I am a little bit in love with the way Braxton-Smith writes – some passages are just like a revelation with all the beauty and ache they hold. Carrick is a world of spirits and legends and you can feel it haunting every page. The way the characters express themselves is a delight to decipher, and the word-building here is some of the best I’ve read in YA. The characters are compelling, the tension is high, and the language weaves a gentle rhythm through the stark raw world of Carrick. Braxton-Smith also artfully employs two narratives – life with Boson and life after Boson, that enrich and feed off the other.
CONCLUSION:
Tantony is the second book in the Secrets of Carrick series, which links together different stories through landscape and mythology. It can definitely be enjoyed without having read Merrow (although I recommend that you do, just because it is brilliant). It won’t be for everyone, and it might not be an easy read, but it truly is a breath of fresh air in the Aussie YA market.
Posted by Samantha-Ellen at 4:55 PM