The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery - a review

The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery
By Allison Rushby
Candlewick Press,  2018

Despite her young age, Flossie Birdwhistle is the Turnkey of London's Highgate Cemetery.  Having died herself of rheumatic fever at the age of 12, Flossie is now in charge of the well-being of all the souls interred at Highgate.  This alone can be a daunting job, however, when Flossie discovers a mysterious man who is neither of the living nor the spirit world, her job becomes more difficult. Now she must consider the concerns of the living and the very fate of England in WW II,

"Flossie simply couldn't work it out.  Who was this man?  What was he doing in London? And why had he run away like that?

Maybe if she described him, one of the newly interred at Ada's cemetery might know of him.  He was obviously an officer of great importance. Perhaps he had been in the newspapers."

In a story that is more mysterious than horrific, Flossie rallies allies from the ranks of the dead to combat a threat to the living. The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery is a genre-bending mix of middle-grade historical fiction, thriller, and ghost story. Turnkey should appeal to a wide variety of readers.  Only the extremely timid will find it disturbing; most will enjoy this unusual tale of ghostly heroism in time of war.


Coming this summer to a shelf near you.

Note:
Highgate Cemetery in London is on the Registry of Historic Parks and Gardens. Click the links to learn more about it.



My copy of The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery was provided by the publisher at my request.

A Fugitive in Walden Woods - a review

A Fugitive in Walden Woods
by Norman Lock
Bellevue Literary Press, 2017

A Fugitive in Walden Woods is historical fiction, a revisionist history featuring some of the greatest American minds of 1845. The book is part of The American Novels series.

At the cost of his shackled hand, the enslaved Samuel Long escapes via the Underground Railroad to relative freedom in Massachusetts. His benefactor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, gives him a job of sorts—monitoring the well-being of Emerson’s friend, Henry David Thoreau, who is in the midst of his famous sojourn in Walden Woods. In the occasional company of these men, Samuel becomes acquainted with Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, William Lloyd Garrison, and other Transcendentalists. A Fugitive in Walden Woods is Samuel Long’s memoir of his year in Walden Woods, written through the lens of his later experiences.

So thoroughly does Lock set the mood that it is impossible to tell which words of Thoreau, Emerson, and Hawthorne are ones actually spoken or ones created by Lock. Though these men pondered the great questions of their age (and our own), the insertion of Samuel into the story, forces a more practical rendering of their great ideals. 

Samuel writes,

"Emerson had asked me what it meant to be human. I should have told him that a person cannot be human if his life is perpetually in the grip of terror and uncertainty. Just as cities are built by people unafraid of marauding barbarians and the caprices of a hostile universe, so will we become human when we no longer live in fear for our lives."

A Fugitive in Walden Woods does not shrink from the difficult questions of our time, including racism. It succeeds in its goal of nudging us to become deeper thinkers.

"It is easy to misjudge others—a commonplace remark, but nonetheless true. We close our minds to the completeness of others, striking from the portraits we draw of them in our imaginations all contradiction."

Download a Reading Group Guide for A Fugitive in Walden Woods here.

My copy of A Fugitive in Walden Woods was provided by LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Egg & Spoon - an audio book review

I can save you some time today. If you'd like the short review of Egg & Spoon, click here to read my review for AudioFile Magazine. However, if you want to hear more about this wonderful book, read on!

Maguire, Gregory. 2014. Egg & Spoon. Grand Haven, MI: Brilliance Audio.  Read by Michael Page.

Can what we want change who we are? 

Have patience and you will see.

Set in the tsarist Russia of the late 18th or early 19th century, Egg & Spoon is an enchanting mix of historical fiction and magical folklore, featuring switched and mistaken identities, adventurous quests, the witch Baba Yaga, and of course, an egg.

Narrator Michael Page is at his best as the self-proclaimed “unreliable scribe,” who tells the tale from his tower prison cell, claiming to have seen it all through his one blind eye. In a fashion similar to that of Scheherazade, spinning 1001 "Tales of the Arabian Nights," our narrator weaves fantastical stories together and wraps us in their spell.

Ekaterina and Elena are two young girls - one privileged, one peasant - yet so alike that their very lives can be exchanged. Page creates voices so similar that one can believe the subterfuge, yet the voices are also distinct - a necessity in a book written to respect the reader's (or listener's) ability to discern the flow of conversation without the constant insertion of "he said/she said."

One girl finds herself en route to see the tsar, a captive guest of  the haughty and imperious Aunt Sophia on a train to St. Petersburg.  The other finds herself a captive guest of the witch, Baba Yaga, and her curious home that walks on chicken legs. As Baba Yaga, Page is as wildly unpredictable as the witch herself, chortling, cackling, menacing, mothering.

Michael Page is wonderful.  He brings each of author Gregory Maguire's many characters to life with a distinct voice.  He never falls out of character, and his pacing is perfect - measured to keep the listener from being overwhelmed by the story's intricate plot.

Grand and magical, Egg & Spoon is a metaphoric epic for readers from twelve to adult.

• Read a sample chapter from Egg & Spoon on the Candlewick website.
• Listen to an audio sample of Egg & Spoon here. 

Notes:

If you find the egg (or eggs) elusive, you will find the spoon even more so!
My copy of the book was supplied by the publisher. My copy of the audio book was supplied by AudioFile Magazine.  

Fallout by Todd Strasser - a review

Strasser, Todd. 2013. Fallout. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.
(Advance Reader Copy)

In many ways, Scott Porter, a soon-to-be sixth grader, is a carefree boy of the 1960's, palling around with his friends - Ronnie, Freak O' Nature, and Why Can't You Be Like Johnny?  But the summer of 1962, is not carefree to most of the world.  While many of his suburban neighbors have fatalist or devil-may-care attitudes, Mr. Porter is busily preparing for the nuclear war that he feels is sure to happen.  Neighbors ridicule the family as Scott's dad builds and stocks his underground bunker.

And then, in a twist of revisionist history, it happens.  The Soviet Union attacks the United States with a nuclear bomb, and the Porter's bomb shelter, designed to accommodate Mr. and Mrs. Porter, Scott, and his younger brother, Sparky, is now the only possible option for survival.

Set in the tense, crowded, and contentious atmosphere of the over-filled bunker, the story is revealed in flashbacks of neighborhood and school events leading up to the attack.  But it is not the past that matters.  As the situation grows increasingly desperate, the bunker's inhabitants, once friends and neighbors, live only for the present.  Who deserves to eat and drink, to use the sparse toilet paper, to wash, to live -- to die?  Disability, race, personal property rights all are examined in this gritty novel.  Powerful and affecting, the baseness of the human species is uncomfortably unveiled in Fallout.

"So?" Mr. McGovern demands.

Dad gathers himself up. "I said it before and I'll say it again.  Over ... my ... dead ... body."

"It won't just be your dead body -- it will  be everyone's," Mr. McGovern counters, then turns to the Shaws. "Who gave him the right to make decisions for all of us?  Because it's his bomb shelter?  I'm sorry, but I don't think that matters anymore. We're all in this together now. Are you really comfortable putting yourself in his hands?  Letting him decide how much we eat and drink?

An Author's Note, complete with photograph of his own family's underground bunker, follows the story.

For mature readers ages 10 and up.  Due on shelves in September, 2013.

A Fallout Discussion Guide.

Pair this one with Deborah Wiles', Countdown (2010, Scholastic) or Bomb: The Race to Build -- and Steal -- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Flashpoint, 2012).



Note: 
I realized that in the last month, I've reviewed  I Survived: The Japanese Tsunami, 2011, Bomb: The Race to Build -- and Steal -- the World's Most Dangerous Weapon, City of the Dead: Galveston Hurricane, 1900, and The Superstorm, Hurricane Sandy. This was not an intentional dive into a literary world of disaster - just interesting titles that have arrived in my mailbox.  I think I'm done for a while now, while my cheery disposition is still intact. :)