My Book of the Month - September

Ooops... just realised that I completely forgot to announce my September Book of the Month. There have been so many cool books coming out recently that I have been struggling to keep up and this monthly feature simply slipped my mind. The final decision was a little easier than is has been in previous months as I managed to narrow the shortlist down to two - Trash by Andy Mulligan and The Double-Edged Sword by Sarah Silverwood. Much as I loved Ms Silverwood's magical urban fantasy set in London and its parallel world sister city, Andy Mulligan's funny and moving mystery/adventure story really struck a chord with me. I finished reading this book whilst on a plane flying to Menorca and the story and its characters stayed at the forefront of my mind for the whole week we were away. This is a book that should be in every school library as it will make young people think hard about the things children have to do to survive in countires where poverty is the norm far more than a TV documentary or news feature ever could. 

  

*** Interview with Andy Mulligan (author of Trash)

Earlier this month I posted a review of the brilliant Trash by Andy Mulligan, a book that had me captivated from the very first page. I therefore jumped in head first when offered the chance to send Andy a few questions for him to answer for The Book Zone.

How would you describe Trash to a potential reader?

I’d say it’s a thriller in which a bunch of very determined, very ingenious children take on the police. I’d say it’s a window into a horrible and horrific world – one that really exists. I’d say it’s a page-turner that will expose you to some pretty unpleasant things and will get your heart racing!

I know you have done a lot of travelling and have visited several dumpsites – what was it about them that inspired you to write Trash?

The image of children crawling in rubbish. Simple as that – it’s a scene from The Inferno, it’s a circle of hell. You see these kids, often just in shorts, with a hook. They are doomed to sift those xxxxheaps all day, in rain or sun. And next to the seven year-old is the seven year-old’s grandfather, still sifting – and you realize you’re looking at that child’s destiny. The dumpsites are the most extreme reminders I’ve ever seen that our world is insane.

The characters of Raphael, Gardo and Rat are incredibly engaging – please tell me they are based on real people you have met.

Yes, they are. I tend to fuse individuals together, so that (for example) Rat is two boys – one a very derelict junkie twelve year-old in Manila, fused into one of the most ingenious child crooks I ever met in Calcutta. The common-denominator is this survival instinct, this feral need to win in a situation. When you have nothing to fall back on – when there’s no parent or teacher or policeman to help you up and take you home – you don’t have the luxury of despair. You use the skills you have – your brain, your charm, your speed – and you have to win something, just so you can eat.

Why did you decide to tell the story in the voices of the different characters, rather than just Raphael’s?

I don’t know. I tried a third person voice and it didn’t work, so I abandoned it very quickly. I found the voice of Raphael, and enjoyed his voice – but it soon felt limited. I love him dearly, but he’s got a limited perception of what’s going on – so a graver, more experienced voice had to balance it. That was Gardo. Then, suddenly, it seemed a really interesting way of getting different sides of the story. My main fear was annoying the reader by wasting time or being tricksy – I wanted to keep the plot motoring, simply because I get so bored of books that don’t think they need plots… I tried to make the narrators tell us the facts, almost like police-statements: this is what we decided, so that is what we did…

Trash is a cracking mystery adventure story, with plenty of humour, but also involves a large degree of social comment – do you think it is important that children are exposed to issues like this in their fiction?

Yes. No. I don’t know. I think children enjoy books that lift them out of their own world. When I was growing up I loved Enid Blyton because she took me to boarding schools and I went to a boring day-school. I loved Carrie’s War because Nina Bawden plunged me into wartime, where the protagonists encountered such new things. I really hate ‘issue books’, and I’ve had to teach them – they are miserably thin gruel. Take a book like Louis Sacher’s Holes – it’s not a book about crime and punishment, or racism, or keeping promises, or any of that school-assembly bilge. It’s about children in an extreme situation, dealing with it. No – I have decided the answer – no I do not think children need to be exposed to ‘issues’ – I think they need to be exposed to good stories and good characters, and if the characters are real then the issues will be there.

In my review of Trash I compared it to Louis Sachar’s Holes, with its combination of humour, mystery and social comment. How do you feel about this comparison?

As Holes is one of my favourite books – a masterpiece – I’m very flattered!

Do you have time to read any of the many books for children that are published these days? If so, do you have any current favourites?

I don’t read as much as I should, but I am currently enjoying Half Brother by Kenneth Opel and am about to start the long awaited Noah Barleywater Runs Away by the amazing John Boyne.

What books/authors did you read when you were younger?

I loved Enid Blyton and Anthony Buckeridge’s ‘Jennings’ books – I was an addict, saving up to buy them. ‘Jennings’ was the first book that made me laugh out loud. A much loved Primary teacher read us the surreal and spellbinding Marianne Dreams, and I think I was realising what stories could do. Then I was lucky – I had a great English teacher, and books started to hit me like express trains. To Kill A Mockingbird! The Catcher in the Rye! I was never really into action books or fantasy, though I did enjoy Alan Garner.

What can we expect next from Andy Mulligan?

I’m off to India to write my India book. I’ve spent a lot of time in Calcutta, and love it, and have been working on a children’s book about an English girl marooned in a foreign world. I am going to sit down for a few months, and try and write it.

Thank you for your time. Is there anything else you would like to say to readers of this blog.

It’s a pleasure. Anything else to say? Only thank you for taking an interest – I really hope you enjoy Trash. It’s a book very close to my heart.

~~~

I know the last couple of months have been incredibly busy for Andy as Trash has been such a big success so far. My huge thanks go to him for taking the time to answer my questions, and I really hope that Trash continues to gather fans all around the world - there is no doubt in my mind that it will.

Review: Trash by Andy Mulligan

Raphael is a dumpsite boy. He spends his days wading through mountains of steaming trash, sifting it, sorting it, breathing it, sleeping next to it. Then one unlucky-lucky day, Raphael's world turns upside down. A small leather bag falls into his hands. It's a bag of clues. It's a bag of hope. It's a bag that will change everything. Soon Raphael and his friends Gardo and Rat are running for their lives. Wanted by the police, it takes all their quick-thinking, fast-talking to stay ahead. As the net tightens, they uncover a dead man's mission to put right a terrible wrong. It's three street-boys against the world...

Every now and then a book sneaks up on the unsuspecting public, with very little fanfare, and hits you where it hurts the most - in the heart. Trash is one such book. It has its own Facebook page, and yet currently only 82 people 'like' it. I have a feeling this number will grow rapidly once it gets into the hands of children (and adults) following its official release date (which just happens to be today). This book is a mystery story for Young Adults, that is both funny and deeply moving in equal measures.

The story reveolves around the life of Raphael, a fourteen year old who lives on the Behala dumpsite - a mountainous heap of rubbish from the nearby city that has built up over time. Raphael and his friend Gardo (and hundreds of other kids) spend their days 'working', i.e. scrambling over this landscape of trash in search for items that may make them a little cash. And we're not talking items that you or I would consider valuable ir saleable as we sit in our comfy homes, we are talking pieces of plastic ("white plastic is the best"), paper, tin cans, bottles, bits of cloth.... yes, exactly the sort of things we would classify as trash. But to these boys good trash means cash. Of course this also means that half the time they are wading through (and picking up) what they refer to as stuppa, and what we would refer to as (in polite conversation) human muck.

One day Raphael spots a 'special' - a bag of trash from one of the rich areas in the city - and within it a small leather bag containing a wallet (complete with eleven hundred pesos), a map and a mysterious key. Within hours the police are driving through the gates of Behala and it is obvious to the boys what they are after, even going as far as to offer a huge monetary reward for its discovery/return, although Raphael decides to keep his discovery quiet for reasons he himself is not entirely sure of - mistrust? a greater reward in a few days time? Very soon Raphael and Gardo, joined by Jun-Jun (aptly nicknamed Rat) find themselves on an exciting, and very perilous hunt for the truth behind the key they have found and why it is so precious to the police and their superiors.

Trash had me captivated from the very first chapter, but I cannot put my finger on why it appealed to me so much. If I had to liken it to any other book I guess the closest comparison would be the fantastic Holes by Louis Sachar. Like Trash, Holes is humorous and poignant, and also very thought-provoking. And believe me, Trash makes you think a lot - about the day-to-day life these boys lead, the way the police use brutality to get what they want, the luxury that a few wealthy (and corrupt) politicians live in whilst all around them there is poverty, and the way that charity aid from countries such as the UK can so easily be misappropriated by these corrupt individuals.

This story is a great social commentary without ever seeming moralistic, and I think this is aided by the story telling device of multiple narrators that Andy Mulligan uses. For the first few chapters the story is narrated in the first person by Raphael, before shifting over to Gardo, and then flitting between them and a variety of other characters as the plot progresses, including Father Juilliard who runs the Mission School on the Behala dumpsite, and his volunteer assistant, the naive Olivia Weston. I felt that this swapping of the narration between different characters with very different personalities made the story feel even more real for me, almost as if they had been giving informal witness statements. At no point did I find it confusing, although this is helped by each character announcing themselves at the beginning of each of their chapters.

I read this book on a plane as I was flying off to Menorca for a week's holiday and as such had no way of googling place names such as Behala. Having seen documentaries on the TV about such places I then spent the next week assuming that it was a real place, probably in somwhere like Mexico or the Philippines. On my return a quick search showed that in name at least there is no such place as the Behala dumpsite, yet it is similar to many such places in Less Developed Countries. A further search revealed that Andy Mulligan has travelled a lot in the Phillippines and the vividness of his descriptions of Behala would suggest that he spent some time visiting one or more of these massive dumpsites. This story is very much about people, and yet at the same time I had a very clear picture of this place in my mind - I 'knew' how it looked, smelt and, rather disgustingly, felt -  and Mr Mulligan managed this without any lengthy passages that detracted from the plot. 

Holes has been a popular class reader in schools across the country over recent years, and I would not be surprised if Trash is in a similar position in a couple of years time. There is so much about the various characters and the society in which they live that can be gleaned from this story, and it is sure to provoke many a lively discussion in classrooms; it is certainly suitable for the 11+ age range. My thanks go to the generous people at David Fickling Books for sending me a copy to read and review.