Review: Frankie's Magic Football series by Frank Lampard

Those metaphorical high horses were being well and truly ridden recently following the announcement that Canongate will be publishing a series of classic fairy tales for children, reinterpreted by comedian Russell Brand. One article in particular, went as far as to pretty much demand that celebrities stop writing books for children. Said article was co-written by Tom Lamont, writer and commissioning editor for the Observer, and author Robert Muchamore. Mr Muchamore, to his credit, approached the subject in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek manner, adding some much needed humour to the vitriol spouted by Lamont. However, as with many articles such as this, it is the comments section that makes the most interesting reading. Russell Brand is hardly the most popular man in the world so an article like this is always going to attract some rather subjective comments, but what stands out the most is the general poor knowledge of commenters on the the current children's book market.

I toyed with writing a reply to Mr Lamont on this blog, but it was nearing the end of term and things were mad hectic. Then I read a blog post by one the best young bloggers around, who had heard about the article and wanted  to add her opinion. Georgia, the blogger in question, spookily echoed my own thoughts with her piece, but coming from her it sounds all that more relevant and so I urge you to head on over Georgia's blog at  http://booksandwritersjnr.wordpress.com/2014/04/08/celebrities-writing-books/ to read it.

And so we come, once again, to Frank Lampard's Frankie's Magic Football series. The rumours still persist that Mr Lampard has made considerable use of a ghost writer for these books, but whether he has nor not does not really matter in my opinion. I will reiterate what I said when I reviewed the first Frankie's Magic Football book, Frankie vs the Pirate Pillagers:

"I for one have absolutely no problem with Frank Lampard writing a series of books if even just one child picks one up, reads it and then asks his/her parents for more. I would imagine that many parents would agree with me. And that was my opinion before reading it. Now that I've read the first in the series I would suggest that Little, Brown extend the deal to even more books. Frankie vs The Pirate Pillagers is a fun read from beginning to end, and many kids will love it."

I have since read four more in this series, and my opinion remains the same. If Frank Lampard's name (or that of any other celebrity) can manage to get a child reading where parents and teachers are having little success then that can only be a good thing. Sure, these books are not going to end up shortlisted for any of the numerous children's book awards, but neither will the likes of Beast Quest, Cows in Action or the Skylanders books, and these have all helped many kids enjoy reading for the first time.

After beating the Pirate Pillagers, it seems that life will never be the same again for Frankie, Louise, Charlie and dog Max. They quickly discover that the magic football could open a portal at pretty much any time, and even if they aren't all together at the time all four of them will find themselves transported to another period in time. Over the course of the next four books they have to play against the Rowdy Romans, the Cowboy Crew, the Mummy's Menace and the Knight's Nasties. Even though the historical elements are not entirely accurate, there is enough there to get football mad readers asking questions about these periods in time. We should never forget that young minds are inquisitive, all they need is the right material to stimulate that natural curiosity.

Frank Lampard has had is fair share of stick from critics ever since the announcement about this series of books was made. However, this hasn't deterred him from continuing to encourage kids to read for pleasure. Last month he 'kicked off' this year's Premier League Reading Stars Programme, run by the National Literacy Trust. You can read more about the launch here and here.

Frankie and his friends have so far appeared in five books, and it looks as if there are at least two more to come. May will see the timely release of Frankie and the World Cup Carnival, to be followed in August by Frankie and The Dragon Curse.

Review: The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler

Do you remember the first time you climbed into the wardrobe with Lucy and emerged in Narnia? Flew on the back of Falkor the Luck Dragon with Bastian? Followed Alice down the rabbit hole? Welcome to your new favourite adventure.

Late one night Alice Creighton hears her father having an argument with a fairy - a snarling, bald beast with warts and needle-like teeth. It is threatening her father, insisting he accept a mysterious offer, or else.

When Alice's father goes down in a shipwreck, she is sent away to live with distant relative Mr Geryon, owner of a huge, dark library that is off limits to Alice. After meeting a talking cat who is willing to sneak her in, Alice opens a book and suddenly finds herself inside it - and the only way out is by conquering the dangerous creatures within. Alice has stumbled into a world where all of magic is controlled by Readers through books - she must open more books, face increasingly powerful foes, be the lead character in the quest to find a happy ending.

How many times have you read a book and wished that you could be literally sucked into the story to get the girl/boy, kill the baddies and save the world? I cannot believe that there is a single lover of fiction out there who has not at some point in time wished this could happen. if you're now sitting there nodding your head with a far-away look in your eye and a wishful smile on your face then you need to read The Forbidden Library by Django Wexler as it is a dream come true for book lovers, child and adult alike.

I'm not going to go into too many details about the story as the above publisher's blurb tells you all you need to know. When I read The Forbidden Library I was very much reminded of the first time I read Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. (By the way, if you or your children have not read this book and only seen the film then I urge you to get your hands on a copy at some point. However, don't do this until you've read The Forbidden Library as, once you get past the part that is covered in the (IMO brilliant) 1980s movie, things become more complex and the book morphs from being upper Middle Grade into lower YA, and The Forbidden Library is very much Middle Grade territory). However, that was many years ago and so it is difficult to compare the two books in detail. All I will say is that I remember the warm, magical glow I felt as Bastian started realising that he had become part of the story, and I experienced that exact same feeling as I read The Forbidden Library.

Doubleday have drawn some daring comparisons with the blurb (see above) that they have used for this book. To reference the Narnia stories, The Neverending Story and Alice in Wonderland in their opening paragraph is a bold move that could have reviewers up in arms, and yet this reviewer feels that The Forbidden Library compares incredibly favourably with these classics of the genre. With so many books published for chidlren these days it is impossible to idnetify which ones will stand the test of time and become recognised as 'classics', but The Forbidden Library is certainly deserving of becoming a classic in the future, in my humble opinion. These days I always give a book I have finished a starred rating on Goodreads, but I rarely mention those ratings on here. However, I rated this book five stars and, as happens with a very small number of books, I would like to have given it a sixth to distinguish it from some of the other books I have rated five stars. 

The other day I wrote a lengthy post about my favourite female protagonists in books for young readers, as part of the Boys Read Girls campaign, and after it went live I mentioned to a fellow Tweeter that no doubt I would remember another one the next day. Well I did exactly that - Alice in The Forbidden Library is up there with all the female characters that I mentioned in that post (and I may just head over to that post after finishing this review to add her). She is courageous, intelligent, resourceful and inquisitive and the kind of character that will have both boys and girls rooting for her as she fights for her life, and agonising with her as she has to grapple with a number of moral dilemmas that are thrown at her during the course of her adventures.

The world that Django Wexler has built for his character to adventure through is even cooler than his name. It is a world where magic revolves around books - not as repositories for spells, but as magical items in their own right. In this world books are portals to the worlds mentioned within, and those with the magical ability to read about and then enter these worlds are known as Readers. However, as Alice very quickly finds out, entry into some of these books can be at a huge cost. Some of these books contain creatures that must be conquered in order for the Reader to be able to return to the real world. However, Wexler adds a further twist to his magic, in that once conquered these creatures fall under the control of the Reader in question, and can be summoned to assist in further adventures. This is where the author has great fun with his main character and her conquests - I won't spoil the fun for you by going into details, but the Swarm are both a terrifying creation and an incredibly exciting one.

I can't finish off this review without a mention of the amazing pen and ink illustrations of David Wyatt, of which there are sadly not enough in this book, for this reader at least (yes, I am greedy). Lovers of modern children's books will recognise the name immediately - David is a prolific illustrator of children's book covers, and occasionally their interiors. Just head on over to his website to see his work and you will understand what I mean. You can also head on over to Django's website to see the full set of illustrations, two of which I will put at the end of this review. This book is the complete package as everything about it is stunning: the writing; the illustrations; and the outer packaging too, which is a stunning hardcover, without dustjacket, with the title, author's name and surrounding decorative border all highlighted with gold hot-foil blocking. Well done indeed, Doubleday!

Someone else who deserves a mention before I finish this review is the totally brilliant Lauren Buckland, Senior Editor at Random House Children's Publishing. Lauren told me I would love this book, long before I got my hands on a copy, and she was 100% correct. Again! Every time Lauren tells me this about a book then I know that I am going to love it - Lauren has edited some of my favourite books that I have read since I started blogging and she (along with many editors out there) deserves far more recognition that she gets. Thanks Lauren! (P.S. When's the sequel due? I honestly can't wait!)

Illustration by David Wyatt

Illustration by David Wyatt

Boys Read Girls (Let Books Be Books)

Last month an article written by Katy Guest, the Independent on Sunday Literary Editor, hit the usual social media sites and had a plethora of authors, publishers, librarians and book bloggers making their own comments on the issue that Ms Guest raised. In her article, she highlighted an online campaign called Let Books Be Books which has been set up to encourage publishers to stop marketing books specifically to boys or girls by having overtly boy-oriented or girl-oriented covers and/or titles (but before you read on click here and go and sign their petition).

On reading this article I rather selfishly felt the bottom drop out of my blogging world, and a small amount of self-doubt started scratching away at the back of my mind. I began to wonder whether a book blog called The Book Zone (For Boys) might actually be causing more harm than good. I wondered whether I was myself guilty of propagating the very stereotyping that was being so heavily criticised in the article. And yet, at school, I am often pushing books with male protagonists into the hands of girls, and have made a habit of recommending great books with female protagonists to boys. Boys at my school were reading The Hunger Games back in 2009, long before all the hype kicked off. Since reading Geek Girl, and loving it, I've managed to persuade a good number of boys to give it a go as well. My initial reaction was therefore to rattle off a blog post, but instead I took a deep breath and have put a lot of thought into the matter. I've also spoken with a couple of my 'friends' in the industry who have assured me that my concerns are unfounded, pointing out as evidence just a handful of the great books I have reviewed that have a female protagonist.

My 'mission', when I started The Book Zone, was to "raise awareness of the vast wealth of 'boy-friendly' books that have been published since Harry Potter burst onto the scene" and I state on my About Me page that "many of the books I review will also have great appeal to girls as well - I am certainly not saying they are only for boys". However, every few days or so I get a comment added to one of my book reviews, or I receive an email, from girls who are unhappy that I have labelled a book as a boys' book.  However, I can't expect a young reader to have the time or inclination to visit this page to read this, and so I reply politely to every one of them, in an attempt to address their unhappiness. So, my first action on finishing this post is to make that more clear somewhere on my blog's main area.

This morning I read about the next step in the Let Books Be Books campaign. Labelled Boys Read Girls, it encourages male readers to talk about the female characters they admired when they were young, or of current books that have great female characters. The Guardian have also posted a piece in support of this, which you can see here, and so I thought this would be a good time for me to share my thoughts and tell you about some of my favourite female characters (please note, that apart from a couple of exceptions I have mainly focused on Middle Grade rather than YA books as I feel that if boys get used to reading books with female protagonists at this age then they are more likely to carry this in to their teens and eventually adulthood):

Classics

Thinking back on my childhood, there are two books with awesome female characters that really stand out in my mind. The first is (or should that be are?) the Narnia books. From Polly in The Magician's Nephew, through Susan and Lucy in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian, to Jill in the Silver Chair. Every single one of these female characters holds their own in relation to their male co-characters. The second book that sticks in my mind is, of course, the wonderful Alice in Wonderland. Brave, resourceful, intelligent... the epithets go on and on for this iconic female protagonist.

Another childhood favourite was The BFG by Roald Dahl, and I thought that Sophie was a great female main character. Without Sophie's brains (and bravery) the people-eating giants would have rampaged through Britain. I was seventeen when Matilda was first published, and didn't read it until I was an adult, but I think I would have loved it as a child - Matilda is heroism personified (as is Miss Honey), standing up to the fearsome bully that is Miss Trunchbull, relying on brains to overcome brawn.

Modern

I've spent the last hour or so scanning back though the reviews I have written over the past soon-to-be five years, and the list of those with female protagonists is pretty extensive. Also, wonderfully, many of these have covers that could be considered gender neutral, although there are a small number of reviews where I have questioned the publisher's choice of cover. So in no particular order:

Teodora in The Undrowned Child by Michelle Lovric

Michelle Lovric is not only one of my all time favourite writers of Middle Grade fantasy, she also writes fantastic female protagonists. Teo in The Undrowned Child, and its sequel The Mourning Emporium, is up there with Alice in my mind, but Talina (Talina in the Tower) and Amneris and Biri (The Fate in the Box) are almost as great.

Mosca Mye in Fly By Night by Frances Hardinge

Mosca is a handful, but in the best of ways. She is headstrong and independent, and always gives as good as she gets.

Deryn Sharp in Leviathon by Scott Westerfeld

Deryn lives in a society where women do not get to join up, fly in airships and see the world, so she has to disguise herself as a boy in order to fulfill her dream. She is another smart, brave and resourceful female character. 

Holly Short in the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

For me, Holly Short was always the real star of these books, and I always saw her as the main character ahead of Artemis himself. Perhaps this is because of the way Artemis' criminal character was established in the first book?

Maddy in the TimeRiders series by Alex Scarrow

The three main characters in this series are definitely not equal in my mind. Yes, in the earlier books in the series it is Liam who gets to go back in time and do the adventure stuff, but it is Maddy's intelligence and leadership qualities that keep the team together.

India in Ironheart by Allan Boroughs

India is a  gutsy, courageous young lady who is ready to risk life and limb in order to find her father.

Valkyrie Cain/Stephanie Edgley in the Skulduggery Pleasant series by Derek Landy

I'm not sure I need to repeat again just how much I love Valkyrie Cain as a character. And these books have not one, but two great female characters as we mustn't forget the kick-ass brilliant Tanith Low.

Larissa in the Department 19 series by Will Hill

Will Hill has often explained that Larissa started off as a minor character, but when writing her it was almost as if she took on a life of her own, and now she has become a fan favourite. She is definitely my favourite character in the series, and I am reliably informed that in the next book, Zero Hour, she is really going to kick ass.

B Smith in the Zom-B series by Darren Shan

Full marks to Darren Shan for making his protagonist in this awesome series a teenage girl. And even more marks for the way he challenged his readers' perceptions in the first book in the series by not revealing this until the end of the book.

Penelope Tredwell in the Penny Dreadful series by Christopher Edge

My review of the third book in this series, The Black Crow Conspiracy, says it all: "Anyone who claims that boys do not enjoy stories with a female main character should be shown this book as an example that debunks that myth. In Penelope, Christopher Edge has created a female lead who is both a superb role model for girls, and also a kick-ass heroine who does not need to reply on a male character to save the day for her, despite living in an era when young women were expected to be demure and 'proper', with only a life of being a wife and mother to look forward to."

Darcy Burdock by Laura Dockrill

The cover of the first book the series was blue, and Laura has told me how happy she was with this decision by the publishers. Long time readers of this blog will know exactly how much I love Darcy as a character, and just how brilliant Laura's writing is for both boys and girls. Darcy is a character for everyone, male or female, young or old, and I have seen Year 7 boys hanging on Laura's every word, and then rushing out to read the book.

Sesame Seade by Clémentine Beauvais

I read and reviewed the three books in The Sesame Seade Mysteries just last week. Sesame is another character like Darcy Burdock, and I will be buying copies of these books for a number of the 9-11 boys that I know.