Review: The Other Side, by Milo McGivern

Blurb 

The Island of Animaux is a mysterious, wonderful place. Unknown to humans, hidden by fog and always on the move around the planet. It is a land of crazy, mad, funny adventures. Welcome back!

The five new tales in The Other Side follow on from the ones in the last book, Coffee and Ice Cream. Aubrey the Turkey is once again up to his neck in bother. See where he ends up when a magic trick goes wrong, also how Clifford Platypus, Walli Hog and their friends manage to save him. Travel with Aubrey, Clifford and Walli as they go on an enjoyable seaside holiday, at least for the turkey. Watch as the island becomes stuck in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, unable to move. The biggest crisis in its long history!

Please enjoy the stories. And don’t be afraid to laugh, particularly as Aubrey’s expense. But please, please, please – continue to remember to keep the latest position of the island top secret!

My Review:

Thanks to the author for my copy of this book and to Love Books Tours for organising the blog tour.

Aubrey has found himself on a turkey farm on the Isles of Scilly, and makes a new friend, Sol Salamander. They make a desperate bid to escape but are capture at the last instant. At home, Walli and Clifford are desperate to find their friend, and grieving his disappearance. Until a message in a bottle is delivered. Clifford develops a plan, and sets out to rescue both Aubrey and Sol.

On a holiday to celebrate Aubrey’s return, the trio find themselves rescuing the whole island from the scourge of plastic, while Clifford explains humans and plastic to everyone. And an unexpected creature arrives in the house at the end of Little Cloud Lane.

As ever, an enjoyable set of stories, of friends overcoming their fears to help one another, whether it’s getting Aubrey back, or Walli escaping from the Weird Sisters. Their friendship helps them confront the disaster of being stuck in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Aubrey is irrepressibly lazy, venal and selfish but even he realises how much his friends and home mean to him.

Given the plot of the stories, the environmental protection message is strong in these stories. In ‘The Other Side’, Aubrey learns from Sol that humans eat other animals. Aubrey is appalled by the news, and by not being able to understand other turkeys in this strange place. It doesn’t occur to him that animals in Animaux eat other creatures all the time – Walli likes grubs and they’re living creatures, they just can’t talk. I think McGivern is trying to make the point that most people don’t know how farm animals live or the processes involved in slaughter and preparation for the food market, but it’s a little clumsily handled – it reads as though he wants everyone to stop eating meat. Fair enough, it’s a position some people I love very much hold, but not everyone can be vegetarian and I’m not sure young children would understand the nuances.

They also tackle grief and fear, of loss and things changing. The way Walli and Clifford discuss their feelings is very sensible and instructive to children. I think the conversations between them are some of the stronger ‘teaching’ parts of the stories. They model appropriate ways to handle difficult conversations, and how to understand when someone is acting differently to usual.

The stories also address the damage humans have done to the planet, by landing the island in a patch of the ocean full of plastic, and explains how the plastics hurt animals. The solution isn’t one we can actually use, but it’s a nice idea.

Ignoring the ‘teaching moments’, I found the further development of the history and geography of Animaux amusing, and the call backs to earlier stories joined everything together from the first story to the present. Meeting new characters, like Elizabeth Eagle, and seeing them treat Clifford and Walli with respect because they have real, useful knowledge, while Aubrey is forced to play second fiddle because despite visiting the rest of the world he doesn’t really know anything about it, is endearing. They are forced to rely on the knowledge of people who come from the world rather than accepting second hand information. If I were to overthink it, I’d say that we could learn from this that the best information about a place and a situation comes from those who actually live there, live that situation, rather than from outside tourists who only see part of the whole.

I also enjoyed the characterisation of the Crow constables and their rather silly behaviour when investigating events. I am probably reading too much into it again, but the ‘denying the existence of something despite the evidence’ and ‘trying to silence someone who has vital information by claiming they are dangerous and mad’, might refer to climate change deniers or oil companies, who deny anthropogenic climate change despite the evidence and attempt to smear the names of scientists who stand up to them. The crow police are ultimately shown to be wrong, and once denial is passed, true efforts to improve the environmental disaster flourish.

Look, I’ll admit I over-think things, even in children’s stories, but it’s important that children learn about the difficulties facing the world, and if you can use a story about talking animals to do it, why not? It’s a bit heavy handed at times, but the overall plot and characters are good, and it’s a fun story.

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Author Bio:

Milo McGivern is the writing name for Steve Humphries. Steve has spent many years working in finance. He has travelled extensively although is most happy when he is at home in Berkshire. Steve enjoys casual story writing and the Aubrey the Turkey tales were first imagined over 30 years ago. ‘The Other Side’ is the fifth book in the ‘Tales from Animaux’ series.

Author’s website: http://www.milomcgivern.com