My Review
The publisher sent me this ARC a couple of months ago and it was on my list for June, but I’ve got a gap and I thought I’d read it now. It came with a lovely letter, a magpie feather and some beech seeds.
I made a post on Instagram last week when I had read the first 23 chapters. Here’s my summary from there:
The MC is 16 but acts younger in some ways. Immediately got Au vibes, from her and her new friend, Quinn. Tree and corvid special interests.
The writing is probably more what I’d have read at 12 rather than 16. It actually reminds me of the tone and comprehension level of the first two Song of the Lioness books but obviously not set in a secondary world or with knights and battles.
The supernatural element of the dryad and setting in the west country feels familiar but also unfamiliar, a weird, uncannyness. Could be real, could be a traumatised teenager on her summer hols daydreaming, if you see what I mean.
Easy to read, short chapters.
Bullying element is sensitively handled, and an experience I recognise. Just because they aren’t beating you up doesn’t mean they aren’t bullies. Teenage girls are absolute bitches at times and their boy ‘friends’ are nasty little cowards hoping to touch a boob if they are just unpleasant enough. Touched a nerve, sorry.
Now, having finished the book, I have more to add:
The way Polly and Quinn share their joy in their interests is really sweet, they really want to know each other and their interests, and the description is an amazing description of two autistic people sharing their special interests and being intoxicated with it and each other.
The final trick from Ashley and her friends is awful, but Quinn seeing the truth about his sister, and Nyssa and the tree-wights coming to the rescue is really engrossing.
I cried. The way Polly and Quinn celebrate planting saplings and joining the song of nature is so powerful. I couldn’t help myself, I cried so much.
This is a story for younger teenagers, but it explores things they will be interested in, like first love, dealing with family difficulties and unusual family structures, being bullied, and the transition from secondary school to Further Education. It is written in a way that would have appealed to me as a younger teenager, but these days I don’t know what twelve-year-olds are reading.
The environmental theme is strong in this book, and I can see the intention – humans have messed up, we can do better, and some people are. I can see that the author is linking folklore to modern environmental issues, but it is a little unsubtle at times. Maybe it needs to be for the intended readership age to get the message over, but it can also put them off. Kids don’t like being told what to think, it’s better to let the theme speak for itself.
Frewin Jones has done a good job of integrating the folklore elements in with the coming of age story. It’s possible that the characters could be imagining things, like Polly and her friendship with Nyssa could be a teenager going through a difficult time telling stories to make things better, but the way it’s written pulls it together so that we the reader knows that Polly is really experiencing these things.
There’s something of a romanticism of the past and folklore, which is fine, but can be slightly misleading about history. We don’t know the beliefs of people in the West Country pre-Christian conversion. There are a lot of folk stories, and the Cornish saints had some good stories, but no one knows the significance of the stone circles or the individual stones that they set up. I read a lot of Rosemary Sutcliffe etc. as a young teen, I know this stuff when I see it – it’s based on 19th and 20th century beliefs about prehistoric beliefs and lives, based on limited understanding of the archaeological evidence available at the time. See also, the green man etc. for 19th century fuckery with folk traditions and folklore. I’ll forgive it because 30 years ago I wouldn’t have known that. I’ve read a lot of mythology and folklore because I read books where the author wasn’t quite correct. Go forth children and read all the archaeology, history, mythology, and folklore!
I enjoyed this story. It was well-written, pitched well for the target audience and sensitively deals with difficult topics. Some of the Devon dialect from the elderly neighbour was fun; my gran is an old lady from Devon but she doesn’t use a lot of dialect anymore, which is a shame.
Also, visit Devon, it’s amazing!
Paperback
Everything Is Better With Dragons 