Gideon the Cutpurse
Overdue enough that I'm in danger of forgetting anything I thought about it, other than a grunt of 'good'. Gideon (by Linda Buckley-Archer) apparently came out in June, but first I noticed of it was the rave by Gail Gauthier, followed by the chance to hear the author at the IBBY conference (which I wrote up here), followed by the book's nomination for the Cybils' Fantasy/Sci Fi award, and Michele's review . I'd better not try to link to all reviews of it, or will never get to saying anything myself.
I like historical fiction, like time travel, liked Linda Buckley-Archer and everything she had to say, so was pretty sure I'd like the book when I finally got around to reading it, which I did, very much. The beginning, with 12-year-old Peter let down by his workaholic/ambitious/neglectful father and taken by the au-pair to visit the much closer (as well as bigger) Dyer family, dragged a bit, but I had a feeling the action would pick up when Peter and Kate ended up accidentally transported to 1763. And it did - but only after they met Gideon and were taken by him to an aristocratic family who turn out to live in the building which houses Kate's school in 2006. Having the children - stunned, confused, often terrified, but sometimes just amused - to mediate the differences as well as the similarities of life a couple of hundred years earlier - works extremely well. (I think I may have stolen steepholm's phrasing for this benefit of time travel as opposed to 'straight' historical fiction here.) Peter especially develops from a rather one-dimensional, somewhat self-centred (if understandably so) boy, to a bright and open-minded one, who is thrown back and forth realistically between his appreciation of life in 1763 and shock and repulsion at the injustices experienced by so many then. The book is especially vivid and gripping when the children and Gideon arrive in London - and the sequel, The Tar Man, will be following the villainous Tar Man in 21st century London, which should be amazing. The appearance of historical characters was generally a lot of fun, there was serious talk (when the scenes shifted back to the children's parents, the scientists involved in the antigravity project on which Kate's father had been working, and the police investigating the children's disappearance) about the ethics and scientific results of time travel, and few characters were just saintly good or horribly nasty-without-some-cause, after some initial appearances in those guises.
So, was there anything I wasn't mad about? (Or should I say, am I picky enough to find fault with a book this much fun?) Yes.
One very minor continuity-type error, one irritating flash-back of Kate's with an entirely unnecessary and rather unpleasant line, a bit of slightly unconvincing diamond-in-the-rough nobility to Gideon, and a sudden swing at the climactic moment from wonderfully true feeling to perilously close to OTTness.
The error was a certain strangeness about the holidays, which was just slightly jarring (to those of wildly trivial minds like meself): Peter had got his Christmas holidays on Friday 15th (very early for them, in any case), and went to Kate's family on the Saturday - when they got sent into the past, waking up the next morning out in the open. They spend the following night, and a few more, in the house which is Kate's school in their present. However, after a day or two in this house, Kate 'blurred' into her school, scaring her schoolmates hugely, by appearing in a ghostly form - and a teacher, forcing them to work as punishment, says something like 'Hurry up, girls, it's my holidays too'. Huh? It's either school holidays, in which case they wouldn't be there, or it isn't, in which case the teacher is talking rubbish.
The flash-back was about a time when Kate had gone with her primary school for a week's visit to an activity centre of some sort (this would make her about ten). She's being bullied by kids in another school - her red hair is supposed to make her particularly noticeable - and gets so unhappy that she escapes late at night and walks the unlit rural back roads to find a pay phone, trying to get her father to come pick her up. Her father refuses, instead giving her a pep-talk about 'not acting like a victim' - if she has to cry, she should do it where they can't see her, so she's not asking for more bullying. He also says he knows she has the resources to solve the problem herself, sending her off, chin metaphorically up (not literally presumably, given the middle-of-the-night pitch-blackness of the roads!), to sneak back into the centre. And next morning he drives over super early and sneaks in a huge package of sweets, which Kate uses to - er - buy the friendship of big kids. Ouch. Quite aside from the worryingly close to 'victims of bullying are bringing it on themselves by not handling it well' line - and, of course, leaving aside the idea that sometimes bullying needs to be addressed head-on by adults, the 'solution' seemed just daft to me. Although I may be even more cynical than most - my first thought was that the big kids, who didn't bother to help Kate out because she was being picked on, or even because she was from their school - when being bribed, could very easily just take the sweets and then not protect her. The (clearly more idealistic) Steepholm protested the encouraging of a protection shake-down scheme!
Gideon is, of course, hugely sympathetic, and I've no problem at all with his innate nobility of character, but I did find his good education quite surprising, given the fact that he was an orphan, whose father (cabinetmaker) died when he was very young, mother struggling desperately to feed many children, and he'd ended up essentially slave to a vicious owner. Um, so when did he learn how to read, write so well, and speak in so very cultured a manner?
The final quibble involves a potential spoiler, though I'll try to be oblique. I thought the build-up to the hanging, and everyone's decision to go to it, despite their horror, was wonderfully moving. (As, now I'm mentioning it, was the scene of the prison visit.) But the way a rescue was attempted rather deflated some of that feeling, in a 'Oh, this is a bit much' baroqueness. For me, at any rate.
Quibbles quibbled, I'll be eagerly getting the sequel as soon as I can get my hands on it, as this was overall tremendously enjoyable. And now off to read Farah's report on Inter-galactic Playground...
I like historical fiction, like time travel, liked Linda Buckley-Archer and everything she had to say, so was pretty sure I'd like the book when I finally got around to reading it, which I did, very much. The beginning, with 12-year-old Peter let down by his workaholic/ambitious/neglectful father and taken by the au-pair to visit the much closer (as well as bigger) Dyer family, dragged a bit, but I had a feeling the action would pick up when Peter and Kate ended up accidentally transported to 1763. And it did - but only after they met Gideon and were taken by him to an aristocratic family who turn out to live in the building which houses Kate's school in 2006. Having the children - stunned, confused, often terrified, but sometimes just amused - to mediate the differences as well as the similarities of life a couple of hundred years earlier - works extremely well. (I think I may have stolen steepholm's phrasing for this benefit of time travel as opposed to 'straight' historical fiction here.) Peter especially develops from a rather one-dimensional, somewhat self-centred (if understandably so) boy, to a bright and open-minded one, who is thrown back and forth realistically between his appreciation of life in 1763 and shock and repulsion at the injustices experienced by so many then. The book is especially vivid and gripping when the children and Gideon arrive in London - and the sequel, The Tar Man, will be following the villainous Tar Man in 21st century London, which should be amazing. The appearance of historical characters was generally a lot of fun, there was serious talk (when the scenes shifted back to the children's parents, the scientists involved in the antigravity project on which Kate's father had been working, and the police investigating the children's disappearance) about the ethics and scientific results of time travel, and few characters were just saintly good or horribly nasty-without-some-cause, after some initial appearances in those guises.
So, was there anything I wasn't mad about? (Or should I say, am I picky enough to find fault with a book this much fun?) Yes.
One very minor continuity-type error, one irritating flash-back of Kate's with an entirely unnecessary and rather unpleasant line, a bit of slightly unconvincing diamond-in-the-rough nobility to Gideon, and a sudden swing at the climactic moment from wonderfully true feeling to perilously close to OTTness.
The error was a certain strangeness about the holidays, which was just slightly jarring (to those of wildly trivial minds like meself): Peter had got his Christmas holidays on Friday 15th (very early for them, in any case), and went to Kate's family on the Saturday - when they got sent into the past, waking up the next morning out in the open. They spend the following night, and a few more, in the house which is Kate's school in their present. However, after a day or two in this house, Kate 'blurred' into her school, scaring her schoolmates hugely, by appearing in a ghostly form - and a teacher, forcing them to work as punishment, says something like 'Hurry up, girls, it's my holidays too'. Huh? It's either school holidays, in which case they wouldn't be there, or it isn't, in which case the teacher is talking rubbish.
The flash-back was about a time when Kate had gone with her primary school for a week's visit to an activity centre of some sort (this would make her about ten). She's being bullied by kids in another school - her red hair is supposed to make her particularly noticeable - and gets so unhappy that she escapes late at night and walks the unlit rural back roads to find a pay phone, trying to get her father to come pick her up. Her father refuses, instead giving her a pep-talk about 'not acting like a victim' - if she has to cry, she should do it where they can't see her, so she's not asking for more bullying. He also says he knows she has the resources to solve the problem herself, sending her off, chin metaphorically up (not literally presumably, given the middle-of-the-night pitch-blackness of the roads!), to sneak back into the centre. And next morning he drives over super early and sneaks in a huge package of sweets, which Kate uses to - er - buy the friendship of big kids. Ouch. Quite aside from the worryingly close to 'victims of bullying are bringing it on themselves by not handling it well' line - and, of course, leaving aside the idea that sometimes bullying needs to be addressed head-on by adults, the 'solution' seemed just daft to me. Although I may be even more cynical than most - my first thought was that the big kids, who didn't bother to help Kate out because she was being picked on, or even because she was from their school - when being bribed, could very easily just take the sweets and then not protect her. The (clearly more idealistic) Steepholm protested the encouraging of a protection shake-down scheme!
Gideon is, of course, hugely sympathetic, and I've no problem at all with his innate nobility of character, but I did find his good education quite surprising, given the fact that he was an orphan, whose father (cabinetmaker) died when he was very young, mother struggling desperately to feed many children, and he'd ended up essentially slave to a vicious owner. Um, so when did he learn how to read, write so well, and speak in so very cultured a manner?
The final quibble involves a potential spoiler, though I'll try to be oblique. I thought the build-up to the hanging, and everyone's decision to go to it, despite their horror, was wonderfully moving. (As, now I'm mentioning it, was the scene of the prison visit.) But the way a rescue was attempted rather deflated some of that feeling, in a 'Oh, this is a bit much' baroqueness. For me, at any rate.
Quibbles quibbled, I'll be eagerly getting the sequel as soon as I can get my hands on it, as this was overall tremendously enjoyable. And now off to read Farah's report on Inter-galactic Playground...