“Underrunners” by Margaret Mahy . [children’s literature, novel] . [N7,5]
Underrunners follows Tris(tram) Catt growing up in an odd house in the coast of New Zealand with his father after his mom abandoned them for Australia and who-knows-what-else. Tris spends his days playing with his imaginary friend, the good but tough alien, Selsey Firebone, and fighting evil aliens, while he avoids everybody real as much as possible. He both loves and is annoyed at his dad and his somehow-girlfriend but he doesn’t really open up to them either. He refuses to have friends over to his non-electricity or telephone house in the edge of the hill and he uses the tunnels (underrunners) to move about without being seen. Or, alternatively, he crosses the Children’s House instead of using the road. That’s how he meets Winola, tough as nails, and trying to dig her way out of the orphanage (just to have a secret way out to escape her persecutor, who Tris assumes is as real as Selsey). But Winola’s problems are way more real and way more worrying. And Selsey insists Tris don’t leave her alone to deal with them.
The plot is nothing special but the storytelling is so well crafted, the characters so enchanting, that it’s a hell of a ride. HUGE [Spoiler (click to open)]I loved the fact that Cecily Winola Tyrone inspired Tristram’s Selsey Firebone by protecting him from her older brothers when he stayed at her house as a young child. She is the best heroine because she’s also all too vulnerable. Her power is not force but resistance, which takes much more strength.
Tristram is pretty endearing as well. And I quite liked Victoria, the father’s girlfriend, who is kinda awesome in her own quirky way. [Spoiler (click to open)]My biggest complaint is that Winola’s name is so ugly that no matter how awesome she is, I’ll never name anything after her, not even inanimate objects deserve the pain.
28.05.2012
Quotes: [Spoiler (click to open)]
‘We must rescue her,’ Selsey said.
‘She’s rescuing herself,’ Tris replied and Selsey fell silent. PP. 38
…But he says it’s not my fault.’
‘Hey,’ said Winola, smiling as if this was a joke they could share. ‘They always say it’s not your falt. Mind you, I already know it’s not my fault. Big deal, eh!’
‘Big deal!’ Tris repeated, copying her scornful tone.
‘Social workers always tell you that it’s not your fault, like they were giving you really great news that you didn’t know already. Big deal! You’re still stuck with it,’ Winola said. ‘But I’m tough.’ PP.51
Besides, though binoculars let you look closely at certain things, they only showed little disconnected details. To know what the hilltops were really like you had to see the sky above and the water below. PP. 59-60
‘What aliens do is to land on a planet and make it over, so they can live there themselves,’ Winola said. ‘All the people who are nice to me are trying to make me over so that they feel ok about things themselves.’
During the time Tris had taken to go to the letter-box, she had been sitting trying to find a way of describing why he shouldn’t tell his father that she was out here, living in a hole.
‘They’ve got to try,’ Tris told her. ‘Try to help, I mean. They want you to be happy.’
‘I want to live in one room on a hill like this,’ Winola said. ‘I want to come out and gallop around and then go back again. That’s all I want.’
‘And have a lot of books,’ Selsey Firebone suggested, liking the idea of the one room on the hill. BECAUSE Tristram is the biggest dork.
‘Selsey Firebone… Cecily Tyrone!’ she explained. ‘It sounds a bit the same when you’re going mumble mumble. And when you were a little kid that’s what you used to call me… Selsey was your way of saying Cecily.’ PP.148 [Spoiler (click to open)];
book-2012, 2012, 2012: novel in english, #infantil (children’s literature), +adventures, *author: female, author: margaret mahy, x: recommended, +feminism, +family, +adventures, [quotes], [quotes] books, +bookish