Clowning Sim by David Martin

Well, I am back from a month in France and am reading a few more childrens' books. I have just finished this Australian novel written in 1988 which I found in an opportunity shop recently. This Australian novel was made into a television series which aired in 1992 through 1993 which I haven't actually seen. The novel is nothing short of bizarre but I found it improved as I persevered with it. Sim, who is the class clown, fails on stage and finds his new foster home not quite working out, so he simply takes off which is something he is prone to doing when the going gets tough. He joins a rodeo tour as a clown who detracts marauding beasts away from calf ropers, steer wrestlers and bull riders. This job doesn't work out too well for him either as his ideas to change the show downright aggravate the owner, Theo Carter. He then joins a rundown circus where he finally by chance meets Anatole Tolin, the one-armed acrobat who lost his arm in stinky Rotorua, who can take him places, namely France. I didn't find the main character Sim at all endearing or engaging but the strangeness of the plot kept me reading; I have never read a book quite like this one before. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural yet the vivid descriptions and refreshing use of similes keep the text alive. There is not a great deal available on the internet about the author David Martin (1915-1997), but it seems he wrote a variety of novels for teenages dealing with intercultural issues. He was born in Budapest, Hungary and educated in Germany.

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

I found this in an Opportunity shop, it used to belong to one of my university friends, Jennifer Yearsly. It is all about the Drew children, Simon, Jane, and Barney who find an old map in a hidden room while summering at the Grey House in Cornwall. Along with their Great-Uncle Merry, they become embroiled in a web of intrigue that surrounds an Arthurian legend. In the beginning the story seems a bit slow and tedious as the plot and setting dominate, but it gets better. Barney has the youthful vulnerability of the youngest sibling, Jane is the the sensible and soft-spoken middle child, and Simon speaks with the assurance and bravado of the older brother. This is the first in a five book series called The Dark Rising. This first story in the series is much more in the vein of a mystery than the later novels in the sequence which fall much more into the fantasy category.

The Scarecrows by Robert Westall

The Scarecrows is a children's novel by Robert Westall was published in 1981. The novel was awarded the Carnegie Medal 1981, and this is the second Carnegie award for Robert Westall. It is a psychological novel with a supernatural twist, dealing with themes of rage, isolation and fear in a plot concerning a thirteen-year-old boy's reaction to his mother's remarriage. The story is a third-person narrative, but the point of view is entirely that of Simon Wood. The novel begins at Simon's boarding school, where the poisonous atmosphere of bullying and denigration has nurtured Simon's "devils", as he describes his blind rages. Here he first sees Joe Moreton, who has given Simon's widowed mother a lift to an event at the school. Simon loathes him at first sight, regarding him as yob and is unimpressed by his fame as an artist…