Junior Fiction reviews

Thinking about freshening up your selection of novels at Junior Cycle? The following may provide you with some food for thought.

Traitor by Pete Johnson.
Corgi Yearling Books (2002) 192 Pages
This book by Pete Johnson tells the story of three quite different characters, Tom, Mia and Oliver who find they share a common problem. They are all being bullied by a gang of older girls, Christine, Sonia and Itta, collectively known as CIS. These girls steal money from them, terrorise them with menaces and leave scary messages on their mobile phones. Individually terrified, the youngsters draw strength from one another as they try to devise ways to thwart their tormentors.

Suitable for a first or second year class, this book opens up the perennially troublesome subject of bullying. The narration of the novel is interesting as two of the characters, Tom and Mia, take every second chapter to tell the story from their point of view. Tension in the novel is created not only by the actions of the bullies but also by the disagreements that develop between the trio when they suspect that one of them has betrayed their plans to CIS. There is the inevitable happy ending and a positive message about the power of friendship.

Life on the Line by David Skipper
Walker Books (2002) 166 Pages
Another book that deals with the redemptive power of friendship is David Skipper's Life on the Line. It is just as well that Simon and Darren have one another as life throws more than their share of trouble their way. Simon's younger beloved brother is seriously ill with a heart defect and understandably Simon's parents being somewhat preoccupied with this have not a lot of time or attention to devote to Simon. Darren's father is dead and his mother's new boy friend, Milo, is a less than savoury character. Darren's beloved dog is killed in an accident on a railway line and Darren himself is injured in a tussle that leaves Milo in hospital and Darren on the run.

Add to that the usual teenage problems of girlfriends, cash shortages, school discos and a sensitively handled brush with drugs and you have a well written novel that won't talk down to your second or third years.

Shylock's Daughter by Mirjam Pressler
Macmillan's Children's Books (2001) 296 Pages
Translated from the original German, this book is set in Venice in 1568. Closely based on the plot of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice Pressler has made her own of the unhappy story of Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, and his family.
Much of the story is told through the eyes of a character not in Shakespeare's play, Jessica's childhood companion, Dalilah. Jessica herself is central to the tale. We learn of her unhappiness with life in the Jewish Ghetto, her rebellion against the many restrictions that her religion placed upon her. Her betrayal of her father is nonetheless shocking, when she robs his hidden wealth and even more outrageously marries a Christian, Lorenzo. Sadly these desperate acts do not result in Jessica's happiness and she is left stranded, belonging neither in the world she has abandoned nor in that which she has adopted.

Shylock's infamous bond naturally features largely in the book. We gain some insight into the hard life of prejudice and social exclusion that lead him to demand and seek to extract his pound of flesh. Tricked and cheated by his Christian creditors and even his own daughter, the broken Shylock sets off into ignominious exile.

There is a useful additional chapter at the end of the book by Brian Murdoch that puts the events of the book into historical context, explains something of the Jewish faith and relates the novel to Shakespeare's play. This text is probably most suitable for an able third year class.

The Final Journey by Gunrun Pausewang.
Puffin Books (1998) 154 Pages
The final book of this selection is not for the faint hearted. It is the heartbreaking story of a young girl's final journey to the gas chambers of Auschwitz.

Alice Dubsky has spent the first few years of the Nazi terror hidden in the basement of her family's mansion. She has been sheltered from the horror of the real world by her grandparents, who have even managed to explain away the mysterious disappearance of her parents.

Alice's secure, if odd, world is shattered when she and her grandparents are loaded on to trucks and eventually on to an overcrowded train to an unknown destination. The conditions on the train are unspeakable and Alice matures beyond her almost twelve years almost overnight. By now her grandmother is missing and during the course of the journey her grandfather dies. Death in the railway carriage is matched by life as we witness a mother give birth to her first child, a son, on this journey to Hell.

This book has no happy ending, but serves as a stark reminder of the monstrous inhumanity that human beings are too often capable of.