“Stories
have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things , undisciplined, given to
delinquency and the throwing of erasers. That is why we must close them up in
thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.”
This is a beautiful book. It even looks
beautiful, with curlicues and rich colours and dragons (who are not really
dragons) all over the cover. It looks
like the kind of book little fingers will grab hold of and refuse to let go
except to relinquish it to their own children. It is the story of September,
bored in Omaha with her father away at war and her mother working all hours to
build aeroplanes. One night she steps out of the kitchen window into the
embrace of the Green Wind and the Leopard of Small Breezes, and is whisked away
to Fairyland, which has fallen under the thumb of a cruel, bureaucratic
Marquess. There she meets a host of
wonderful creatures to help her on her quest; a lonely golem crafted from soap
who washes her courage, a blue boy who must always submit, and the loveable
A-through-L, a Wyverary (his mother was a wyvern, his father was a Library...)
September is wonderful. She would describe
herself as irascible and ill-tempered, but she is also loyal, courageous and
clever. She misses her home, but more than once she turns down the opportunity
to go back because it would mean leaving her friends in danger. She sacrifices
her dress to make a sail for her ship, and her own shadow to save the life of a
little Pooka girl. She’s not immune to despair, and tantrums, and fatigue, and
she seems very alive, a more empowered Alice, a less-than-perfect Dorothy.
“...Ship of her own Making” sails on the back
of a rich tradition of children’s fantasy literature; there are shades of Alice
in Wonderland, of Oz, of “At the Back of the North Wind” and Narnia. One of the
delightful things about this book is its self awareness, which, in the hands of
a less skilled writer, could have come across as arch or knowing. Here, it’s
just a fact:
“There's more than one way between your world and
ours. There's the changeling road, and there's the Ravishing, and there's those
that Stumble through a gap in the hedgerows or a mushroom ring or a tornado or
a wardrobe full of winter coats.”
The
book is not without its sinister moments, or its gory ones, and the story of the
embittered Marquess is tragic, as Fairyland slips through her fingers and she
tries to keep it by controlling and restraining the very magic that makes it
what it is. Perfect for anyone who has ever danced hopefully widdershins around a
fairy ring, or double-checked the back of an old wardrobe, just in case...
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