Run Rabbit Run

Run Rabbit Run by Barbara Mitchelhill (Anderson Press, 2011) offers an unusual view on the experience of the Second World War for children. Whilst Lizzie and Freddie are evacuated to South Wales for a time the bombing is not the main reason why they leave Rochdale, instead they are on the run with their father, a conscientious objector facing prison. In this extract the police have arrived at a farm where the three are hiding out. Will your children be able to decide whether the farmer, Mr Carter, is one of the heroes or villains of the book?

From behind the wall of the sty I watched the car pull into the yard and stop. Before the policeman even had time to turn off the engine, the kitchen door opened and Mr Carter marched across the yard pulling on his coat.

‘What time do you call this?’ he snapped as a policeman climbed out. ‘I thought you were coming yesterday? That’s what you said.’

The policeman, who was much taller than Mr Carter, raised his eyebrows. ‘We had an emergency, sir,’ he replied as he settled his helmet on his head. ‘Arresting a deserter isn’t very high on my list of priorities, sir.’

Mr Carter stood in front of him. ‘Oh, isn’t it?’ he barked. ‘Well there is a war on, you know. That man should be out there fighting. How’s that for a priority?’

To read more about the book or to order visit http://www.andersenpress.co.uk/books/view/1849392498 (accessed 24/1/2012)

Viking fiction for the classroom

Have you considered historical fiction for genre study in English? You could place it alongside a study of the Vikings in history and there has never been a better time to do so. In the past this period attracted children’s historical fiction writers, notably Henry Treece. Several of his stories were set in the Viking period and they have a stark quality about them to match the sagas themselves.

Viking Dawn (1955), The Road to Miklagard (1957) and Viking’s Sunset (1960) tell the story of Harald Sigurdson. We first meet him as a 15 year old on a desperate journey to the Hebrides. Next as a fierce warrior we follow him via capture by pirates, Moorish slavery and service as a palace guard to Miklagard and wealth. Finally in old age he sails in search of vengeance to first Greenland and then Vinland.

Two later stories are Horned Helmet (1963), Beorn an Icelandic boy joins a Viking ship and learns to fight and kill, a tale of courage and brutality. The Last of the Vikings (1964), is the fictionalized life story of Harald Hardrada who died at that other battle in 1066, Stamford Bridge. While these may now feel a little dated there is a range of brilliant new titles from more modern authors to place alongside them which follow a similar range of themes of war, trade, farming and exploration.

In Bracelet of Bones (2011) by Kevin Crossley-Holland the heroine Solveig follows her father from the battlefield of Stiklestad in Norway via Novgorod and Kiev to Miklagard, the same route that Hardrada followed. Meanwhile in Slave Girl (2005) by Jackie French, Hekja, a Scottish child captured and enslaved by Viking raiders is taken to Greenland and then Vinland where she finally earns her freedom. In The Fated Sky (1996) by Henrietta Branford the heroine also sails west. Following the death of her father and brothers, and then her mother, Ran and the blind harper Toki take ship to Iceland. Here danger finally catches up with them.

In Feasting the Wolf (2007) the author Susan Price explores another theme common theme. In the Shetlands two boys, blood brothers Ottar and Ketil, dream of war and adventure. When a Viking ship visits they enlist together and find themselves part of Halfdan’s Great Army plundering the Saxons of Northumbria. Here they learn the brutal reality of war.  And lastly in Francesca Simon’s new novel, The Sleeping Army (2011) with an interesting twist on the time slip novel, the heroine Freya is plunged back into Viking Asgard. To save the gods she has to navigate a world of giants, gods and wolves with the help of her companions, including Snot the berserker.

All share Treece’s stark quality and several capture the poetry of the sagas too. Altogether they offer a rich range of characters and contrasting descriptions of authentic Viking settings – aboard long ships and in their houses – for some detailed textual analysis as a prelude to children writing their own Viking fiction.

And for the teacher wanting some eCPD on the period then visit the Historical Association at http://www.history.org.uk/resources/primary_resource_4806_2.html

For more detail on these individual titles use the Historical periods drop down menu on the right of this screen.

New H.A. Online CPD Course in February – free for members

Teaching history in the classroom using historical fiction

Asking pupils of any age to read and write historical fiction stresses the importance of rigorous historical research, deepens pupils’ historical knowledge and understanding, and allows them to develop their skills of historical communication.

If you want to use historical fiction in your classroom then this four week Historical Association eCPD course will equip you with the theoretical background and the practical skills to successfully do so. Areas covered will include choosing the right historical fiction; how to explore the writers’ techniques for developing rounded characters, convincing settings and compelling narratives; how to support pupils’ writing and how to assess their final work. It is designed to draw upon and complement the related Historical Association competitions for published authors of historical fiction, Young Quills, and for Year 6, 7, 8 and 9 authors, Write Your Own Historical Story.

The course will consist of a number of individual and collaborative activities fully supported by a discussion forum and it starts on Saturday 17th February 2012. See http://www.history.org.uk/news/news_1402.html To book your place contact Simon Brown simon.brown@history.org.uk or davemartin@metronet.co.uk

The Sewer Demon first of a new series for 7+

A new series from Caroline Lawrence is published next month, February 2012. The publishers say it is for children aged 7+

For details see http://www.orionbooks.co.uk/books/the-sewer-demon-paperback (accessed 10/1/2012)

Slave Girl by Jackie French, (HarperCollins 2005)

Whilst writing an eCPD course on historical fiction for the Historical Association I came across this story by an Australian author. First published in 2005 it was published here in the UK in 2011. It adds to the number of good stories set in the Viking period that would make a great basis for genre study, perhaps in Year 6?

This is the story of Hekja, a Scottish child captured and enslaved by Viking raiders and taken to Vinland viaGreenland. She is accompanied by her dog, Snarf. Here the Viking voyagers encounter icebergs for the first time.

Something loomed beside them, tall as a hill and gleaming, even though there was no sun to light it. The men scrambled to their rowlocks and heaved with their whole bodies at the oars.

It was as though the iceberg breathed out cold. The air about it was thick with cold. The hair on Hekja’s neck rose at its strangeness, gliding so silently through the water.

 

To read more visit the publishers web site at http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/Titles/66224/slave-girl-jackie-french-9780007216598 (accessed 6/1/2012)

VIII

VIII by HM Castor (Templar, 2011) is the story of Henry VIII and his reign and is described by some reviewers as an ambitious novel. One commented that it was, ‘told in the restricting view of the first person’. This is a similar approach to that of Hilary Mantel’s in the Booker winning Wolf Hall.  On her website Harriet Castor, the author of VIII explains why she chose first person narration.

Two reasons. I absolutely didn’t want there to be a distance between the reader and Henry. I didn’t want anyone to open the book and think, ‘Oh, this is someone who lived hundreds of years ago; he’s nothing like me’. Because of course Henry lived in a world that was in many ways very different from ours, but he still felt fear and rage and love and frustration like we do. He still got the hiccups, you know, he still tripped over. He was a human being, waking up in the morning, not knowing what was going to happen next in his life.

Secondly, I didn’t want to look at Henry from the outside; I knew that being on the inside and looking out at the world through his eyes would change the story entirely. I wanted to get a vivid sense of the particular world Henry inhabits in his mind – the claustrophobia of it, if you like, and the extent to which his thoughts shape what he perceives to be reality.

Taken from the author’s website available at http://www.hmcastor.com/q-a/ (accessed 1/1/2012)

You might judge for yourself how effectively the technique works and whether it is restricting by reading the first page below; do you want to read on?

I’m still half asleep when I feel strong hands grabbing me.

I try to kick but it seems like I’m twisted up in the bedclothes, and the next minute I’ve been swung up into the air and whoever’s carrying me is walking fast and I’m going bump bump bump against his chest.

He smells of beer and horses and sweat. And my cheek is rammed against cold metal – a breastplate – so I know he’s a soldier.

He must be one of the rebels. Only I didn’t think the rebels were soldiers. I thought they were a mob of stinking peasants fromCornwall, with butcher’s knives and farm tools for weapons.

“Let go of me! Let –“

The man changes his grip; a glove clamps across my mouth. It reeks. “Woah! Don’t struggle, sir. You’re quite safe.”

The words are a trick, of course. I know I am about to die. The rebels have come for me because I am the king’s son and ….”

To see more visit the publisher’s web site at http://www.templarco.co.uk/fiction/harriet_castor.html (accessed 1/1/2012

Stones for my Father

In the summer I attended a history conference where one speaker bemoaned the fact that children were not taught anything about the Boer War, a comment that drew lots of agreement from the audience. At one level this was the normal boring complaint that children do not know about X (take your pick of battles, people, wars …) that reflects the speaker’s political perspective and also their ignorance of what is actually taught in schools and within what time constraints. But it also set me thinking which Boer War did they want children to know about. Was it the heroic defence of Mafeking? Was it the military incompetence and failure to use modern tactics that led to the defeats of Stromberg, Magersfontein, Colenso and Spion Kop? Was it the development of concentration camps to counter the Boer guerilla tactics? Or was it the public revulsion as reports came back to England of the deaths of thousands of Boer women and particularly children from a combination of starvation, disease, poor hygiene and a lack of medical facilities in those concentration camps?

I suspect it was just the first of these and so they might not recommend Stones for my Father by Trilby Kent which focusses upon the latter. But I would. The heroine, Corlie Roux, her mother and brothers are captured by the British, their farm burned and they are transported to one of the many concentration camps. Here is how their journey begins.

When we arrived at Standerton soon after, the soldiers herded us like cattle off the cart and into a boxcar that was waiting on a remote strip of rail tracks. It was difficult to see where we were going, and there was no time to gauge our location. Before I knew it we had been corralled from the cart into a dark, black box. The only light came from a couple of vents in the roof. When we were all inside, one of the soldiers slammed the door to the boxcar, making the entire thing shake. Moments later we could hear the engines starting.

I had never been on a train before, and I wished that there might have been a window so I could watch the steam rising from the chimneys. As it was I could barely make out the shape of my mother and brothers, who had squeezed themselves under one of the air vents. As the train heaved forward, we all stumbled to the back, crashing into one another with shouts of alarm and confusion. It took us a long time to get used to the movement, but after a few minutes everyone became very quiet.

To read about or buy this book visit http://www.almabooks.com/stones-for-my-father-p-384-book.html?zenid=df7d0b56299c29158dca882775dd2743

And for the very useful reading group guide go to http://www.almabooks.com/resources/Stones_for_My_Father_Reading_Group_Guide.pdf

French Revolution Historical Fiction

With recent publications there are now several books set in this period which history teachers could draw upon in their work. For those teaching this topic at AS level then A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel (1992) would be a good book to recommend for reading after completing the course of study whilst Pure by Andrew Miller (2011) would be ideal as a quick way in to the period. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens would show an interpretation of the revolution heavily influenced by Thomas Carlyle’s work.

For teachers at key stage 3 teachers could draw upon extracts from either title. In Pure the author introduces a minor character who has been recommended to the protagonist, Jean-Baptiste.

The young officer will, apparently, provide everything. It does not have to stop at horses.

In his blue coat and cream leggings (and what long, long legs he has!), the young man who goes by the name of Louis Horatio Boyer-Duboisson, seems very at home in the world. There is passing mention of a father, an estate in Burgundy. He seems to know more about Jean-Baptiste’s work than Jean-Baptiste can remember telling him. Is he connected to the minister? To Lafosse? Some neat, circular arrangement by which state funds are channelled back to the state, or at least to its representatives? They agree to meet in a week’s time for Jean-Baptiste to view a sample of the animals. They bow to each other, and though the engineer does not like or trust the soldier, who reminds him of a young Comte de S—-, he cannot keep himself from wishing a little that he was the soldier, that he wore life like a good shirt and might, if the weather picks up, ride down to the woods and rivers of his father’s estate in Burgundy.

In attempting to use such an extract from an adult text you might  simply omit those references to characters and places that your students’ might not know or simply use a skipping strategy. Either way a picture of the young officer emerges that could be simply ginger breaded. Inside the body the soldier is confident, possibly arrogant, a man of the world. Outside the body he is tall with very long legs, dressed in blue and cream and Jean-Baptiste’s twinge of envy suggests the soldier is also stylish and well dressed.

Compare this character with the other character extracts from some of the other books that you can find on this blog by looking for the French Revolution in the Historical periods drop down menu. You should find some heros and villains from Sovay by Celia Rees, The Red Necklace and The Silver Blade by Sally Gardner and Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly,

And finally a recently published book, In Darkness by Nick Lake (2011), links two characters, a young Haitian trapped by the recent earthquake with the hero of Haiti’s independence struggle with France at the time of the revolution, Toussaint l’Overture. This title is aimed at adult and younger readers and might provide an interesting starting point for discussing the use of historical fiction . The author’s note includes this comment. ‘I did not invent the character of Toussaint l’Ouverture, and I have been faithful to his story, at least in spirit and in essentials. It was necessary to smooth out the history to some extent. For example, in this book I have ignored the issue of the Spanish side of the island (the modern day Dominican Republic), with which Toussaint had a complicated relationship. However, the important things are true.’

And if you are looking for an up to date text on the French Revolution then why not look at the forthcoming http://www.hoddereducation.co.uk/Title/9781444144550/Enquiring_History_The_French_Revolution_Ebook.htm

Pure by Andrew Miller

I undertook some preliminary work for a research project some years ago into the use of historical fiction by secondary school history departments. One use that emerged was of reading fiction as a way into a period for students at all levels, but particularly for AS and A level students.

One title that it seems to me would be ideal for this is Pure by Andrew Miller. Not only is it very well written and an entirely absorbing story in itself (it won the Costa Award in 2012) but it also provides a very convincing window into life in Paris in 1785. Whilst not over laden with factual detail it not only gives a vivid picture of everyday life but also of the wider political climate, with Enlightenment ideas impacting upon the Ancien Regime. Young engineer Jean-Baptiste Baratte arrives in Paris and finds himself tasked with removing its oldest cemetery that is tainting and polluting the city and the lives of those who live nearby. One year later he is a much changed man. His story would serve as an excellent introduction to students planning to study the French Revolution at AS level.

In contrast A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel might be better recommended to students after they have studied the course. This equally brilliant, but different, book focuses upon the fatally intertwined lives of Danton, Desmoulins and Robespierre.

The Sleeping Army

The Sleeping Army by Francesca Simon (Profile 2011). A new novel with an interesting twist on the time slip novel. The modern Britain from which heroine Freya is plunged back into Viking Asgard is a pagan Britain. Reviewers have been very positive about this retelling of Viking myth. Freya navigates a world of giants, gods and wolves with a mixture of courage and humour.

And for students the story telling device of animating an object/s from the past, in this case the Isle of Lewis chessmen in the British Museum, could be translated to another place or time.

For an interview with the author go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlqJsnOPz1k

Or visit the publisher’s website at http://www.profilebooks.com/isbn/9781846682780/