The Spell Singer and Other stories

Each of these ten stories features a disabled child. Notably Alison Prince's 'The Pigeon', Vivien Alcock's 'The Crossing' and Allan Baillie's 'Mates' enable the reader to share vividly in the experiences of the main characters; these three, with low-key realism, show disabled children being valued and appreciated. More negative notes are struck by the two stories in folk-tale tradition, Michael Morpurgo's 'Gone to Sea' and Joan Aiken's 'The Tinker's Curse'. The first, in its depiction of a lonely club-footed boy who foregoes human company to join a seal colony, reinforces ideas of rejection and separation. In the second, the father of a deaf girl who gains her hearing finds 'that she was not like everyone else' and regrets his former unkindness to her; this would surely let down a deaf reader very badly indeed. A mixed collection of which the best are to be highly recommended while others require more caution.