Goodbye, Tommy Blue

Review also includes:

Wicked Chickens, ****, Vivian French, ill. John Bradley, 978-0333994627

The Beast of Crowsfoot Cottage, ***, Jeanne Willis, ill. Chris Mould, ‎978-0333994641

Here are three new additions to the excellent ‘Shock Shop’ series – and three good examples of what you can do with the ghost story.

Goodbye, Tommy Blue is a ghost story that is deliberately not scary. Nell’s family are moving into a new house and on her first visit she sees the ghost – a young boy dressed in shorts. Nell is surprised because he’s not frightening at all, just a boy even younger than she is. The family settle in and get to know their neighbours, an old lady whose family used to own both halves of the now split house, and her grandson. Nell guesses the ghostly little boy must be related to them and this is confirmed when she sees a photo of him in the old lady’s album. Nell helps the ghost find what he is looking for – an old toy soldier, missing from a set – and he makes his last appearance when his grandson is in the room too. Identifying the ghost is key in this book about family, connection to the past and memories of loved ones – the ghosts we all live with.

Vivian French also uses family relationships as a central theme to her very different, dark, but very funny story. Charlie’s dad wins a substantial sum at bingo and uses it to fulfil his dream of an idyllic life in a cottage in the country. Unfortunately, he doesn’t take the wishes of Charlie and his five sisters into account and when the dream cottage turns out to be a nightmare – damp, dilapidated, dirty and surrounded by squawking chickens – they round on him and their long-suffering mother. It’s hard to think of a creature less threatening than a chicken but these are decidedly unpleasant. What’s more, Charlie notices they are multiplying as if by magic and realises that the extra chickens are being created by the arguments, tantrums and squabbling in the cottage. Can he persuade his family to work together? The book is funny and chilling with a great sense of drama.

Jeanne Willis’s book requires careful reading. A mysterious beast is terrifying the inhabitants of a peaceful part of the countryside – could it be a bear? Our narrator has different suspicions but who is the narrator and how reliable is she? It appears the beast is not the only monster loose in the countryside; there are hints at other more ordinary acts of violence. Tragedy seems to strike when a little girl and her step-father disappear, apparently killed by the beast, but that’s not the end of the story. Only in the last chapter does the narrator confess that she is the girl, that she wasn’t killed by the beast, a lion dumped by a circus, but befriended by him, that the beast helpfully ate her abusive step-father, whom she had shot and killed in a struggle over his shot-gun. The fairy tale tone and fairy tale ending don’t lessen the bleakness and this is an unsettling read.