Winter Song

In an imaginary country ruled by a tyrannous regime called the Phalange, the orphaned teenage children of murdered Resistance fighters are confined in Spartan and punitive boarding schools, knowing nothing of their background. When Bartolomeo, 17, discovers the truth and confides it to his friend Milos, their chance meeting with Milena and Helen from the neighbouring girls’ school sets the four of them on a perilous road of rebellion and escape, at first just as a gesture of defiance. But Milena is the daughter of a famous singer, a martyr of the Resistance, and has inherited her mother’s charismatic gift. After many dangers, three of the four join up with the underground Resistance and become key figures in the regime’s overthrow.

Jean-Claude Mourlevat is a children’s writer, and this is his first young adult book. It takes him some time to make the switch. The early chapters covering the rigours of school and the early stages of escape are quite like Roald Dahl. All adults are extremes of good or evil, and the villains are caricatured grotesques. One scene, in which the teachers meet their Government overseer, is remarkably like a famous episode in The Witches. The fantastic ‘man-dogs’ who pursue the fugitives in the opening stages also belong to a different narrative convention from that of political realism. But once the novel finds its feet after these early chapters, it becomes a strong and compelling story of young love, political idealism, and courageous resistance to tyranny. Nor does it shirk the human costs of rebellion. The book is fast-moving and readable, and it is worth persevering with the misleading start and awkward gear-change for the power of the novel once it finds its proper voice.