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Summary
Summary
From the author of the critically acclaimed The Imaginary comes a powerful story about friendship in the vein of Roald Dahl and Neil Gaiman.
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2017
A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2017
Frank thought her summer couldn't get any worse--until big, weird, smelly Nick Underbridge rescues her from a bully, and she winds up at his house.
Frank quickly realizes there's more to Nick than meets the eye. When she's at his house, she hears the strangest, most beautiful music, music which leads her to a mysterious, hidden door. Beyond the door are amazing creatures that she never even dreamed could be real. For the first time in forever, Frank feels happy . . . and she and Nick start to become friends.
But Nick's incredible secrets are also accompanied by great danger. Frank must figure out how to help her new friend, the same way that he has helped her.
Paired with gorgeous black-and-white illustrations from Levi Pinfold, acclaimed author A. F. Harrold weaves a powerful story about unlikely friendship, strange magic, and keeping the shadows at bay.
Author Notes
A.F. Harrold is an English poet and author who writes and performs for both children and adults. His novel The Imaginary was a Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book. He is the owner of many books, a handful of hats, and one beard. He spends his spare time showing off onstage, in schools, and at home, and his non-spare time sitting around, stroking his beard and writing things down. He lives in Reading, England, with a stand-up comedian and two cats.
www.afharroldkids.com
Levi Pinfold has been drawing from imagination for as long as he can remember. He is the author and illustrator of The Django, The Greenling , and Black Dog, which won the prestigious CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal. Born in the Forest of Dean, he has somehow found himself living in northern Australia. He likes paintings, books, music, and some cats.
www.levipinfold.com
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-Strong characterizations and a good dose of spookiness are standouts in this illustrated novel. After a strange boy named Nick rescues her from bullies, Frank begins a cautious friendship with her unpopular classmate. When she hears mysterious and beautiful music coming from Nick's cellar, Frank secretly investigates. She discovers a "leechway" that acts as a door to alternate realities. Nick's nonhuman mother lives in one of them; so do creepy "stick-creatures" who seem eager to invade our world. The two kids play heroic, save-the-world roles in an action-packed climax, but there's just as much tension in the carefully paced plot that leads up to it. Third-person narration conveys Frank's inner thoughts and perceptions, revealing a tentative, flawed, but quite likable protagonist. Amusing inner dialogues with her nervous stomach show how the girl struggles with self-esteem, courage, and ethical choices. She comes through bravely against the stick-figures, but there's a different, equally satisfying triumph in a final scene where she defends a child from bullies. The eeriness builds slowly as Frank gradually learns more about the leechway. The ominous mood is aided by atmospheric black-and-white drawings that capture the shadowy menace creeping into Frank's world. VERDICT Hand to fans of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, Holly Black's Doll Bones, and other books that balance scariness and substance.-Steven Engelfried, -Wilsonville Public Library, OR © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
When shes rescued from a gang of bullies by Nicholas Underbridge, Frank (short for Francesca) Patel is relieved but horrified. Relieved to escape; horrified that weird Nick, the school outcast, has helped her. And Nicks home life is even stranger than Frank could have imagined: when he invites her home, she hears beautiful music issuing from the basement--music composed and played by a troll-like creature, mountainous and gray, mossy-eared and flat-faced. This is Nicks mother, a being who lives in a world only occasionally connected to ours, and from which, through an unplugged hole in the realities, Nick slipped as a baby. Even that intermittent contact is dangerous, however; and when Frank spills the secret to the bullies, she puts Nick--and, she learns, the whole world--at risk. There are people out therewho are always looking for these leechways between worlds. People wholl take it and point it at some other other world. At somewhere more dangerous than where Nicks from. And it wont just be a window anymore. Theyll force it open and let things out. Harrolds story smacks of fairy tale, fable, and dream. Its also rooted in familiar issues: the boring nastiness of bullies; the testing of courage. Harrolds incisive, poetic way with words, often dryly comic, enlivens even mundane descriptions; even more, it intensifies the vague darkness of his otherworldly imagery. Pinfolds shadowy art deepens the storys air of mystery and threat, at times filling double-page spreads, at times creeping in from the margins of pages to cloud the print itself. deirdre f. baker (c) Copyright 2017. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Francesca "Frank" Patel's summer holiday is interrupted, first by bullies and then by a glimpse of another world. The neighborhood goons pick on Frank with escalating meanness. But the odd, large, flat-faced boy from her school whose name (Nicholas Underbridge) hints at his unusual originsthe boy everyone claims smells and no one wants to sit withrescues her bag from a nettle field where the bullies tossed it, then takes her to his house for refuge. Nick's house, filled with his dad's colorful abstract paintings, is otherwise tidy except for two things: there is a damp, rich, earthy odor there, and Frank hears extraordinary music that fills her soul and makes her long for more. Frank's curiosity results in a frightening, nearly world-ending chain of events. Harrold gracefully tosses together hints of quantum physics, old legends, and magic-ministry-type agents. Frank's struggle to reconcile her fear of her bullies, her growing friendship with Nick, and the truth about the maker of otherworldly music are poignantly convincing and likable. Pinfold's atmospheric illustrations, darkly menacing and mysterious by turns, add to the contemporary folk-tale atmosphere. The only hints about Frank's Indian heritage are her name and a minor moment when an elderly woman asks Frank's wisecracking at-home dad if they have tuna fish "where you come from." A captivating British import. (Fantasy. 8-11) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Francesca Frank Patel couldn't experience a worse summer. Her best friend is away, her cat is missing, and the school bully won't leave her alone. When the horrid giant of a kid Nick Underbridge rescues her and takes her to his home, Frank doesn't know what to make of him. His father is friendly, and the house is cheerful and filled with beautiful music. When she snoops behind a secret door, she discovers the source of the music: a gigantic troll, who Nick reveals is his mother, living in another world. Frank agrees to keep Nick's secret; but as their friendship develops, she realizes the secret is dangerous and could cause harm to Nick and his family, forcing her to make a difficult decision. Friendship, acceptance, trust, and decency weave their magic throughout Harrold's (The Imaginary, 2015) tale, which questions how fairy tales and fantasy find their place in our universe. Lush black-and-white illustrations by Pinfold enhance the secrecy, wonder, and mood of the story.--Fredriksen, Jeanne Copyright 2017 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THE LANDSCAPE OF fantasy storytelling is changing rapidly. "World-building," once the exclusive domain of fantasy novelists, is now a term more closely associated with movie and video game franchises. Special effects now rival anything we could imagine while reading on our own. And so perhaps fantasy literature will be forced to do what every medium must when challenged by something new: adapt. Just as the still camera set painting on a path toward abstraction, fantasy literature seems poised to move away from virtuosic worldbuilding toward more interior and language-based storytelling - the sorts of things books do best. In this context, A. F. Harrold's new novel, "The Song From Somewhere Else," seems like a product of both the past and the future. Francesca (Frank) Patel is rescued from bullies one summer afternoon by an unlikely hero: an enormous boy named Nicholas Underbridge. Nicholas is a social pariah, mocked for his strange features and odd manner. Frank accepts an invitation to Nicholas's home - an inviting refuge full of artwork, cookies and earthy smells - where she hears an otherworldly song echoing from his basement. "It was like overhearing a conversation between your mum and dad about your birthday presents," Harrold writes. "One you've hidden at the top of the stairs to listen in on, purely by accident." This passage highlights the great strength of Harrold's book: using language to evoke more than the thing itself. Music pours into ears "like fresh orange juice, sharp and cold and full of vitamins." Shadowy creatures appear as "scribbled black lines of limbs." These are the touches of a poet, and they shine. Still, it can be difficult to shed the older obligations of children's fantasy, and Harrold's delicate touches are somewhat overwhelmed by the scope of his plot. The otherworldly song draws Frank into a mystery involving, among other things, dimensional rifts, trolls, shape-shifting monsters, talking cats and a shadowy agency dedicated to protecting the fabric of the universe(s). At times, these fantastical conceits are more confusing than compelling. This is unfortunate, because beneath lies a moving story about an outcast child, Nicholas, who has been tragically separated from his mother. Harrold, the author of several novels and poetry books, was himself an orphan, and he writes about parental loss in a way that moves beyond the hackneyed tropes often found in children's literature. (His "A Poem for My Mum" is at once delightful and devastating.) if harrold's book approaches a new frontier in children's fantasy, James Nicol's debut, "The Apprentice Witch," does the opposite: It takes readers on a pleasant trip back to a simpler age. Nicol's magical world is familiar - full of witches and broomsticks and spells and frightened villagers. Arianwyn Gribble is a young witch who has just come into service under the Civil Witchcraft Authority. The setting is something like wartime England, with witches acting as public servants, dispatched to counties around the "Four Kingdoms" to handle infestations of magical pests. After a disastrous evaluation ceremony, Arianwyn is sent to the far-flung town of Lull - an unglamorous assignment. Arianwyn sets up shop in her "spellorium" and struggles to win over suspicious locals. The book works best when it focuses on the workaday challenges of witchcraft. This includes exterminating a nest of "snotlings," cleaning up stray hexes and rehabilitating an injured "moon hare." All the while, a darker threat from the Great Wood lurks just beyond the border. Arianwyn is a likable hero, with welldrawn struggles - both professional and personal. The novel wears its conventions like a cozy sweater, adding little new to a conversation that has begun to move on. Adult readers may not find the mystery plot terribly mysterious, but younger readers should be too busy enjoying the world to mind. ? Jonathan auxier is the author of novels including "The Night Gardener" and, most recently, "Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard."