Review of the Time Wreccas by Bridget Carrington on Children's Books UK Info

Fantasy books set in an imaginary version of a real place are always fun, and offer an extra dimension if the reader knows the location.

Even if they are not intimately acquainted with Greenwich Park, the Meridian Line, the Cutty Sark (the 'Great Ship' of the story) or Blackheath, readers will probably heard of some of them, maybe even seen pictures. If you actually know it, it's an amazing bonus.

For all readers, however, the use of a real place in a familiar world somehow adds to the fantasy, making it more tangible, frightening and possible rather than distancing it in a fictional and unrecognizable location.

Val Tyler's book, ostensibly concerned with the desperate race to recover and return the stolen Tick, which keeps time going, to its master clock at the Observatory in time for the new Millennium, provides an exciting adventure in painstakingly described Underneath and Topside worlds.

At a deeper level, however, The Time Wreccas examines some far more serious subjects: abuse, bullying, compassion, ethnicity, and family relationships, particularly the nature of belonging and responsibility. The Guardians are all that is noble and right, the Wreccas all that is evil and wrong.

Yet from each come those who break the norms: young Tid, who is hoodwinked by Snot into revealing Old Father Tim's workshop; Sheldon, the Guardian boy from a dysfunctional family, who wants to join the Wreccas; Snot, the Wrecca who hates the casual cruelty of her Underneath existence, and longs for the love and justice she experiences when she ventures Topside as Sofi; and Snivel, who hates his Wrecca existence but cannot yet accept the compassionate Guardian life.

Bridget Carrington is an ex-librarian and teacher, who took early retirement to finish an MA in Children's Literature at Roehampton University, and who is now researching the early history of fiction for Young Adults.

Val says ' Children's Books UK Info is worth visiting. They do detailed reviews and stay up to date.'

You can buy The Time Wreccas from Amazon in hardback or paperback

 

 

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