Children's books review: Overcoming adversity, historical thrills, and a cracking Easter read

Its title ensures that Ella Dove’s book is impossible to ignore — and its content proves just as compelling.

Learning how to roller-skate is just one of the items on Maya Bright’s list of things to do before she turns 13, but when she loses her leg in a traffic accident, it seems this ambition must be relegated to the status of impossible dream.

Tasks such as walking unaided and returning to school are the new goals Maya must focus on, as she adapts to life with a prosthetic leg.

There’s nothing glamorous about struggling upstairs to a second-floor classroom when jolting nerve pain runs like an electric shock from the bottom of her stump and up her thigh. Compounding the physical pain for Maya, an effervescent character who has always loved the limelight, is the agony of realising her prosthetic leg makes her the centre of attention for a different reason. The whispers and pitying stares of fellow pupils ensure she cannot avoid “the awful embarrassment of feeling like I didn’t fit in”.

She certainly does not appear to fit into the social circle of the class cool girls, of which her lifelong best friend Sophie has mysteriously become a member during Maya’s absence from school since the accident.

Fortunately for Maya, she can still rely on the friendship of teacher’s pet Vita and the individualist Miles, the rocks upon whom she leans when she discovers she is excluded from the social event of the year — Sophie’s roller-skating 13th birthday party.

Maya must summon all her mental and physical strength if she is to overcome this latest cruel blow, but using her pre-accident list as a motivational tool, she adds a new goal: to “make Sophie realise what she’s missing”. She’s ticked off most of the items on her list, but is learning to roller-skate with one leg quite literally a step too far, even for someone as determined as Maya?

This debut novel by journalist and amputee Ella Dove, who lost her own right leg below the knee after falling while jogging, is as much an exploration of the murky world of female friendships as of the power of positive thinking.

A tribute to the importance of support from family and true friends — with comic relief provided by a collection of pampered guinea pigs — Maya’s uplifting story is a lesson in living your best life, whatever challenges come your way.

• The Case of the Secret Signal
• By Brian Gallagher
• O’Brien Press €9.99

It is 1911 and as chief prosecutor, Isobel’s father works at the seat of power in Ireland, Dublin Castle.

A skilled speaker with absolute respect for the law, he may not give the opinions of his young daughter on matters such as women’s voting rights a full hearing, but he has to admire her intelligence in debate.

Isobel’s quick-wittedness becomes crucial to her very survival when, after several incidents where she feels certain she is being followed, she finds herself bundled into a van, drugged, and abducted.

Held in a barn, she knows not where, Isobel’s terror is mixed with anger and a determination to free herself from her kidnappers, who plan to extort a high price from her father in exchange for her safe return.

Using a candle to flash an SOS message in Morse code might have been a long shot even a century ago, but unknown to Isobel, on the other side of the valley and armed with a pair of powerful binoculars, are three children just waiting for a mystery to solve.

Twins Tim and Deirdre Kavanagh and their friend Joe Martin, responsible for solving The Case of the Vanishing Painting in their first adventure, are visiting the twins’ aunt near Carlingford for a few short days but would love nothing better than to put their detective skills to use again.

Thus, after attempting to alert the police that something may be amiss at the farmhouse in the distance, the three children decide to investigate the source of the Morse signal themselves.

Events unfold rapidly, with Joe soon in as much danger as Isobel, and the twins discovering that any faith they had in the local policeman helping to uncover a crime was badly misplaced.

Though the constable in question is no Mr Goon, there’s a strong sense of the Five Find-Outers about this mystery, due not least to an Enid Blyton-esque presence of lashings of food references, and the convenient absence of parents, allowing the children complete freedom of adventure.

Dublin author Brian Gallagher, a prolific writer of children’s historical fiction including Friend or Foe and Across the Divide, sets his latest work for ages nine-plus against the backdrop of the women’s suffrage movement and through Isobel, articulates the argument for women’s rights.

She is no mere mouthpiece, however, but a strong, rounded character, courageous in the face of considerable danger. And it is this edge-of-seat threat of peril that ensures the novel, while historically informative, is first and foremost just what a children’s book should be — a damn good adventure.

• Cití Cearc
• by Patricia Forde and Úna Woods
• Futa Fata €10.95

Cití Cearc is clucking with egg-citement as she waits for her chicks to hatch. She has been carefully minding her four fine eggs, but one morning when she rises early to count them once more, she discovers one has disappeared.

“Gadaí! Gadaí!” a bhéic Cití. “Tá gadaí tar éis m’ubh a sciobadh.”

What kind of thief would steal her precious egg? Could it be one with a stripy tail like that of Órla the cat, or a thick curly coat like Lúsaí lamb? Maybe the baddy has eight long legs like Nóra the spider, Cití speculates, or a voice like Áine Asal.

As her imagination runs wild, conjuring images of a fearsome multicoloured, multi-legged monster, braying like a donkey and snatching eggs at will, she is followed by her farmyard friends in a Henny-Penny-style procession in pursuit of the perpetrator.

Released to mark Futa Fata’s 20th year, this reworking of the publisher’s first original picture book is a cautionary tale about jumping to conclusions and makes a cracking Easter treat for toddlers and tuismitheoirí alike.