Fictional schools: there’s a new one in town
I recently did this post
on fictional holidays I would like to enjoy. I like the
idea and want to do more such posts, and the next one invited itself in with a
new book by one of my favourite contemporary authors, Lissa Evans, much
featured on the blog for her own books, children’s and adults, and for
her excellent blog recommendations over the years. (She even appeared in the Dower House post earlier this week)
Her new book is for young adults, and is a riot.
My name is MacKenzie Bly * No it Isn’t
Philip is just a normal boy: that is his superpower. He is not a
genius or very sporty or miserable. Things go wrong, things go right, he is
easily embarrassed but also open to good things in life. The book is full of
absolutely hysterical and ridiculous scenes, but they are strangely believable.
You just do feel as though you have been privileged to witness his life for a
few months, with him explaining it as he goes along. I loved his relationship with
his best friend (who has had to move to NZ) – they just talked and laughed all
the time. And he gets friendly with Emmeline ‘from the year above’, a wonderful
creation. If he hadn’t already won me over, his description of his stall at the
school fair would have done so: a contest to identify crisp flavours. (I’d have
won, as at a similar quiz round, I once id-ed one of the flavours without even tasting
the crisp, just on appearance).
While reading I would get tripped up laughing on items of real, 2020s
life like this one:
A National Trust footpath goes
right through the middle of [the industrial estate], so you get all these
people in wet weather gear, carrying huge backpacks and looking for solitude,
wilderness etc, having to tramp past Len Foley playing Slipknot at full volume
while inflating misshapen Spiderman balloons for HAVIN’ A PARTY wholesale
outlet.
And this description of a class trip:
When the coach arrived, everyone piled on to try and get the back seat and then they piled straight off again because the seat already ontained a drunk bloke from a stag do the night before, lying asleep in his own vomit. [On a new coach] we got stuck a world-record-breaking traffic jam… and we never made it to York at all, although we did spend two and a half hours in Spenwick Services, during which Aaron Wong and Lili Dean were cautioned for shoplifting, Jamal Locum-Wallace accidentally threw his phone into a giant bin instead of the empty Burget King box he was holding in his other hand, and three of the Pett sisters met someone called Gary who wanted to sign them up to his top international model agency but only if they gave him 50 quid cash (each). Which they did.
And this isn’t even an event featured in the book, it’s just a reminiscence: there’s something as good on every page.
A great book, and too good to be kept for its own age-group. Everyone should read it.
-------------------------
There are obvious comparisons to be made, and people will
make them, but I’m going to do it as a list of great fictional schools:
Neil Armstrong Comprehensive: Sue Townsend's Adrian
Mole is the hero of the 1980s and later. I have said before that if all history
was deleted, you could recreate the end of the 20th century via
Adrian Mole and Bridget Jones. Adrian and Pandora live out their lives at their
school.
Linbury Court, where Jennings and
Derbyshire hang out in the books
by Anthony Buckeridge.
St Custard’s, home to the
inimitable Nigel Molesworth,
Malory Towers (& St Clare’s) Enid Blyton’s beloved series. Day school girls adored the idea, even though they would most likely have hated boarding school in real life (it me).
St Trinian’s Well obviously. I am wistful that I will never get to go there.
Meadowbank, a select all-girl boarding school in Agatha Christie’s Cat Among the Pigeons. The games mistress is murdered, the foreign princess is abducted, the gardener is an impostor. That’s what I call a proper school. Also, it seems the girls have rooms to themselves, not dormitories.
Three more obscure ones - IYKYK:
The School of Dancing in Wintle’s Wonders by Noel Streatfeild - specially for Lissa, she and I have long bonded over our great love for this book. This is despite - and I may be about to offend her terminally - neither of us having the slightest ability in the area of musical comedy dancing.
Castle Monastery School in the wholly obscure book featured in one of my favourite (& strangely popular) posts
Dress Down Sunday: The Clue in the Castle by Joyce Bevins Webb
The Jane Willard Foundation, which is where
Dimsie
Goes to School in books by Dorita Fairlie Bruce
Our new hero is in a direct line from these: he is the schoolboy for the 2020s
Schools, and lists of schools, and schoolgirl
detectives, have all been lavishly featured on the
blog – look in the themes and lists tab above or use the search box.
Thursday
List: Books Set in Schools
File:1962
- Nineteenth Street Theater Ad- 10 Jul MC - Allentown PA.jpg - Wikimedia
Commons
Thank you for this wonderful review, and you are absolutely write about my lack of musical comedy skills. Oh, though, Wintle's Wonders - I think everyone in my family (except my father) read it at least three times....
ReplyDelete'Absolutely write'!!! You can tell how excited I was about the review....
ReplyDeleteThis above is Lissa, ie author, for anyone who can't tell.
DeleteAll the right (write?) people loved Wintle's Wonders, it's the NS fan favourite.
and thank you for giving us the great cheering-up book in hard times!
I was lucky enough to read this book before publication, and I completely agree with you: it's a stunner. Not only is it very, very funny, but MacKenzie Bly himself is one of those characters so instantly recognisable you feel you've known him all your life. In various disguises, he seems to have wandered through the last century or so of English literature, straight into the heart of 2026. But before that, E Nesbit knew him, and Jerome K Jerome, and of course Fotherington Thomas would have beset him with questions and Adrian Mole stared in instant, thankful, recognition.
ReplyDeleteI do hope it ends up on the school curriculum, and lined up for the Booker (something readable at last) and serialised on Radio 4 and turned into a 6 part drama , Mackenzie Crook style.
(Re. Wintle's Wonders. My supercool, infinitely wise and glam, US agent is a re-reader of that book. It's her go-to in times of need. Mine too- although I have leaning to Team Dulcie and would like to read her version of events.)
Thank you this sounds so much fun. I have just emerged from the long 16th century (Mantel, Gregory, Sansom - not all of them, of course) so this is perfect reading. I write as someone who got all my skills, such as they are, from Nigel Molesworth.
ReplyDeleteThank you this sounds so much fun. I have just emerged from the long 16th century (Mantel, Gregory, Sansom - not all of them, of course) so this is perfect reading. I write as someone who got all my skills, such as they are, from Nigel Molesworth.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies for the duplication, not sure what happened there. Obviously very poor IT skills
Delete