By the time you read this I shall have returned from an exciting trip - to the Arctic.
From time to time I take off my hat as a children's writer and don that of a travel journalist. This was my first big assignment since lockdown and my first trip so far north but the idea of frozen lands has long appealed to me - which is ironic as I complain bitterly abut the cold as soon as we get a frost here in Sussex. Nevertheless I found it all wonderful; Northern Lights, dogsledding, falling into snowdrifts and that Blue Hour just before sunrise and sunset which is so magical in a snowy landscape.
This expedition brought to mind some of my favourite books about ice and snow. Top of my list comes The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean. I read it soon after it came out in 2005 and have never forgotten its impact. It is the story of Symone and her super intelligent Uncle Victor who share a passion for everything to do with the Antarctic. He in fact, is researching an obscure project and has fuelled Sym's obsession by feeding her information and books about polar exploration. Sym, therefore knows an enormous amount on the subject for a fourteen year-old but her enthusiasm alienates her school friends and she is left feeling lonely. To fill the gap she has adopted Titus Oates, who accompanied Scott on his last voyage, as a sort of imaginary friend.
Needless to say Sym is ecstatic when she finds that Uncle Victor has arranged a surprise trip to Antarctica and is taking her with him. The adventure which follows is incredibly exciting with some totally unexpected twists. The writing is superb, the character of Sym unforgettable, as is the ubiquitous presence of Titus and you can almost feel the dread chill as they struggle to make their way across the vast and terrible whiteness.
Another interesting book, this time based on fact, which features Arctic exploration is Race to the Frozen North by Catherine Johnson. This tell the story of Matthew Henson who claimed to have been the first person to reach the North Pole when he accompanied Robert Peary on his 1908 expedition. Whether Henson or Peary reached the spot first, whether they were beaten by another explorer, Doctor Cook, or indeed whether the spot really was the North Pole, is still disputed. What is undeniable is that for decades Henson, who had explored the Arctic for 18 years and was an experienced and capable polar navigator, was deleted from history simply because he was a 'person of colour.' Only many decades later was he recognised, honoured and given the medals and acclaim which the white explorers had received long before. Narrated in clear and simple language as if by Henson himself, this book is important in that it reinstates a forgotten hero and draws attention to the injustices her suffered.
Yet another of my favourite ice books is entirely different. Rather than a 260-page thriller or a compact biography it is a big format picture book, The Ice Bear by the inimitable Jackie Morris. I love Jackie's paintings and she does polar bears exquisitely. The text of this story too is beautiful.
This is a shape-change story of a polar bear cub which is stolen by a raven ( she does ravens brilliantly too) but when found by a hunter and taken home the cub turns out to be a baby boy. The hunter and his wife had longed for a child and are overjoyed.
When the boy is seven however, the raven lays a trail of amber which the boy follows and gets lost. He is found by polar bears an taken back to his bear mother. Meanwhile the hunter has found the amber and seen signs that the bears have been scuffling and he vows to kill the bear that has taken his son. When he finds the bears and raises his spear, the raven caws, the boy looks up and puts himself between his human father and his bear mother. Both want to keep him and he is torn between the two but eventually decides to live as a bear in winter and learn bear wisdom and then to live with the humans in the summer and share with them the wisdom of the bears.
1 comment:
Your trip sounds magical - and some lovely suggestions for further reading here.
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