NOVEMBER - and time with TOSH'S ISLAND by Linda Sargent. Review by Penny Dolan

November greetings! I hope last night’s spookiness didn’t get to you, that only celebration fireworks light up your skies, and that the many festivals of light bring you joy.

However, between 11- 15th November, comes a less cosy event - Anti-Bullying Week - so this post focuses on a recently published graphic novel whose imaginative storytelling can remind the young reader about subtler,quieter forms of bullying and the problem of being socially excluded or victimized through disability.

TOSH’S ISLAND, created by Linda Sargent and Joe Brady, has been described by Jacqueline Wilson as ‘a book to remember for years . . . truthful and moving.” Originally a serial in David Fickling’s The Phoenix comic, this unusual story is about hope and daydreams, disability and determination, and based on real life experience.

                                        

On the cover, the artist Leo Marcell shows Tosh as a young girl, happily daydreaming on a grassy hill, her mind on a magical island, a beautiful mermaid, and on a mysterious boy’s face. Marcell also shows that, despite her smile, Tosh needs the support of a stick, a wooden crutch. Like the author Linda Sargent, the main character Tosh suffers from painful childhood arthritis, known as Still’s disease.

During the early chapters, set in a recent past, Tosh and her parents lead a fairly happy life on a Kentish hop-farm, close to the sea. That countryside gives Tosh plenty of space to run, climb, and play, usually with her best friend Millie. However, one day, Tosh meets an artistic French boy on the beach at Oyster Flats. The two sit by the sea, and after making up adventures about a treasure island, mermaids and an underwater kingdom, they promise to write to each other.

But real life interrupts Tosh’s fantasy world. Having started secondary school, her constant tiredness and so-called ‘imaginary’ pains get much worse. She cannot keep up with her favourite school activities, or join in socially with a more ‘sophisticated’ friendship group. Nastily teased, isolated and in pain, Tosh turns away from everyone, even from sympathetic medical staff, knowing difficulties lie ahead. Can Tosh’s fantasies even help her now she is alone? How can she believe Millie, or trust in promises and friendship? What still matters to her now? Gradually, all the pieces come together for Tosh, and a mystery is resolved, though there is no complete answer.

Tosh’s Island would be an interesting addition to any school library, as well as being a strong addition to empathy reading bookshelves. While the speech-bubble script carries one layer of the story, Leo Marcell’s artwork tellingly shows the nuances within the scenes. We can ‘read’ the body language he gives to the various characters: the shrug, the glance, the reluctance or reaction, and feel both the words said and not said. Readers of any age are granted a chance to think not just Tosh’s life, but about other children with medical conditions who might feel excluded by the patterns and pressures of their own school’s life.

Though the story within Tosh’s Island is lightened and complicated by the heroine’s fantasy, the content feels very realistic when contrasted with older, famous novels about children and disability. Books like What Katie Did, Pollyanna and The Secret Garden seem to suggest that physical problems might be ‘corrected’ by the passing of time and even by better behaviour.

Impulsive Katy becomes thoughtful, Pollyanna tests the ‘Glad Game’ herself, and even rude, reclusive invalid Colin has to respond to the world outside. Though these titles were much loved, they now seem like rather cruel fairy stories for any young person coping with long-term illness or disability. Thank goodness there are better books, like Tosh’s Island, available now.

Linda Sargent, the author and originator of Tosh’s Island, is still someone who enjoys escaping into books and story. She studied economic history at the University of Sussex, worked in education, art and reminiscence, and gained a Masters in Creative Writing and Personal Development. She is also a publisher’s reader, disability adviser and a writer herself. 

 Linda has found inspiration in the work and attitude of another author, Rosemary Sutcliffe, who had Still’s disease, but whose strongly active historical novels for young adults, such as ‘The Eagle of The Ninth’, ‘Sword at Sunset’, ‘The Lantern Bearers’ and others were widely read in secondary schools.

One well-known children’s story, however, does echo through Tosh’s Island. The story is Hans Christian Andersen’s original tale, The Little Mermaid, which is used to emphasise the changes in Tosh’s condition and its treatment, and show how the heroine’s playful weightlessness in water becomes pain and disability  when on dry land. 

And while, in the original, the poor mermaid sadly surrenders her voice, in this unique graphic novel, aided by Josh Brady and artist Leo Marcell, the voice, story and imagination of Linda Sargent rings out very clearly indeed. 

                                                    

 

By Penny Dolan

@pennydolan1