Kids’ books reviews: Silhouettes and attacking dragons part of the drama of a secret land

The latest in children’s books as summarised by our dragonslayer and puzzle solver Pet O’Connell

Siobhan McDermott: Hong Kong based Trinity graduate has written a magical children’s thriller. Picture: Helen Scanlon

Paper Dragons: The Fight for the Hidden Realm by Siobhan McDermott; Hodder Children’s Books, €9

Everything in Hok Woh is shadowed in mystery and little is as it seems.

In this underwater realm, where jellyfish serve as messengers for the immortals, young apprentice Silhouettes face terrifyingly dangerous challenges in order to graduate from school. 

Those who fail at any stage are cast out, their memories of Hok Woh permanently erased. Worse, there are rumours that failed Silhouettes are disappearing, possibly taken by the evil Fui Gwai spirit and turned into grey-eyed zombie thralls.

Yet getting to Hok Woh is everything Zhi Ging has worked for. With no knowledge of her real parents, she was brought up in the village of Fei Chui by local healer Aapau and studied hard for her Silhouette entrance exam.

Only one Silhouette is selected from each village, and as a misfit outsider, 12-year-old Zhi Ging fears a terrible fate if she is not the chosen one. She will spend the rest of her life cleaning a narrow glass ‘post pipe’, wherein the last two pipe scrubbers drowned in their first month of employment.

Unfortunately for her, the village above the cloud sea where she was raised is ruled by glassmiths, chief among them the Lead Glassmith, whose daughter Iridill is chosen ahead of Zhi Ging as Fei Chui’s Silhouette.

Outraged at this injustice, Zhi Ging tries to win over Reishi, a Silhouette scout, by retrieving his lost jade stone. In the process, however, she precipitates a dragon attack on the mountain near her village and is accused by superstitious locals of summoning the Fui Gwai.

Her chances of reaching Hok Woh now seem in tatters, but Zhi Ging is beginning to discover that she possesses powers so extraordinary that they cannot be ignored by the age-shifting immortals the Cyo B’Ahon.

Since the dragon attack, delicate gold lines have been curling their way up her arm. Then, faced with another life-or-death situation as she recovers Reishi’s jade stone, Zhi Ging finds she is able to grasp hold of invisible ‘air rails’, by which she pulls herself to safety.

These ethereal rails happen to be the subject of long-term research by Reishi, who concedes to take Zhi Ging to Hok Woh, where she defies tradition by becoming an unprecedented ‘second Silhouette’.

The venomous Iridill is less than ecstatic about having to share her Silhouette status, and for the rest of this debut novel from Hong Kong-Irish author Siobhan McDermott, the resentment between them festers.

Mocking the fact that Zhi Ging was the only person in their village whose hair did not glow near dragons, Iridill refers to her as
‘NoGlow’ with a sneering snobbery reminiscent of Draco Malfoy’s Mudblood jibes.

Indeed, right from its prologue, where the infant Zhi Ging is deposited in Aapau’s care, this magical boarding school adventure, the first in a series for readers aged nine-plus, has strong ‘Harry Potter’ vibes, one of the fearless Zhi Ging’s stand-out qualities being compassion, even for her most deadly enemies.

Though few authors possess JK Rowling’s intricate plot-weaving skills, McDermott’s is a fresh approach to the topic of impossibly dangerous cryptic school challenges, infused with fragments of Chinese legends and her own childhood memories.

McDermott, a Trinity Arts graduate who worked in publicity for Penguin Ireland, could usefully have enlightened readers, before the book’s end, as to the meaning of the Chinese terms and words of her own invention (Cyo B’Ahon, for instance, is a Cantonese pronunciation of the author’s own name, Siobhan). 

But perhaps that would be to remove too much of the mystery from the unfathomable depths of this story of hidden dragons and undiscovered talents, whose February release coincides with the start of the Chinese Year of the Dragon.

An Crann Cois na Trá by Debbie Deegan and Bronagh Lee; Cló Iar Chonnacht/COGG, €10

“Ba bhrónach an radharc é an stumpa de chrann, clúdaithe le caonach, thíos cois na trá.

“Bhí an crann ag fáil bháis, bhí an nádúr faoi bhrón; ag caoineadh is ag gol, is ag olagón.” 

The transformation by tree sculptor Tommy Craggs of a dying Monterey cypress in Raheney, Dublin, into a stunning work of art was the inspiration for the debut book by children’s charity founder Debbie Deegan.

Translated into Irish by Fearghas Mac Lochlainn, the tale imagines the creatures who live in the tree gathering together in fears that it will be felled and sending a note to Craggs, asking him to come to their aid.

After Craggs carves the stump into a wooden menagerie of animals and birds, it develops a different kind of magic, making the whispered wishes of children who visit the tree come true.

With a cast of characters including owls Túbhuit and Túbhú and Sophie an Ealla, this is a celebration not only of a craftsman’s artistry but of the wonders of Irish nature. 

A skunk called Maidhcí is something of a surprise addition among the native species, but finds his place in a spirit of inclusivity and diversity.

The Treasure Hunt by Leisa Stewart-Sharpe and illustrated by Gordy Wright; Hodder Children’s Books, €21

X marks the spot, or does it? Some of the world’s greatest treasures have been lost or stolen, perhaps never to be found, but young readers will discover much about history, and code-breaking, as they hunt for priceless paintings, absent artefacts, and historic hoards in this intriguing book.

A series of clues leads to information about missing Fabergé eggs, Viking chess pieces, pirates’ booty, and Russia’s lost Amber Room.

It all starts with a message in a bottle, apparently from the ghost of Scottish pirate Captain Kidd, who seems to have adapted to dry land in attempts to continue his thievery.

Readers are required to develop their map-reading skills, plot co-ordinates, puzzle out ciphers, and try elementary rune reading in order to follow the trail of the time-travelling thief. 

They must crack codes and solve clues to progress to the next location.

With global warming and melting ice caps revealing archaeological treasures hidden for thousands of years, it is not a stretch for readers to imagine making an astounding find themselves.

As author Leisa Stewart-Sharpe notes, the person who led to the discovery of one of the most famous of all treasure sites, King Tutankhamun’s tomb, was not Howard Carter, the British archaeologist who was searching for it, but 12-year-old water-carrier Hussein Abdel-Rassoul.

How he stumbled across a stone step in the sand, “the top of a staircase leading down to the sealed entrance of Tutankhamun’s tomb and its treasures, undisturbed for 3,000 years”, is just the sort of inspiration young treasure-seekers may be looking for.

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