Children’s book reviews: Enchanting Christmas tales filled with mystery and legend

In the first of her Children’s books Christmas round up, Pet O’Connell explores a murder mystery, the grace of a talented ‘Ice Dancer’, and delves deep into the Irish legends of folklore

Fleur Hitchcock’s latest un-put-down-able murder-mystery — 'Murder at Christmas' — has suspense, it’s got snow, and festive glow.

Murder at Christmas by Fleur Hitchcock (Nosy Crow, €11.60)

In a few short weeks, Grace must face school again, suffering a snoring, farting room-mate and breakfasts of congealed eggs served from aluminium trays.

So she’s determined to enjoy to the full her Christmas reunion with far-flung family, her diplomat mother, and little brother Billy, having jetted in from Australia and her father soon to arrive from Spain.

They’re staying not far from her granny’s care home in the elegant hotel owned by Mum’s twin sister Mollie, who is due to fly back from Scotland. Everyone will be together again for a few precious, wonderful days. Or not.

Only a day after checking into the hotel, Grace and Billy are mystified when their mother fails to return from her visit to Granny’s care home.

Texts and calls go unanswered, but mum has left, her handbag in the hotel room so she can’t have gone far, they reason. 

Grace is accustomed to thinking for herself and she and Billy indulge in a full hotel breakfast before strolling out to the shops. Mum will be back soon. Of course she will.

As they make their way back to the hotel, however, they are greeted by police cars and cordons.

Though readers may at this point jump to erroneous conclusions, this emergency does not involve the children’s mother, but instead the murder of the hotel manager.

It does, however, still leave Grace and Billy staying in a hotel without any of their relatives, but now perhaps brushing shoulders with a murderer.

Grace is wary of telling the police that their mother is missing for fear of sparking a diplomatic incident, and they are unable to contact their father, who is on a ‘digital detox’ without phone access.

Conveniently, at least in plot terms, this ensures a complete lack of adult supervision, thus creating a perfect Home Alone/Enid Blyton-style scenario, with children taking the leading roles as independent decision makers.

Unable to trust any of the available grown-ups, Grace and Billy befriend two savvy local children and together the four set about solving the mystery of the vanished mother, while picking up clues — and a few red herrings — as to the identity of the murderer.

Fleur Hitchcock’s latest un-put-down-able murder-mystery has suspense, it’s got snow, and festive glow. 

If its plot takes some handbrake turns that stretch credulity, it is redeemed by the warmth of its Christmas spirit and wholesome advocacy of one of life’s simplest home pleasures: Making cheese on toast.

Tír na nÓg: A Favourite Irish Legend by Erika McGann, illustrated by Conor Busuttil (O’Brien Press, €14.99)

Like Niamh in Tír na nÓg, some stories never get old, nor do we tire of re-reading them.

There can be few Irish people who don’t know the tale of how Oisín joins the beautiful Niamh in the land of eternal youth, but after 300 years yearns to see his home again and after slipping from her horse, turns to ashes as he ages in an instant.

Yet there is always a new perspective to be taken on legends. First, Co Down native Conor Busuttil, illustrator of O’Brien’s Children of Lir and Ulster Fairytales and Legends, entices readers in to Tír na nÓg with richly-detailed scenes bursting with life and vibrant colour.

There, however, Oisín ultimately realises that perpetual perfection is not what makes our existence worthwhile, and that it is our life experiences, for better or worse, that define us as humans.

Louth native Erika McGann explores how amid her heartbreak over Oisín, Niamh finds hope, sharing her grief with a new circle of friends and drawing strength from the warmth of human kindness.

Ice Dancer by Alex Cotter (Nosy Crow, €11.60)

It’s almost Christmas, the season of goodwill, but there’s nowt of the sort in the frosty relationship between Dina and her aunt JJ, in whose Sheffield home she and her younger brothers are guests.

Comfort and joy are in short supply for Dina, the story’s narrator, as she continues to mourn the loss of her older sister Sasha, while facing a bleak midwinter with her austere aunt.

Sasha’s death has devastated each family member differently, and with her parents living separate lives, Dina is thrust into the role of responsible eldest sibling in an unfamiliar environment on the edge of the snowy, windswept Pennines.

She channels her swirling emotions into her passion for skating, and secretly borrowing the skates of her famed great granny Kendra, a champion in her day, Dina sneaks out to the city’s ice arena.

Almost immediately, her talent comes to the attention of other skaters and mentors, and Dina begins to form much-needed friendships, opening up the possibility of skating in a winter wonderland showcase; perhaps even competing for the coveted Steel Trophy.

However, the attention also inspires jealousy and she becomes the target of a spiteful campaign that threatens to sabotage her hopes of performing on ice with new-found skate partner Rosie.

With Sasha’s shadow haunting her thoughts and the appearance of a mystery skater, reality and imagination blur for Dina as Alex Cotter, author of The House on the Edge, binds folklore into her story of fortitude and friendship in the face of childhood grief.

Enchanted Ireland by Kieran Fanning (Gill, €24.99)

Leprechauns, as we know, are tricksters who cannot be trusted. And Tom, the eldest son of a Ballincollig farmer, is loath to take his eyes off the little beardy fellow he spies in the fields.

If he looks away, even for a second, his chance of getting his hands on the leprechaun’s pot of gold will be gone, and with it Tom’s hopes of buying a farm of his own.

The leprechaun tries various distraction ploys, including telling Tom that his father’s cows have broken loose, but no such ruse is going to work and the tiny shoemaker is forced to divulge the location of his gold.

It is buried in the neighbours’ field, he tells Tom — the neighbours who never plough their land, leaving it full of ragwort, or ‘boliauns’.

The leprechaun leads Tom to the plant under which the treasure is hidden and Tom marks the ragwort with his red handkerchief while he goes to fetch a spade with which to unearth it.

Mistake. While Tom is dreaming of his new-found fortune, the leprechaun ties red handkerchiefs to every stem of ragwort in the field, making the treasure impossible to find.

The tale is a reworking of The Field of Boliauns from Fairy Legends and Traditions of the South of Ireland by folklorist Thomas Crofton Croker, born in 1798 in Buckingham Place, Cork.

It’s one of 32 stories, drawn from each county in Ireland, in a spellbinding gift collection compiled by Meath author Kieran Fanning and illustrated by Julia Iredale, spanning sources from the Fenian Cycle to a Kerry version of Rumpelstiltskin.