FROZEN BILLY
By Anne Fine
Doubleday, £10.99; 199pp
ISBN 0 385 60769 5
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GOLDKEEPER
By Sally Prue
OUP, £4.99; 296pp
ISBN 0 192 71950 5
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Long before children become aware of how adults attempt to manipulate their responses, tales in which toys, puppets and statues take on independent powers of thought and action reverberate in a developing imagination. Two new novels, by the former children’s laureate Anne Fine and the enthralling Sally Prue, explore family loyalties and courage, and the relationship between God and man while placing their heroes in vaudeville settings. Both have resulted in novels of touching, startling hilarity, originality and depth.

Fine’s screwball take on the anguish caused by our nearest and dearest has resulted in international bestsellers such as Mrs Doubtfire, Flour Babies and Goggle-Eyes. At her most slapdash, she writes with fierce good-humour and brio; but when, as here, she invests imaginative sympathy in her characters, she is superb.

Frozen Billy is set in the Victorian era, whose gas-lit shows and mean streets are tenderly illustrated by Georgina McBain. Clarrie’s father has gone to work in Australia, and his family are on the breadline. Boozy old Uncle Len is the only earner, working as a ventriloquist in a music hall. Clarrie hates his dummy, Frozen Billy, but when her mother is wrongly imprisoned for stealing “a silly little basket of food”, it is Clarrie who dreams up a new act, with her brother Will pretending to be a dummy. Double the money means salvation, not starvation, but soon it seems as if her brother is made of wood and the dummy the real-life boy. Uncle Len takes all their earnings, and brave Clarrie “felt as if I were locked in a duel for my brother’s soul”.

The wit and resourcefulness of the two child-heroes in the face of adult selfishness is vividly portrayed.

Sally Prue’s young hero Sebastian is a very different hero. A tricky trickster, or Holy Fool, he is the last person you would expect to be chosen as high priest’s apprentice in the temple of Ora, even before he and his pet rat start exploring the golden god’s secrets. Whatever Sebastian wishes for, whether it is a casino in the temple, or an all-singing, all-dancing showbiz extravaganza, happens. Is it real, or divine? Does Ora really exist, and why does Sebastian keep narrowly avoiding death?

The cover makes Goldkeeper look much too babyish. One of the funniest and most thought-provoking comedy thrillers in years, this is a benign exploration of some of the aspects that Philip Pullman explores in His Dark Materials. What if God really exists, and is playing with us? What if a child develops the power to influence and deepen his feelings for mankind? Crooks and politicians believe religion to be the opium of the people, whom they can then fleece with impunity, but what if the theatrical props of worship turn out to be true? Does the ending deserve “bravo!” or “Amen”? Read it and see.

Read on

• The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks (Collins) 8+
• The Twelve and the Genii by Pauline Clarke (Jane Nissen Books) 9+
• The Cuckoo Clock by Mrs Molesworth 10+ (Jane Nissen Books) 10+
• The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit (Wordsworth) 10+

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