THE OPPOSITE
by Tom MacRrae
Andersen, £10.99; 32pp

DEEP IN A DARK WOOD, a green child wakes. Two hundred years ago, she was the daughter of the local wise woman, murdered by villagers. Adopted by the “crow people”, she has lived in the shadow land of faerie until now.

Starving, mute, bewildered Isabella is found by another outcast: Elizabeth Dyer, the daughter of a recusant Catholic family in the time when Protestants will persecute them on the slightest pretext. Elizabeth’s brother has brought a priest in need of shelter.

A tale about the opposition between mortal and fairy worlds, Heretic is also a timely reminder of how a clash within one faith was once as deadly as a clash between them. The last thing the Dyer family needs is more trouble. Elizabeth has a chance of safety working as companion to the Protestant lady of the manor, but she is besotted by Merrivale, a fanatical servant of the Queen who intends to ferret out recusants. Will Isabella, with her feral manners and supernatural abilities, be an added danger? Sarah Singleton’s debut, Century, was a haunting tale about a cursed family stuck in time and doomed to repeat the same motions in their gloomy, wintery mansion. Both an allegory about the redemptive power of youth and a metaphysical romance, it caught that strain of Gothic imagination that particularly appeals to bright girls of 11+.

Heretic, set in 1584, is equally appealing, and confirms her as an author to watch out for. Like Julie Hearn (The Merrybegot) and Celia Rees (Witch Child), she is skilled at intertwining historical events and the supernatural, and draws her characters with sympathy. The unusual friendship between the two girls is touching, but when the priest hides in a secret chamber of the church and discovers evocations of natural magic, his response is humble and thoughtful. Nobody behaves quite as expected.

The “crow people” with whom the girls bargain for help are fierce, weird, wild beings as capricious and sinister as any imagined by Shakespeare or Angela Carter: “Beautiful, yes, as a barren desert is beautiful, or a wild moor in the winter covered in perfect white snow.”

Singleton’s rich, painterly description is one of the great pleasures of the novel, as is her portrait of a seductive, perilous land in which “time could be shaped and created, bound up, hastened or slowed” and where the immortals re-enact the same stories, which come down to us as fairytales. The clash between the mundane and magical has rarely been rendered so captivatingly sinister.

Tom MacRae’s The Opposite is a picture book that also plays with this theme. Nate wakes up one morning to find “the Opposite standing on his ceiling, staring down at him”. From then on everything goes wrong, and poor Nate gets blamed for it. Milk is spilled at breakfast, paint goes everywhere at school and the pointy-nosed, transparent, grinning Opposite enjoys Nate's bewildered discomfiture. Finally, he learns how to outwit it and forces The Opposite to “disappear in a puff of green smoke”. The elegant, sinuous illustrations by Elena Odriozola (see below) have a cartoon-like weirdness reminiscent of James Thurber.

Ordinary family life can seem strange enough to a child, but if you want to make little ones of 4+ giggle like Puck, this is a little gem of contrariness. by Sarah Singleton

What's more...

NOT NOW BERNARDI (3+)
by David McKee Andersen, £4.99
Ignoring invisible monsters can be dangerous.

IMAGINE (3+)
by Ruth Brown Andersen, £10.99
Gloriously vivid portrayals of opposites feast the eyes.

IN HOLLOW LANDS (9+)
by Sophie Masson Hodder, £5.99
Away with the fairies in France.

HELLBENT 12+
by Anthony McGowan, Doubleday, £10.99
Teenager escapes from Hell by being contrary.

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