The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson
Macmillan £10.99

Age 8-12

A new book by Eva Ibbotson always lifts the spirits. She understands how children might be inspired and nourished, and she delights in nature, friendship, honesty and liberty. It seems this is the legacy of her own school, the experimental Dartington Hall, which she attended during the 1930s. Tally, the heroine of this book, is sent away from London during the second war to Delderton, an eccentric boarding school in Devon. There the philosophy of freedom helps her blossom. It also gives her the courage to engage with politics, as a school trip to Bergania, a small, fictional European kingdom, leads her and her schoolfriends to confront a threat from the Nazis and to liberate a young prince from his oppressive guardians, in episodes that are reminiscent of Finn's escape in Ibbotson's Journey to the River Sea. The Dragonfly Pool reads like two stories in one: the tale of Delderton and the children who learn to be themselves under such teachers as Matteo, whose biology classes can take place at 4am; and the story of Bergania and unhappy Prince Karil, who finds secret solace by the pool of the title, hidden in the forest. But the parts are knitted together by their celebration of humanity (Macmillan £10.99). NJ

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