posted on 24 Nov 2022

Midwinter Burning by Tanya Landman

A new novel from Tanya Landman is always a welcome arrival here at Letterpress. Midwinter Burning which was released at the beginning of this month by Walker Books for readers aged 9+, continues her already impressive output.

It’s 1939 and young Londoner, Alfie Wright is already an outsider; even at his young age he is the target for school bullies and his indifferent mother does nothing to boost his self-esteem. When the order comes for children to be evacuated from the capital, Alfie leaves for the Devon countryside in the company of the rest of the children from his school. Typically, while all the other children get chosen by families prepared to take them in, Alfie is left waiting. But, actually, it turns out that Alfie’s luck seems to have changed when a delightful woman who insists he call her Aunt Bell turns up and whisks him off. 

Along with her silent but solid son, Aunt Bell runs a farm and, in her good-natured way, never stops talking. She is so welcoming and warm that Alfie can’t believe his luck and is soon finding out about the countryside. He learns to milk cows, collect eggs from the hens and fend off the geese who want to peck his legs every time he passes - but he’s also aware of the surprising and mysterious pull of the ancient circle of standing stones that he finds on the cliffs overlooking the sea.

Alfie’s never made a friend of his own, so, when he suddenly comes across a boy of his own age, dressed oddly and seemingly unable to speak English he’s happy to find that this newcomer seems keen to spend time with him. Soon Alfie and Smidge – for that’s the name he seems to respond to – are constant companions, although this new friend has a very odd habit of just disappearing.

Meanwhile, things between Alfie and his schoolmates don’t seem to be improving much and this isn’t helped by the dark warnings of locals that the decision to cancel the ancient ceremony of the Midwinter Burning risks bringing on ‘the Darkness’. This annual ceremony is being cancelled because of the need for wartime blackout and the antipathy of the local vicar but Alfie somehow knows that the Midwinter Burning, he, Smidge and the ancient standing stones are all tied-up together.

I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to reveal here how this resolves itself because you’ll want to read that for yourself. Suffice it to say that you’re in for a tense, magical and exciting story that will transform Alfie’s life.

In the last book of Landman’s we reviewed, The Battle of Cable Street, she took a very real historical incident as the starting point for her drama but here the underlying theme is the magical power of the past and the way it interacts with the present. If you take a dollop of Alan Garner, a spoonful of Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising and a nod towards Stig of the Dump, you’ll get something of a feel for the atmosphere of the book.

As always, it’s beautifully written and a fantastically involving page-turner with just the right amount of jeopardy to keep you reading.

You can order the book for £7.99 from your local independent bookshop if they don’t have a copy in stock.

 

Terry Potter

November 2022