Odelia and the varmint by Jenny Moore

Odelia and the Varmint is a whimsical adventure, full of quirks, surprises, and pirates. Odelia and her mother and infant brother live in Victorian London in near penury following the untimely death of Odelia’s father. Their difficult circumstances may be rescued if only Odelia’s mother’s Pirate adventure novel could be finished and published. Instead, the pirates from the pages of her book visit their house, causing mayhem and swashbuckling havoc. Pirate treasure would be nice, but instead the household becomes the target of a local thief and Odelia and Captain Blunderfuss, the rude, smelly and ‘vocabularily-twisted’ pirate, must rescue Odelia’s young brother from the clutches of a well-dressed thief.

The delight of this book is that fictional characters have managed to leap from the pages of a manuscript and into real life – the dream for every reader. That these characters are also strangely piratical and never tyrannical, and display extremely obnoxious personal hygiene traits, and possess a weird vocabulary that is intensely humorous, will delight young readers. Even though the central character is dealing with grief and difficult circumstances, there is a lightness to this story that is charming and reveals her resilience and determination. Her penchant for discovering word meanings (she was focussed on V words  - hence the Varmint in the title) adds another peculiarity to the story and another ray of light. The setting in Victorian England is also a curiosity for children raised with modern tastes and expectations. This will be a story that charms. It is a gentle fantasy, with pirates, and would make a great shared story, but equally will be gobbled up by young readers aged 9-12.

Themes: Grief, Pirates, Adventure, Poverty, Stories, Fantasy.

Carolyn Hull