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Giant by Judith McQuoid

Jun10

Published by independent Irish publisher, Little Island, and written by debut author Judith McQuoid, Giant is the the imagined story of a working class boy named Davy and his upper middle class friend, Jacks, in Belfast, c.1908. Jacks Lewis is an imaginative ten year old who lives in a big house with his mother and father and sometimes his brother Warnie, who is away at school for most of the story in our book. Davy lives on the other side of Belfast, near the shipyards, where his father drives a delivery cart. Davy’s little sister Minnie is his only sibling, and his mother works as a maidservant for the Lewises.

You may have already guessed that “Jacks” is the Belfast boy who grew up to become the famous professor and author, C.S. Lewis. Judith McQuoid, who is Irish herself, born in Belfast, wanted to write a story about Lewis’s boyhood and how his growing up years in Belfast might have shaped his later life and writings. In Giant, Jacks Lewis is seen through the eyes of Davy, and he becomes Davy’s mentor and inspiration and most of all friend, even though Jacks is a bit younger, much more wealthy, and less worldly-wise than Davy. Davy shows Jacks something of the real world outside his middle class home, and Jacks inspires Davy to see the magic and wonder that exists in that world despite Davy’s poverty and limited opportunities.

The boys share and communicate through the media of books and storytelling and drawings. There are so many references to Jacks’s favorite books and stories, books that he shares with Davy. But the stories and the everyday magic of nature and art are a contrast to Davy’s dangerous and difficult working life as a heater boy and later a rivet boy, working on the huge ships that were built in the Belfast shipyard, ships like the Olympic and the Titanic.

For Lewis fans who are ready to get a picture of some of the background for Lewis’s Narnia tales, Giant is great read. And for anyone interested in a visit to Northern Ireland, its history and landscape, Giant is a must read. I enjoyed all of it: the history, artfully woven into the story with a light touch, the Lewisian and literary references, and just the story of a boy growing up with grace and courage in difficult circumstances. I’d say it’s appropriate for readers ages nine or ten and up.

I actually met author Judith McQuoid a few years ago in England, and I even read an early draft of her manuscript for Giant. I think she solicited my advice on the story, but I had very little to give. I am a reader, not an author or and editor, but Ms. McQuoid, with this book, shows that she is indeed a first class writer. Her love for all things Irish and Belfastian shines throughout the book. I hope she writes more books. We need more books in the world about C.S. Lewis and about Ireland from people who love them both.

Will’s Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Apr22

Rhodes, Jewell Parker. Will’s Race for Home: A Western. Illustrated by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov. Little, Brown and Company, 2025.

This middle grade novel is indeed a western, but a bit different from most books in the genre. Set in 1889 before and during the Oklahoma Land Rush, the story features twelve year old Will, and his family who are Black sharecroppers on a farm in Texas. Will’s father is a taciturn man, formerly enslaved, and tired of working on another man’s land. Will doesn’t understand his father, and doesn’t believe his father cares much for him. Then life changes when Father hears about free land available in Oklahoma for those who rush in to claim it. He is anxious to travel to the border to try to be one of the few who benefit from the opportunity.

Father needs someone to go with him, someone he can count on when the journey becomes difficult. So since Will can read and since there’s no one else, Will becomes his father’s trusted companion on the long way to Oklahoma and the land rush. The book also chronicles Will’s internal journey toward becoming what his father calls “tough”, becoming a man.

At first, I didn’t particularly like the prose style the book was written in: lots of short choppy sentences, with phrases interspersed between the sentences. “Sometimes Grandpa lets me try shooting a rabbit. Not often. I’m a bad shot.” “Father and Grandpa study the map. Marking, re-marking the trail. Praying for ten miles a day.” But as I read I began to appreciate the spare, straightforward prose as a reflection of the character of Will’s father in particular, and of the other western men they meet along the way. These are men who work hard and don’t always have much to say, but when they do speak, it’s important enough to require listening. The kind of man Will eventually will become, too.

So, it’s a coming of age story, a western, and a boy’s tale. In her afterword, Ms. Rhodes writes,

“Tales of African Americans on the western frontier are few. But having spent most of my life in the West and as a historical fiction writer, I felt compelled to explore the Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889. . . Will’s Race for Home is only one story, exploring a fictional African American family experiencing tragedy and triumph in their quest for freedom and a home in a ‘promised land.’ Will, the son of formerly enslaved people, is my hero. He has resilience, courage and loyalty.”

Many boys , and even some girls, would enjoy this story becoming a man at the turn of the century in the Wild West. There is some extended, and I think balanced, discussion, in short bursts, of guns and violence and when to use a gun and when to threaten violence in self-defense. And the ideas about the use of guns and violence are put to the test when Will must defend his family’s land claim from claim-jumping thieves.

I haven’t read too many middle grade fiction books from 2025 yet to compare, but this one is a favorite so far. Will is my hero, too. And with the tie-in to history and the Oklahoma Land Rush, I may very well put this novel on my wish list for Meriadoc Homeschool LIbrary’s collection.

Orris and Timble: Lost and Found by Kate DiCamillo

Apr18

DiCamillo, Kate. Orris and Timble: Lost and Found. Illustrated by Carmen Mok. Candlewick Press, 2025.

In my review of the first book in this early reader chapter book series, Orris and Timble: The Beginning, I said that the illustrations by Carmen Mok were adequate, but nothing special. Either the illustrations have improved in this second book, or I have grown in my appreciation. Whatever it is, there were several pictures in this book, which continues the saga of the friendship between the snowy white owl Timble and the curmudgeonly rat Orris, that I wanted to frame and enjoy at my leisure. Timble the Owl grows up in this book, and his world gets bigger. But he eventually returns to his home in the barn and to the comfort of his friendship with Orris the Rat.

If that first book was “about friendship and adventure and choices and risk taking”, this second book is a twist on the story of the Prodigal Son from the Bible. Timble is lost, but eventually found. And the central ideas that I took from the book are two: Stories tie us together. And we can always find our way home if we look hard enough.

Maybe these books are too meditative and philosophical for some children, and even some adults, but I think others will appreciate them deeply. The vocabulary is somewhat challenging, but the sentences are simple, with only a few sentences on each page, along with those now lovely pictures. And the plot line is easy to follow, even though the ideas contained in these “easy” stories are beautiful and profound.

This book and the one that precedes it, Orris and TImble: The Beginning, are both available for check out from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.