Summer Reading Challenge Book No.1: Diver's Daughter by Patrice Lawrence

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Who else spent their summer holidays heading to the library to get involved with the Summer Reading Challenge? Reading 6 books in 6 weeks is the BEST use of 6 weeks, in my humble opinion... Sadly this year children will be unable to visit their library for the usual bookish chat with librarians but all is not lost - you can take part online instead through the Reading Agency website here: https://summerreadingchallenge.org.uk/

I work in a public library and since I can't spend my summer having wonderful conversations with young bookworms, I've decided to take myself back to my bookish roots and participate in the challenge myself. I'll be reading and reviewing one piece of junior fiction once a week for 6 weeks. I wanted to kick things off with a truly excellent and memorable book. It turns out my choice exceeded my expectations in so many ways...

You won't forget Diver's Daughter in a hurry. Patrice Lawrence immerses her readers in the tough world Tudor England, a world of fairs and feasts alongside poverty and hardship. Gripping from the very first sentence, Lawrence sustains this tense and atmospheric story by opening our eyes to the Tudor lives that have rarely reached our bookshelves. Young readers needn't be put off by the bleak setting, as it is complemented by an inspiring and thrilling plot.

Eve Cartwright is a young black girl growing up in Tudor London under the watchful eye of her mother. It's safe to say it was a grim place to be a child, a grim place to be a woman, a grim place to be anyone who wasn't wealthy. Lawrence does not shy away from the facts of Eve's daily life, from the sight of the heads of traitors rammed onto spikes on the streets to women serving time in the stocks. London is draped in a constant, chilling fog. So captivating is the atmosphere created that, as the cold weather in the story worsens, it seeps out of the pages under the skin of the reader.

In short, the life of Eve and her mother is harsh and difficult, but not without love. The affection so clearly and tenderly shared between mother and daughter serves as a reminder to the reader of the redemptive aspects of human nature in the face of such a horrifyingly selfish society.

Eve herself almost seems on the outside of events as she relates the strange behaviour of adults to her reader; as a result we are treated to a reflective and perceptive narrative, which challenges the reader to think deeper about the many layered society Lawrence is depicting.

A chance meeting at Bartholemew Fair with a strange man changes Eve's life forever. When Eve nearly drowns in the River Thames, her mother's swimming prowess is observed by a stranger who asks for her skills in recovering the treasures of the sunken Mary Rose. Eve and her mother become so embroiled that they must travel to Winchester to persuade the legendary African diver Jacques Francis to help them locate the sunken ship. They can't be too careful as, in a heart-stopping series of events, they face adversity, lies and betrayal along the way.

What you will also find in Diver's Daughter is an authentic piece of historical fiction for children that has rarely been seen before. From my own experience of learning about the Tudors at Primary School, the overarching images that spring to mind about the Tudor period are plague, pottage, neck ruffles and an enormous man bedecked in a codpiece and furs. In short we know what Tudors ate, what finished them off, what they wore and what they looked like.

Or do we? It seems that we barely skimmed the surface, at a cost to our awareness of our country's history. Patrice writes in her foreword that growing up in Sussex in the 1970s and 80s 'as far as I knew, people who looked like me were not in England in Elizabethan times'. Set straight by her mum and plenty of research, she discovered the intricate and interesting lives of various Tudors of African heritage, whose professions included porters, sailors, weavers and a deep sea diver sent to salvage the treasure lost from the sinking of the Mary Rose. The Jacques Francis who we come to know in Diver's Daughter was a real person.Thus, the myth that all children need to learn about the Tudor period is the life of a fat man bedecked in a ruff, furs and codpiece, is dispelled. There are so many other lives to learn about and understand and it is such an important step to find the lives that have never had a voice in our literary canon establishing their place in the minds of young readers.  


Join me next week for my reading challenge book number two...











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