The Song From Somewhere Else is an Entrancing Fantasy
Sometimes fantasy stories take place in imaginary worlds, and in others magic is part of ordinary life. And sometimes, the boundaries of magical worlds and reality grow thin, and strange things begin to happen…and these stories where the real and the fantastical butt up against each other can be some of the most gripping of all for young readers, because they are almost possible. The Song From Somewhere Else, by A.E. Harrold, is an enchanting example of that sort of story.
The Song from Somewhere Else
Hardcover $16.99
The Song from Somewhere Else
By
A.F. Harrold
Illustrator
Levi Pinfold
In Stock Online
Hardcover $16.99
Francesca “Frank” Patel doesn’t know quite why she became the preferred target for the school bullies. All she knows is that she lives in fear of their hostile attention. Then one day, her classmate Nicholas Underbridge comes to her rescue. Frank has never been friendly with Nick, who is oversized, weird smelling, and strangely flat-faced, and cruelly shunned by all the kids, but he helps her escape and leads her back to his house. Now Frank is linked to Nick in the minds of the bullies, and she is dismayed by this and not eager to acknowledge Nick as a friend. But inside his house she hears hauntingly lovely music; music that soothes the sore places inside her. She longs to hear it again. And, being a decent person, she’s able to look past Nick’s unusual appearance and his outcast status, and to count him as a friend. So she becomes a regular visitor to Nick’s house.
Francesca “Frank” Patel doesn’t know quite why she became the preferred target for the school bullies. All she knows is that she lives in fear of their hostile attention. Then one day, her classmate Nicholas Underbridge comes to her rescue. Frank has never been friendly with Nick, who is oversized, weird smelling, and strangely flat-faced, and cruelly shunned by all the kids, but he helps her escape and leads her back to his house. Now Frank is linked to Nick in the minds of the bullies, and she is dismayed by this and not eager to acknowledge Nick as a friend. But inside his house she hears hauntingly lovely music; music that soothes the sore places inside her. She longs to hear it again. And, being a decent person, she’s able to look past Nick’s unusual appearance and his outcast status, and to count him as a friend. So she becomes a regular visitor to Nick’s house.
Then the music leads her down the cellar steps, and things get truly odd. For down in the cellar there is a window of sorts to another reality. There she sees the source of the music—Nick’s mother, a troll, peacefully at home in her own world. But the bullies sense Frank is hiding something, and torture her till she tells about the window. Now the secret is out, and those in our world who control such things in the interest of government security (a sort of Ministry of Magic) insist that the portal be closed, before it can shift and start letting horrors through. But this has already begun to happen, and malevolent creatures have come through. So the government agent gives Frank a device that will shut down the window. Doing so will save the world, but will it be another betrayal of the strange boy she’s come to count as her friend?
It’s the sort of plot where small events start to snowball and keep getting scarier, building to a gripping climax that packs an emotional punch. Frank is a great character, who is utterly relatable, and whose often amusingly cranky discussions with herself provide a beautifully detailed record of her thoughts. She also has an innate decency that’s commendable, and though there’s no dramatic reformation of the bullies, Frank isn’t defeated by them either. When one is attacked by a monstrous being, she helps him—”This wasn’t about him, was it? It was about her and who she wanted to be. She wanted to be a better person. Better than him at least. And not because it was a competition, just because.”
The illustrations by Levi Pinfold, atmospheric and sometimes downright menacing, and the shading in the page margins, heighten the impact of the uneasy intersection between reality and the fantastical. This is a great pick for any imaginative young reader who is not put off by intense descriptions of bullying.
The Song from Somewhere Else is on B&N bookshelves now.