The Times
charming and humorous mixture of the mundane and the magical
The Irish Times
reality in a wonderfully satisfying way
Brian Patten
child longs for
The Bookseller
bags of child appeal here
Product Description
From the Author
since it works on many levels. On one level it is the fantastic adventure
of Ben Arnold, aged 12, who goes into a strange petshop and comes out with
a talking cat (Ignatius Sorvo Coromandel, otherwise known as Iggy) who
comes from a parallel world reached by mysterious highways called wild
roads. On another level it is a powerful environmental fable. It's up to
each reader how they interpret it, and if they just want to enjoy the
adventure and the excitement of the tale, that's just fine. But there are
other, deeper themes here, too: the power of friendship, the danger of
abnegating responsibility, the need for moral courage against apparently
overwhelming odds, the belief that one person can make a difference, even
if they are only 12 years old. If that sounds too heavy, I can assure you
it's well disguised within a fast-paced and funny story peopled by a throng
of fabulous characters, who are not always what they seem. In this book you
will find dragons and sprites, selkies and centaurs, ghost-dogs and
monsters, dinosaurs and dryads.
There is a terrific website for readers to visit at janejohnson.eu
About the Author
reponsible for the Voyager list (publishing amongst others Clive Barker,
Robin Hobb, Raymond Feist, George RR Martin and Kim Stanley Robinson), as
well as for a line of bestselling thrillers (including Sam Bourne, Dean
Koontz, Michael Marshall and Stuart MacBride). For many years she was also
the publisher of the works of JRR Tolkien and is the author (as Jude
Fisher) of the official Visual Companions to Peter Jackson's movie trilogy.
She has written adult novels as both Gabriel King and Jude Fisher, but The
Secret Country is her first book for children.
Excerpted from The Secret Country by Jane Johnson. Copyright © 2006. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Mr Dodd's Pet Emporium
Ben Arnold was not a remarkable looking boy. Not unless you looked closely
at his eyes. He had unruly straw-blond hair, thin legs and quite large
feet. But his eyes had a faraway expression; and when you got close enough
to notice, while one was a sensible hazel brown, the other shone a wild and
vivid green. Ben believed this oddness to be the result of a childhood
accident. One day, his mother had told him, while being pushed up the High
Street in his pram he had stuck his head out unexpectedly, banged it on a
lamppost and been rushed to hospital. And when he came out again, one brown
eye had gone green. It was as simple as that. Ben couldn't actually
remember the accident, but he had long since stopped wondering about it
anyway.
Ben had other things on his mind.
First thing on Saturday morning, he found himself walking briskly along
Quinx Lane, his heart thumping with excitement. It had taken him weeks to
save up for this treat. He had seen them one day on his way home from
school, when pressing his nose to the glass of Mr Dodd's Pet Emporium, and
ever since then had been obsessed, even though his mother had expressly
told him never to go into that particular petshop. But he couldn't help
himself. Amongst all the colourful paraphernalia of the Pet Emporium, they
had looked as wicked and shiny as jewels, switching back and forth in their
brightly-lit tank, their fins fluttering like the pennants on a medieval
knight's lance. Rare Mongolian Fighting Fish, a neon-orange cardboard sign
announced. Did they live up to their name, he wondered; and if so, how did
fish fight? He had taken a deep breath and gone into the shop there and
then to ask how much they were; nearly fainted on the spot when Mr Dodds
told him, and went home, grim and silent with determination, money-making
schemes careering round his head.
Every day since then he had checked they were still there. He wanted
to own them more than he had wanted anything in his life.
He turned off the High Street and into Quinx Lane; and there was Mr Dodd's
Pet Emporium - as the great ornate gold letters above the shopfront
announced - squeezed between Waitrose and Boots the Chemist; a throwback
from a bygone age, his father called it, and Ben sort of knew what he meant
without being able to put it into words. It was a shop full of clutter and
oddities. It was a shop full of wonders and weirdness. You never knew what
you might step on next: in amongst the shiny silver birdcages, the collars
and leads and squeaky toys, the dog baskets and cat hammocks, the sawdust
and sunflower seeds, the hamsters and lizards and Labrador puppies, you had
a vague feeling you might just stumble upon a tangle of tarantulas, a nest
of scorpions, a sleeping gryphon or a giant sloth. (He'd never yet done so;
but he lived in hope.)
Feeling the weight of destiny in his hands, Ben pushed open the heavy
brass-bound door. A man pushed in front of him and for a moment he was
terribly afraid that he would stride up to the counter and demand that Mr
Dodds' assistant wrap up Ben's fish; but instead he grabbed a sack of dried
dog food, slapped a ten pound note onto the counter and left without even
waiting for his change. Outside the shop, its thick leash tied very
thoroughly to the brass rail, a huge black dog glared at the man, its red
jaws dripping saliva onto the pavement. Anxiously, Ben stepped over a heap
of spilled straw, avoided a collection of oddly-shaped and buckled tartan
coats, threaded his way between a narrow row of cages and--
Stopped.
He tried to step forward a pace, but something -- someone? -- was
holding him back. He stared around, but there was no sign of anyone behind
him. Shaking his head, he started off again. But again he was pulled back.
He must have snagged his jacket on one of the cages.
He turned around carefully so as not to make the snag any worse.
Skewing his head around until his neck hurt, he stared down. It was a cat.
A small black and brown cat with shiny gold eyes and a remarkably
determined arm. It appeared to have reached out of its cage and snagged its
sharp little claws in his jacket. He smiled. How sweet! He made an attempt
to pry it loose, but it clamped its fist together even harder.
"Let go!" Ben said under his breath, picking at its powerful claws.
The cat looked at him, unblinking. Then it said very distinctly, in a
voice as harsh and gravelly as any American private investigator with a bad
smoking habit, "There's no way you're leaving this shop without me, Sunny
Jim."
Ben was rather shocked. He stared at the cat. Then he stared around
the shop. Had anyone else heard this exchange, or was he daydreaming? But
the other customers all appeared to be getting on with their business --
inspecting piles of hamsters sleeping thoughtlessly on each others' heads;
poking sticks at the parrot to try to make it say something outrageous;
buying a dozen live mice to feed to the python...
He turned back to the cat. It was still watching him in its
disconcerting way. He began to wonder whether it actually had eyelids; or
was just saving energy. Perhaps he was going mad. To test the theory he
said: "My name is Ben: not Sunny Jim."
"I know," said the cat.
