Review of Simon Cup’s
Box
Length: 1
hr and 5 mins
Briefly: Simon Cup,
accident prone schoolboy and the bane of the woodwork teacher’s career, startles
everyone by not only completing a project in class, but in doing it in one hour
and producing something of magical beauty: the box.
Simon Cup is a year
eight boy in a British school. I’m not sure what age he would be, as I think
British schools run on slightly different terminology from what I’m used to,
but my best guess is around 12. I’m assuming the high school setting was
necessary to support the plot’s need to have the main characters dealing with
different teachers for different subjects. Other than that, the story would
have fitted perfectly well in a primary school setting. In tune with the
mid-grade readership, Simon and his schoolmates are children rather than
teenagers in their speech and behaviour.
Simon is one of those
accident-prone but well-meaning boys who have problems concentrating and whose
very presence can set off a chain reaction of comic disaster. This attribute of
Simon’s is played up with relish by both author and narrator so it seems
perfectly natural that boys who fall into a puddle of spilled glue should end
up having to cut their trousers free of the floor. This slapstick comedy keeps
the story bubbling along so the underlying themes, of friendship, solidarity
and tolerance, never become overt.
The storyline is
original and not too predictable but also manages to riff on a number of
familiar fantasy ropes. There are wishes, rules, a grumpy psammead-like
creature (the Mid Numph ), a mystery and some sleuthing, a rescue and a
come-uppance. There was just one point at which I thought the author had
possibly used the wrong item (for want of another word!) because its
effectiveness was greater than I would have expected. On the other hand, maybe
the British-made versions of these items are different from the ones I’ve used.
Simon Cup’s Box
is a wonderfully entertaining mid-grade novel; a mix of fantasy and school
story. I listened to the audio-book version and found the story well
complemented and enhanced by the narrator, who has just the right
matter-of-fact tones to match the style. This style is very British to my ears
in that the characters are presented with all their quirks and the authorial
voice is not afraid to give the odd comment. Although Simon is the main
protagonist, Mr Joyce the woodwork teacher is also right in there with the
action and both of them are seen somewhat from the outside. We know their
thoughts and conclusions, but we also have observations from the author. This
omniscient point of view is increasingly rare in modern children’s books and I
found it a refreshing change from the “tight” POV in most stories at this
level. The author’s decision to include Mr Joyce and his fellow teachers as
characters in their own right (rather than simply as teachers seen through the
kids’ eyes) was one of the features I liked best about this book. I also liked
the attention to detail as in the description of the teachers’ huddle, and the Mid Numph itself. I was somewhat reminded of one of my
favourite author’s way with words. The late, great Diana Wynne Jones might well
have imagined a teacher like Mr Joyce.
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