"The Murderer's Ape" by Jakob Wegelius is quite unlike anything else you'll find in the children's section of your local bookshop.
For starters, I doubt many kids would be that familiar with the whole 'film noir' genre, and certainly not many kids would have a clue who Humphrey Bogart or James Cagney were. Yet here, in this utterly mesmerising, huge and satisfyingly thick novel is a divine kid-friendly nod to all that stuff, centred around a character whose life has been tinged by tragedy.
It feels like Jakob has used a very similar story mechanism to Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" - in that the story of Sally Jones, a big-hearted but often mistreated Gorilla, isn't the sort of flowery happy tale you can smile through every page at. In fact there are points during this where you become so enraged at how utterly rubbish humans are, it makes you ashamed to be of that species.
But hold fast, because there's hope in this tale too - and there's Sally's indomitable spirit and strength of character to cling to as you read about her utterly fascinating life.
"The Legend of Sally Jones" is again not the happy jolly cutesy-pie picture book that folk seem (weirdly) drawn to, but is absolutely brilliantly told, and like "The Murderer's Ape", a book that highlights just how horrible we humans are to the planet, to its animal life and to each other.
"But why do kids need to have books like this in their lives? Surely kids deserve to be happy?" I hear you cry.
That's just the problem in kidlit, there's an assumption (certainly here in the UK at least) that children's books only serve two purposes - to deliver a moral message or a piece of sage advice on how to make the reader a better person, or to educate or convey information that (quite often) is so blatantly obvious or so rooted in common sense you'd flipping hope that by the time kids get to the stage of reading on their own, they'll have picked up that stuff themselves either from their parents or from school.
Mini rant over - these books do tick those boxes, but they're also blisteringly good reads. Dark, deliciously descriptive and not shying away from some pretty 'grown up' concepts - and filled with a cast of characters who you'll hiss at or root for at every turn of the page. But Sally is undoubtedly the star, encapsulating everything you'd want from a central character in a book, put upon, troubled, sometimes brooding and thoughtful but with a big whomping heart and a love for those who befriend her and try to see her through to a better life.
Absolutely love these books to bits. No surprise at all that both nailed "Book of the Week" (and Book of the Year for "The Murderer's Ape".
Original review links:
ReadItDaddy's Chapter Book of the Week - Week Ending 2nd November 2018: "The Legend of Sally Jones" by Jakob Wegelius (Pushkin Press)
ReadItDaddy's Chapter Book of the Week - Week Ending 18th August 2017 - "The Murderer's Ape" by Jakob Wegelius (Pushkin Press)
Our Blog Roundup for 2017 - All our book of the week winners, our Publisher of the Year, Picture Book(s) of the Year and Chapter Book(s) of the Year Winners 2017!