Sunday, February 10, 2013

The New Policeman by Kate Thompson

This novel for young adults is a wonderful and highly original story. Set in the seaport village of Kinvara, Ireland, it revolves around the Liddy family who have been musicians for generations.  Fifteen-year-old J.J. is no different from the other members of his family, as his impressive fiddle skill make him a integral part of the family's regular ceili, i.e. musical gatherings and dances.

When a friend says that J.J.'s great-grandfather killed a local priest years ago, however, he begins to wonder what the true story of his family's history. To complicate matters farther, time seems to be moving at an every faster pace, causing the entire village to wonder what is going on. This dual search for the truth behind his ancestor, as well as to discover why time is moving faster, leads J.J. to Tir na n'Og, the land of eternal youth where fairies and leprechauns live. It is here where he finds the true story of his family, what this causing time to speed up in his village and the rest of the world, and also who the new policeman on the local force is, whose true identity is only revealed at the end of the book.

This charming novel won the Whitbreak Children's Book Award, the Guardian's Children's Fiction Prize, and the inaugural Irish BA Award for Children's Book. The awards are well-deserved, as author Kate Thompson has written a great story that immerses the reader in the beautiful world of Irish folk music. A fiddle player herself, Thompson includes a different piece of sheet music for an Irish folk tune at the send of each section. The result is that music is literally flowing from within the pages of this joyful story.

4 out of 5 stars