If you were to meet the characters from your favourite books who would they be? Would you want to meet Harry Potter, Matilda, or Percy Jackson? You certainly wouldn’t want to bump into Count Olaf, Captain Hook, or Voldemort. In Far Rockaway by Charlie Fletcher, Cat finds herself face to face with some of the heroes and villains of classic adventure stories.
Cat and her grandfather, Victor made a pact that one day, just for fun of it, they’d take the subway and stay on it until the very end of the line, at a place called Far Rockaway. They never get to make this trip together because, while crossing the street in Manhattan, Cat and Victor are knocked down by a speeding fire truck. Cat wakes up in a world made from all the books her grandfather used to read to her, and filled with the most memorable characters from classic adventure stories, including The Last of the Mohicans and Treasure Island. Cat needs their help to find the mythic castle of Far Rockaway, and get herself and her grandfather home alive.
Far Rockaway is part fantasy, part adventure and full of pirates, indians, and zombies. I really like the way that Charlie Fletcher has weaved Cat’s story in with three completely different stories. If you know the characters from the classic adventure stories you’ll see what a fantastic job Charlie has done of transferring them to another story. There were a couple of characters I didn’t know but this has made me want to go and read those stories and discover who they were. Cat is a great character, who’s brave, loyal and kicks butt when she needs to. I like what she says about girls in stories,
“Why do the guys get to do all the rescuing? I mean I loved all the stories you gave me and read me, but one thing: where were the real girls? Half the books, they weren’t there at all, and the other half they’re wimped-out girly-girls getting all weepy and falling in love with the mysterious complicated dude or waiting for the right guy to save them.”
If you want a swash-buckling adventure story about the magic of stories then join Cat on the journey of a lifetime in Far Rockaway. Recommended for 10+ 9 out of 10
You can read our review with Charlie Fletcher here on the blog too.
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I read about a study carried out recently which found that fewer children these days know about famous characters from classic children’s books. When questioned, some kids thought Aslan was a giraffe and that the wardrobe led to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Very few had heard of Anne of Green Gables, Heidi, Jemima Puddleduck, or Pippi Longstocking.
