Hello and welcome back to another blog tour (organised by Dave @TheWriteReads, thank you for the opportunity!) Obligatory disclaimer that I recieved a free copy of this book in exchange for a review, all thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
Today’s book is The Pawnshop of Stolen Dreams by Victoria Williamson, a middle-grade fantasy/adventure book set in the delightfully bizarre world of Witchetty Hollow. You can check out @WriteReadsTours on Twitter to find all the amazing other bloggers posting as part of this tour!
Title: The Pawnshop of Stolen Dreams
Author: Victoria Williamson
Genre: Middle-grade, fantasy
Format: ebook
My Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Synopsis (from Goodreads):
In a strange little village called Witchetty Hollow, eleven-year-old Florizel is the first to run into the curious visitors who’ve come to open a brand new Daydream Delicatessen and sack-baby factory.
At first, it seems the daydream confection and cheap sack children are the best things that could have happened to the poor folk of the Hollow – after all, who has the money to rent their child from Storkhouse Services these days? But after a few weeks, Florizel starts to notice something odd happening to the adults of the town. First, they seem dreamy, then they lose all interest in their jobs and families. Soon they’re trading all their worldly goods in the newly-opened Pawnshop for money to buy daydreams. With no money for rent payments, the children of Witchetty Hollow are being reclaimed by Storkhouse Services at an alarming rate. Florizel needs to act.
If you like the film Coraline, you will like this book. It’s unique, it’s creepy, it’s twisted, and half of the notes I’ve made on my kindle are just “Christ, that’s darker than I expected”.
In short, it is precisely the kind of book I’d have loved to read as a 10 year old.
The world of the book is one wherein most adults have lost the ability to have children, and so rent them from Storkhouse Services. Our protagonist, Florizel, is one such child – a bright young girl, forced to pretend that she’s stupid at school in order to keep her rent price down. She’s thrown headlong into a friendship with Burble, a sack boy (yep, some of the kids in this world were literally made in a factory), who is, bless him, not the sharpest tool in the shed – and chaos ensues for the both of them.
Most of the book follows the mystery of the Daydream Delicatessen and sack-baby factory, and the effect that they’re having on the villagers of Witchetty Hollow. It’s a pacey read, and I blitzed through it in a couple of hours because I was just so hooked. I don’t want to get too far into it, because spoilers, but rest assured that the solution falls perfectly into place and makes total sense in the world.
Though I could write an essay about this book (and trust me, I’m fighting the urge not to), I’ll constrain myself to the two particular aspects that leapt out at me: the daydreams, and the guisers.
Daydreams, first. As to whether or not it’s intentional, I’m not entirely sure, but the villagers being hooked on daydreams is an incredible way of introducing kids to the concept of addiction without explicitly mentioning drugs. And the author does not mess about with the physical and mental effects – most of the adults go bankrupt to fund their addiction, and there’s a passage describing the village teacher who is just completely out of it.
What struck me most about this though, was that the author is not so much side-eyeing the parents (there is a bit of that, mostly from Flori’s POV), but placing the blame SQUARELY on the shoulders of the Gobbelino family. That is, the creators of the product, who are preying upon the poor people of the village in order to cause them financial ruin. It’s good to see the people who are ostensibly “in charge” being held accountable for their actions – God I wish it happened more in our own world.
As for the guisers, I would just like to take a second to marvel over how fucking terrifying the concept of them is, and how my 10 year old self WISHES she’d come up with them. Crazy swirling eyes? Iconic. Weird carnival masks? Sign me up. Stitched up mouths? A staple of the deeply-twisted vibe. Everything about how they’re made had me like HOLY SHIT and I absolutely loved that the book wasn’t afraid to dip into that sliightly darker territory that I’ve only ever found in Rose by Holly Webb. (Incidentally, one of my favourite books as a child).
The only reason I’ve knocked half a star off it being a full five is because I felt that the ending was rushed, and that there was an info-dump towards the end of the book that slowed the pace right down. I could have done with a bit more of a climax, and that information being slipped into the story in other ways. But that’s me being picky, and at the end of the day, I’m not the target audience – I’m sure any kid I know would eat this book up and be clamouring for a sequel!
THE PAWNSHOP OF STOLEN DREAMS is available now in paperback and on kindle, published by Tiny Tree Children’s Books. You can follow the publisher on Twitter @TinyTreeBooks, and the author Victoria Williamson @strangelymagic.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Victoria Williamson grew up in Glasgow, Scotland, and has worked as an educator in a number of different countries, including as an English teacher in China, a secondary science teacher in Cameroon, and a teacher trainer in Malawi.
As well as degrees in Physics and Mandarin Chinese, she has completed a Masters degree in Special Needs in Education. In the UK she works as a primary school special needs teacher, working with children with a range of additional support needs including Autistic Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome, physical disabilities and behavioural problems.
She is currently working as a full time writer of Middle Grade and YA contemporary fiction, science fiction and fantasy, with a focus on creating diverse characters reflecting the many cultural backgrounds and special needs of the children she has worked with, and building inclusive worlds where all children can see a reflection of themselves in heroic roles.
Victoria’s experiences teaching young children in a school with many families seeking asylum inspired her debut novel, The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle, an uplifting tale of redemption and unlikely friendship between Glaswegian bully Caylin and Syrian refugee Reema.
Twenty percent of her author royalties for The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle are donated to the Scottish Refugee Council.
You can find out more about Victoria’s books, school visits and upcoming events on her website: http://www.strangelymagical.com
Lots of love,
Chronicles of Tick Tock 