Conjure Island

Eden Royce's Conjure Island is a warm, magical family story for 9 year olds about a girl who finds out she has a whole side of her family nobody ever mentioned.

What happens

Del Baker is eleven and she's an expert at moving. Her dad's in the Air Force, so every year it's a new town and a new school. It's always been Del, Dad and Gramma. That's enough for her, thanks (she's given up on making friends she'll only have to leave).

Her gramma is brilliant. She was a singer once, with one big hit, and she and Del sing along to the oldies station in the truck. They have their little rituals too, like sweeping salt and rose petals through a new house before they unpack.

Del is the organised one. She tracks Gramma's pills on her phone and tells the removal men where everything goes.

Then, on their very first night in the new house, Gramma collapses. Del has to call the ambulance on her own, with Dad thousands of miles away.

Dad can't come home. So Del is packed off to her great-grandmother's. Gramma's mum. A woman Del didn't even know was alive. She lives on Nemmine Island off the coast of South Carolina, where Gramma grew up, and she runs a school there.

It's the kind of school that teaches conjure magic, rooted in the family's own traditions. And Gramma has kept every bit of it from her.

What stays with you is Del herself. She's so capable and so determined to be fine. But she's quietly starving for stories about her mum and where she comes from. When she finds an old case with a baby's rattle that belonged to Gramma and then to her mum, you really feel how much she wants to know.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Del's mum died when Del was born, which is backstory, not something that happens in the book. Gramma's collapse is scary and quite detailed, though. There's pain, a fall and a night in hospital, and then a nightmare about empty hospital cribs. A child who's been through a family illness might find that close to home.

For a reader who likes their magic mixed with family secrets and a strong sense of place, it's a lovely one.

What to read next

If they're after another girl whose mum has kept things from her for her own good, try Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun. Onyeka's hair is big, wild and very much not allowed to get wet, and her mum's number one rule is never, ever lose control.