Wildspark

Vashti Hardy's Wildspark is an inventing adventure for 11 year olds about a farm girl who runs away to learn how ghosts are brought back.

What happens

Prue Haywood is twelve. She fixes machines on her family's farm, where metal dogs herd the sheep and scarebots keep off the crows. But the farm has felt empty since her older brother Francis died of an illness a year ago.

Then a stranger knocks at the door. He's Craftsman Primrose, all the way from Medlock, and he's looking for an apprentice. He's heard about a clever young mechanic called Francis Haywood.

Mum sends him away. Prue can't stop thinking about him. In Medlock they've found a way to bring ghosts back inside animal-shaped machines. What if she could get Francis back?

So she leaves a note on the breakfast table and walks through the night. And when she catches up with Primrose, she tells him her name is Frances.

That lie sits in her stomach for the whole journey south (and you'll feel it too). Medlock is amazing. A spaniel and a cat chat in the square, a lynx strolls past, a kestrel delivers letters in the voice of an old woman, and a bad-tempered rat measures her for her apprentice uniform. It's busy and noisy and full of machines Prue has only ever read about.

What makes it such a good read is Prue herself. She's stubborn and brilliant with her hands. When her cart is too slow, she unclips its restrainer and it goes FAR too fast! She's also carrying a whole lot of sadness that she keeps pushing away. The memories of Francis come in little flashes, like the scar on his cheek that was really her fault.

It's worth knowing that grief is at the heart of this one. Francis's death happens before the story starts, but Prue's family are still raw with it, and the ghost machines raise big questions about what happens after someone dies. A child who has lost someone might find that hard, or might find it comforting.

What to read next

If your reader loves clever kids and cleverer machines, this is a treat. And if Prue's workshop is their favourite part, Brightstorm is by the same author. Twins Arthur and Maudie tinker with sky-ships and Arthur's iron arm in a city of airships and explorers.