The Curio Collectors - Eloise Williams - ★★★★

AUTHOR: Eloise Williams

GENRE: Middle-Grade Fiction.

RATING: 4 stars.

In a Nutshell: An interesting children’s story set in the Victorian era. Has an adventurous mystery with three kids at the centre of it. Easy to read in terms of flow and language.

Story Synopsis:

1896. Digswell Water, UK. Lily (12) and Tom (10) work with Ma Hawker, travelling the country and displaying their amazing collection of curios, not all of which might be authentic. A part of Lily’s duties is to be on the lookout for new curios. On one such occasion, she is tricked into buying a useless bag of junk. But unknown to her, the bag contains a special scrimshaw, and someone dangerous is looking for it.

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Lily.

The two little protagonists – Lily and Tom – have very distinct personalities and yet they are caring towards each other. The book doesn’t include their backstory except to indicate that Ma Hawker took them in. The focus thus remains firmly on the curios and the incident connected to the scrimshaw.

You would assume Ma Hawker to be a cruel stepmother kind of figure, but she is written as a practical character, not gushing in her demonstrations of love but also not evil. Lily is the handy one, the climber of trees and the fixer of broken things. Plus points to the author for shattering the gender stereotype of girls/women in historical children’s fiction.

The only negative for me was that the story felt a bit rushed, especially in the second half. There is too much happening with a few pages, so there’s no depth to the proceedings. Children might not notice this.

For a book containing an evil man and a thrilling adventure, the writing is quite easy-going. The pace and the vocabulary are perfectly suited for the target age range of tweens.

I must add that Barrington Stoke books are always hi-lo (high interest, low ability), so the content is age appropriate but the vocabulary aims at a lower age group, thus making the book more inclusive to diverse reading abilities. (I guess the word ‘scrimshaw’ should be counted as an exception to this, but a book that can teach one new word to its little readers is always welcome.) Moreover, the books by this publishing house don’t shy away from difficult topics or scary themes. I love this dual approach of theirs – they clearly publish for children, but they don’t exclude any topic that might be considered kid-unfriendly as per popular opinion.

There are some cute B&W illustrations peppered throughout the book. These add well to the story. I liked how the illustrations had a rich look despite not being in colour. They were wonderfully detailed as well.

All in all, this is a quick, interesting and fun story that would appeal to young readers who love tales of adventure and mystery. Its 1890s setting and the nomadic lifestyle of its protagonists makes it an unusual book in contemporary children’s fiction.

My thanks to Barrington Stoke and NetGalley for the DRC of “The Curio Collectors”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.