JAMRACH'S MENAGERIE

BY CAROL BIRCH (Canongate Books £12.99)

Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch

Born among the slimy piers and labyrinthine lanes of 19th-century riverfront Bermondsey, seven-year-old Jaffy Brown lives a precarious existence picking pennies from sewers while his mother entertains drunken sailors.

Jaffy’s life changes after circumstances force the pair to flee to East London’s infamous Ratcliffe Highway. There, among the dancing bears and seamen with parrots, he comes face to face with an escaped tiger.

When Jaffy remains uneaten, apparently being ‘good with animals’, he is given employment by the tiger’s keeper, menagerie owner Charles Jamrach.

In Jamrach’s magical menagerie, Jaffy learns a new respect for the wonders of the natural world and when his boss announces an expedition to the South Seas to bring back a mythical dragon, Jaffy and new friend Tim sign up aboard the whaling ship Lysander. Carol Birch’s storytelling excels as soon as she’s at sea. Both the whaling hunts and the capture of a (presumably) komodo dragon are set pieces as compelling as they’re convincing. When the Lysander founders and its crew find themselves adrift in an open boat on the vast ocean, Birch produces a sustained feat of imagination and diligent research which sees the crew facing a frightening ordeal and Jaffy called upon to make a terrible decision. 



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