‘A mind-blowing, heart-stopping, dimension-defying dash through time that thrums with tantalising twists & leaves you completely breathless. With a nod to WW2 in this masterclass in mixing suspense & science; this is Edge at his most edgiest.’
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Title: The Longest Night of Charlie Noon
Author: Christopher Edge (@edgechristopher)
Cover illustration: Matt Saunders (@msaunders_ink)
Publisher: Nosy Crow (@NosyCrowBooks)
Page count: 176
Date of publication: 6th June 2019
Series status: N/A
ISBN: 978-1788004947
Perfect for Year 5, Year 6 and Year 7.
#3Words3Emojis:
1. Woods 🌲
2. Lost 😬
3. Time-bending ⏰
Secrets, spies or maybe even a monster… what lies in the heart of the wood? Charlie, Dizzy and Johnny are determined to find out but when night falls without warning they become impossibly lost. Strange dangers and impossible puzzles lurk in the shadows and, as time plays tricks, Charlie starts to fear for the future…
What if this night never ends?
Review:
As children typically do, they love a sense of mystery, adventure and playing in the natural environment and this is no different for Dizzy and Charlie. But after Dizzy tells Charlie about the appearance of something in the woods, they set off to investigate leaving the rest of the world behind. As all good friends go, there’s always one who has the sense to hold back. Cue Johnny, who insists the group need to be careful and warns them that there could be monsters roaming. Nevertheless, this does not stop them on their pursuit as they put it down to sensationalised nonsense but could this come back to bite them…?
The story begins to build and build and build and as they find themselves getting deeper in to the woods, they seem to be getting deeper into trouble with cryptic messages, puzzles and strange dangers surfacing. As night falls, darkness descends and their paths begin to disappear, it appears there is no way out and they are soon left relying on each other to find an escape route.
With the legend of child-eating, wood-dwelling Old Crony ringing in their ears, the friends are left with only the natural world to help them. Can they use what they know about code-breaking to flee the forest? A book that absolutely needs to be read to the very last page, just wait for its ending and epilogue…
Yet again, Christopher Edge combines so successfully science with chapter-grabbing, pulsating and gripping action but this time in a wholly different way to that of Albie Bright, Jamie Drake and Maisie Day and this shows with every story, he is evolving as an establishing writer.
A mind-blowing, heart-stopping, dimension-defying dash through time that thrums with tantalising twists & leaves you completely breathless. With a nod to WW2 in this masterclass in mixing suspense & science; this is Edge at his most edgiest.
I’m utterly delighted to have Christopher Edge, author of The Longest Night of Charlie Noon, join us on The Reader Teacher today on publication day with this extra-special interview where he shares his experiences of writing, his inspirations behind his book and the first book he remembers reading…
The Longest Night of Charlie Noon (5)
- At The Reader Teacher, for my reviews, I describe books in #3Words3Emojis.
Which 3 adjectives and 3 corresponding emojis would you choose to best describe The Longest Night of Charlie Noon?
1. Thrilling 🎢
2. Twisty🌳
3. Timeless ⌚
- Which books, people, research, ideas and inspirations have helped you to write The Longest Night of Charlie Noon?
I had to carry out quite a lot of research when writing The Longest Night of Charlie Noon from reading mind-bending books such as The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli, to immersing myself in the work of nature writers such as Robert Macfarlane, Oliver Rackham and Roger Deakin to name but a few. Whenever I’m working on a book, a serendipitous hand seems to guide me to find the tools that I need to tell the story from stumbling on a collection of essays by Alan Garner to the perfect song by Kate Bush suddenly blaring out of the radio. When I’d completed the first draft of The Longest Night of Charlie Noon, I rediscovered the work of Denys Watkins-Pitchford, who wrote under the pen name ‘BB’, and realised that in some ways the story I was writing was a strange tribute to his novel Brendon Chase which tells the story of three children who run away from home to spend a summer in the woods. The night that Charlie, Dizzy and Johnny spend in the woods is the very different from the adventures found in Brendon Chase, but I hope the story might spark the same sense of wonder about the natural world that I found in BB’s writing.
- What was the most enjoyable part of writing The Longest Night of Charlie Noon?
The setting of the novel is an area of ancient woodland on the border of Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, and visiting these woods and mapping the story to their terrain was a really enjoyable part of the writing process, especially revisiting the woods as the seasons changed and being able to bring these elements into the story. However, I think the most enjoyable part of writing The Longest Night of Charlie Noon has been the way it has changed my brain. People talk about how reading changes the way you think, but I think writing does this too, and I now find myself much more open and receptive to the natural world in a way that has brought a real balm to my life.
- In The Longest Night of Charlie Noon, the children in the story become lost in the woods. When you were a child, did you ever get lost in the woods and how did you get out?
I grew up in Manchester, so didn’t have too many woods nearby to get lost in. However the broader sense of being lost that Charlie feels in the story, linked to the feeling of powerlessness that can sometimes haunt you as a child, is a feeling that I do remember and in many ways The Longest Night of Charlie Noon is me sending a message back to say there is a way out of the woods in time.
- If you were to choose the character that is most like you from The Longest Night of Charlie Noon, who would it be and why?
As a child, I did use to hide under a blanket draped over the washing line to draw the birds in my back garden, so there’s definitely a bit of Dizzy in me, but I think I’d have to choose Charlie for the reason above.
Reading and Writing (4)
- What first attracted you to writing? Did you enjoy writing at school?
I think the stories I filled myself with as a reader, especially when growing up, are what have made me a writer. I enjoyed writing at school, but honestly thought that books were just made in factories and didn’t know there was a job you could do called ‘being an author’.
- Which parts of writing do you find energise you and which parts do you find exhaust you?
I love the feeling you get when an idea starts to take shape in your brain. It’s really kinetic the way in which different sparks of inspiration can connect and start to become story-shaped. I always think of the famous John Peel quote about The Fall – ‘Always different, always the same’ – for the actual process of writing as this is how it is for me. It’s always hard work, but in endlessly different ways. The joys are when everything flows, and the exhaustion is when you’ve got a deadline flying towards you and not enough hours in the day.
- When you were a child, can you remember contacting authors or any of them ever visiting your school and if so, did this inspire you?
I didn’t go to a school where authors came to visit, but I used to love comic books and one day, as a teenager, bunked off school to get my comic books signed by Neil Gaiman at a comic book shop in Manchester. I remember standing in the queue as it slowly edged to the front of the shop and watching Neil Gaiman patiently sign every comic book that was thrust in front of him and realising that he was just an ordinary person who’d written this story that I loved. That was the moment when I realised that becoming an author might not be an impossible dream and was something that I could aspire to.
- Currently, we seem to be living in a golden age of books, especially that of children’s literature. Can you recommend any other children’s books to children (and adults!) who may be interested in similar themes explored in your book or any that have read and would recommend?
I need to be careful what I say as I don’t want to give any spoilers for The Longest Night of Charlie Noon away! Some early readers have made connections with writers such as Alan Garner and Penelope Lively in the ways in which time as a theme is explored, whilst I’d like to mention contemporary writers such as Piers Torday and Lauren St John for the way they write about the natural world, which is a key element of The Longest Night of Charlie Noon. A book I’ve recently read that I really enjoyed is Scavengers by Darren Simpson, although I don’t think this shares any themes particularly with The Longest Night of Charlie Noon, however he’s another writer who I think captures a real sense of place in his writing.
The Longest Night of Charlie Noon and Teaching (3)
- If you were to ‘pitch’ The Longest Night of Charlie Noon in a sentence for teachers to use it in their classrooms or for parents to choose to read it at home, how would you sum it up?
It’s a story about now and the power that we have to change the world.
- Could you suggest ways in which The Longest Night of Charlie Noon could be used in the classroom for the many teachers and primary school staff that will read this and wish to use it in their schools?
I think there are so many subjects that could be linked to The Longest Night of Charlie Noon from building circuits in Science to create your own Morse Code key to studying changing environments in Geography. Links can be made to History, Art and Computing too, whilst the mystery that lies at the heart of the story will help children to develop their reading skills of inference, prediction and problem-solving. I really hope teachers find a wealth of inspiration inside the pages of The Longest Night of Charlie Noon and my publisher, Nosy Crow, are producing a set of Teaching Resources to accompany the book.
- For those teachers reading this Q&A and would like to enquire about arranging the opportunity of a school visit from yourself, how would it be best to contact you regarding this?
I love visiting schools, so the best way is to get in touch with me via my website here: https://www.christopheredge.co.uk/events
Two more before you go (2)!
- What has an interviewer or blogger never asked you before, that you always wished you could answer?
What’s the first book you remember reading? To which the answer is Tim and Tobias by Sheila K. McCullagh, the first book in a reading scheme filled with magic and mystery that set a whole generation of children on a flightpath to reading.
- Finally, can you share with our readers something about yourself that they might be surprised to learn?
I once won a trolley dash in a record store. For two glorious minutes my life was a cross between Supermarket Sweep and High Fidelity.
One last one… (1)!
- Do you have a question you would like to ask the readers of The Reader Teacher?
I think Brendon Chase by B B is a bit of a lost classic, so I’d like to hear readers’ recommendations of any other forgotten children’s books they think should be rediscovered.
Big thanks to Christopher, Clare, Rebecca and all the team at Nosy Crow for inviting me to share my thoughts as part of the The Longest Night of Charlie Noon blog tour and for sending me a proof and advance copy in exchange for this review.
Extra thanks to Chris for answering my questions and to Rebecca for giving me the opportunity to do the cover reveal!
Mr E
Be sure to check out the rest of the The Longest Night of Charlie Noon blog tour for more exclusive content from Chris & reviews from these brilliant book bloggers!
Despite Harry’s best efforts to live a quiet and uneventful life, he has often been led astray by his greedy stomach, resulting in some tricky dilemmas. Faced with the choice of never seeing the Smiths again, or jumping on the back of a big scary dog, Harry has needed to be brave and ride that Alsatian. Similar leaps of faith have involved Harry hurling himself from a wall into the basket of a passing bicycle, and from the back of the dog onto a pizza-delivery driver’s moped. The life lesson here is: take a deep breath and face your fears!
I do hope these Life Lessons are useful. If Harry Stevenson imparts any more guinea pig wisdom, you will be the first to know.
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