There are certain authors who send me into a “Halleluiah Chorus!” when I find a yet unread book by them on the library shelf. Katherine Rundell is one of those special authors. Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms is one of those books.
I’ve written about two of Katherine Rundell’s books already: Rooftoppers and The Wolf Wilder. If only books could be written as quickly as they are read! Then I could go on a steady diet of this author’s wonderful, wild voice.
Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms
by Katherine Rundell, copyright 2011 (I’m not sure how this book managed to evade me until now!)
Summary:
Will must find her way after she’s plucked out of a wonderful life in Zimbabwe and forced to go to boarding school in England.
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While accurate, this summary is woefully lacking in the real flavor of the book. Will, short for Wilhelmina, is a tomboy beyond tomboys. Raised on a farm in Zimbabwe, her father the foreman, one of her nicknames is “Wildcat” and she is not far from the real thing. Motherless before our story begins, Will lives half-wild on this African Farm with her horse, her monkey, and her best friend Simon. When her father dies, Will is shipped off to a boarding school in England.
Not only is leaving her beloved farm in Zimbabwe unthinkably painful, England and the girls at boarding school are unimaginably foreign. As everywhere, differences this broad are fodder for mocking and bullying. Eventually Will runs away, surviving a string of misadventures before the story has its surprising and pleasing ending.
Outsiders and Their Struggles
I have compassion and a love for outsiders and their struggles, as you know from Piper Pan and Her Merry Band—certainly a theme in this story. While my series involves a group of girls bonding into a whole that heals them all, Will has a basic distrust of females (for good reasons). She bonds easily with boys—and once in England at school, there are none. To say she is lonely is a terrible understatement.
Wild Narrative Voice
The mastery this book displays is in its narrative voice.Told from Will’s point of view, the language maintains the rhythms of her life in Zimbabwe for the book entire. I don’t know precisely what people from Zimbabwe sound like, but you can bet that accent was in my head and ears throughout this magnificent tale.
I am a very “aural” person—I have some musical and language ability stemming from that trait. Therefore, I find it especially pleasing when a book rings with such a unique voice. I am transported not only by the plot, the characters, and the settings, but also by the music of its narrative.
A definite “wow!” from me on this one—charge on down to your library and put Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms on hold!