Heartbeat
by Sharon Creech
192pp, Bloomsbury, £9.99
Sharon Creech is a prize-winning and prolific American writer who lived for many years in this country. She won the Carnegie medal for her novel Ruby Holler and has in recent times branched out into the difficult area of poetry for younger readers.
Love That Dog described a young boy's discovery of the power of verse to console and also to encapsulate emotions that would otherwise be overwhelming. In Heartbeat the writer of the poems is Annie, who loves to run and who is good at art. She lives with her parents and her grandfather, whom she adores. He is sliding towards memory loss and the process grieves her. Her best friend, Max, who runs with her every day, is desperate for trainers so that he can take part in a particular race, but he can't afford them. Annie's mother is pregnant and the baby is a source of amazement, wonder, nervousness and awe throughout the book. Teachers and neighbours play walk-on parts in the drama and life outside the family circle is cleverly sketched into the picture.
Annie's art teacher sets her class a project. They must each choose an apple and draw this piece of fruit every day for 100 days. The progress of the apple and what becomes of it is a metaphorical parallel for what is happening to Annie's grand-father. It also demonstrates, neatly and economically, the truth about life: that it passes, that every day is different, that you must notice things before they disappear, and so forth. The baby emerging into life is the beginning of a continuum that ends in death. Annie doesn't say this aloud, but it's there in the text for careful readers. The last drawing of the apple is one tiny seed: all that's left after it's been eaten.
Verse novels are risky. True, they are, in the hands of a good writer like Creech, both elegant and economical. They tell a story in snapshots. They manage to pack a lot of emotion into a very short space. They get to the point and don't waste time on descriptions, which seem to annoy a lot of young readers. There are places where the individual poem seems to be no more than a piece of prose cut up into short lines, but for the most part, they work well. Sometimes, they tread a very fine line between the cheesy and the touching. Creech, however, rarely falls into sentimentality. Her description of childbirth is very good, and will, as a bonus, teach young people what to expect. She even manages to be funny about it: "The baby has perfect hands and feet and / fingers and toes and ears / and eyes and nose / (and it is a human baby / which is a great relief)". Annie used to think of the baby as "alien baby", but the feeling she expresses, of huge relief that all is well, will be instantly recognised by every new parent.
Most of the poems are very short. The ground is covered swiftly, as befits a novel with running as its theme. It's enjoyable and well constructed. It will encourage young readers to put their own emotions into words precisely because the form is so much less daunting than thickets of dense prose.
· Adèle Geras's latest novel for young adults, Other Echoes, is published by David Fickling.
