Shadow Creatures by Chris Vick – at a glance
The School Reading Lists’ five word review: moving, autobiographically inspired WW2 history.
Children’s book title: Shadow Creatures by Chris Vick.
Children’s author: Chris Vick.
Genre: Historical novel.
Published by: Zephyr Books.
ISBN: 9781837933167.
Recommended for children aged: 9-12 year-olds.
First published: Paperback October 2024.
This children’s book is ideal for: whole class reading in UKS2 and children aged 9 upwards studying World War Two and learning about occupation. It’s a great book to recommend to pupils who have enjoyed books such as Goodnight Mr Tom, The Diary of a Young Girl, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit.
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Our review:
Inspired by his own family history, Chris Vick has created a vivid and moving account of Norway under occupation, told through the eyes of children Tove and Liva.
This spell-binding narrative starts in modern-day Norway with Georgy, who is visiting her Norwegian family for her summer holiday. A vivid vast setting is instantly created as the family gathers outside in the beautiful wilderness, around a fire, blankets on laps and drinks in hand. To avoid being sent inside to do the dishes, Georgy persuades her grandmother Tove and Great-Aunt Tove to tell the tale of Agna, the old woman, who she has recently seen in the woods.
Instead of asking historical questions about how Norway’s occupation for her school history project, Georgy is more interested in the family history and Agna, also known by Liva as ‘huldra’, the ‘‘underjordiske’ or undergrounds, shadow creatures’ from the novel’s title.
Persuaded to tell their tale, which ‘is as raw and fresh, and new’ as ever, the narrative quickly slips into an alternating account of Liva and Tove’s horrifying childhood experience. The reader is taken back to the spring of 1940 to a pine-surrounded whaling village where the men have recently returned after being away for months on end, fishing in the Antarctic. Life is pushing through the frozen landscape where life is hard and people’s only connection to important news is the radio. Despite the harsh existence, life is peaceful.
Liva, 9, recounts how the teenage Agna, the ‘huldra’ of the prologue, lives alone with her mother Mose after the death of her father, a fishing boat captain. Living comfortably off the money left to them, Agnes and Mose own the only radio in the village, so their home is seen as a centre-point for the community. When their village is suddenly taken over in a night-time raid by the Nazis, Agna’s home becomes the kommandant’s main office, with Agna and More being used to run tasks and make coffee. Older readers will infer that More is expected to do more than this.
The community, recently reunited after the whaling season, is torn apart by this sudden occupation. Yet, before the Nazis arrived, the families quickly collected all their valuables to hide on a nearby island, burying the treasure to unearth later. Tove, 12, recalls the sudden arrival of the Nazis ‘in the silence of the dawn’, who divide their community, sending men off to war, and forcing some of those remaining, including her brother Haakon, to fall into the shadows of the resistance movement.
Through this alternating narrative, the story unravels how Agna, the pretty and lively girl of the village, comes to be the isolated old woman of the woods, following her bid to keep Liva safe from harm following Liva’s attempt to contribute to the resistance against the Nazis. Agna makes the ultimate sacrifice, putting her own life before the life of young Liva. Vick vividly describes Agna’s horrifying experience of being isolated in a cell to get information from her, an experience that changes her forever.
The narrative finishes with a return to the present day, uniting Liva, Tove, and Agna, unearthing and settling the trauma of the past. This is an utterly compelling and must-read story.
Many thanks to Zephyr Books for the review copy.
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If you like Shadow Creatures by Chris Vick you might also like our reviews of The Wall Between Us by Dan Smith, Hide and Seek by Rhian Tracey, Mawson in Antarctica: To the Ends of the Earth by Joanna Grochowicz, The Great Phoenix of London by Lindsay Galvin; and our World War 2 book list.
Browse our list of books for Year 6
