Noah's Gold

Wr. Frank Cottrell-Boyce

Ill. Steve Lenton

Pub. Macmillan Children's Books (May 2021)

Age Range - 9-12 years

Eleven-year old Noah sneaks along on his big sister's geography field trip. Everything goes wrong! Six kids are marooned on an uninhabited island. Their teacher has vanished. They're hungry. Their phones don't work and Noah has broken the internet. There's no way of contacting home...Disaster!

Until Noah discovers a treasure map and the gang goes in search of gold.

"If you're after an easy read that will give you plenty of giggles, you could do a lot worse."

You'd think "disaster strikes during a school trip to a big-river-monikered online retailer's warehouse" would be rejected at the pitch stage. Mind you, I guess you'd think the same of "a wartime boy rescues a wartime gorilla and they have a wartime adventure", "a girl wants a fing, but a fing isn't even a thing", or "there's slime", and they somehow got printed. While I can't speak for the other examples I just gave (because I haven't read them, and won't read them, so don't even think of asking), Noah's Gold works, thanks in no small part to Frank Cottrell-Boyce's wit.

In some ways, the book felt like an episode of Seinfeld. It's frequently laugh-out-loud funny, but apart from the dramatic events that bookend the story, not much actually happens. Told through exchanged letters between the main character and his parents (think Chocolate Milk, X-Ray Specs & Me), the novel is about a boy called Noah stowing away on a school field trip. They finish up on an island, which is where the remainder of the story unfolds. The thing about Noah's Gold is that it doesn't need frenetic chases and scenes of peril. It's not about drama. If anything, the book is about hope. Noah offers hope to the other children on the island, and shows that, actually, children can cope perfectly well without Internet access, thank you very much.

The letter-writing conceit generally works well, and the only time I was pulled out of the story was when the events in Letter #13 continued into Letter #14 when there was no clear reason why Letter #13 didn't simply continue. Perhaps I missed it, but it did make me stop and think why it had happened (other than as a natural chapter break). At another point, I thought I'd spotted a hiccup in the timeline: at the end of one letter, Noah learned that he had received a letter from his family; we were then presented immediately with said letter, which talked about events which had only just happened. I wondered how on earth they could have read about them and responded so quickly. However, to my delight, this was accounted for and explained later (spoilers!) (also, plus points for understated but excellent twist).

I did find that the characters spoke and acted much younger than their chronological age. It's noticeable, but it doesn't detract from the enjoyment of the novel. Ryland, for example, is comic foil to the more serious characters, and is frequently very funny. Keeping in mind that children learn about maps and scales in year 2, and Ryland is in year 9, we have this lovely moment:

He grabbed the map off Eve.

‘Is that the sea there?’ said Ryland, pointing at the blue between the island and the mainland.

Yes it was the sea.

‘It says Sound.’

‘The Sound of Or,’ read Eve. ‘It’s the name of this bit of the sea.’

‘Sound means all right,’ said Ryland. ‘It says the sea is sound here. And it doesn’t look very far. I can walk across three centimetres. I’m going home.’

‘I don’t think so...’ Eve tried to explain about scale and maps, but Ryland was already striding towards the water.

Ryland put me in mind of Harley McCool, a character in an early draft of my own WIP, who was similarly slow-witted:

On this occasion, Mr. Hump had asked him what the central character’s name was in the book. After failing to answer any of the more complicated questions that required some appreciation of the book itself, Harley was given a question that Mr. Hump felt sure anyone could answer. But Harley simply looked back at his teacher blankly, looked down at the cover of his pristine copy of I Am David, misread the title, and answered, “Ian?”

On the whole, then, an enjoyable book. The characters are engaging and believeable (although I maintain they're younger than we're told), and the story bobs along nicely. Noah is a wonderful narrator, and if you're after an easy read that will give you plenty of giggles, you could do a lot worse.

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If you like this, try

Chocolate Milk, X-Ray Specs & Me

(wr. Wr. Bethany Walker, ill. Jack Noel)

The book is constructed entirely out of letters, postcards and newspaper headlines, which is a clever way to unfold a story in which characters can't interact in person. It is also very funny.

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teaching ideas

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themes in the novel

These are some of the themes I was drawn to:

• Hope. Noah is incredibly optimistic, and when his courage falters, he has his letters from mum and dad to pep him back up.

• Friendship. Initially an outsider, Noah wins the trust and respect of most of the group, and they become a pretty solid unit by the end.

• Bravery. Surviving alone on an island is a big ordeal for a group of kids, and they must tap into every ounce of their courage to make it through.

• Isolation. The children are stranded on an island and must find a way to survive on diminishing supplies.

• Sibling rivalty. There is definite friction between Noah and Eve.

in the classroom

There are some important discussions to be had around the issues raised in the novel:

• PSHE/RE. Discussion topics such as the prospect of fending for oneself.

• Geography. The story is set on an island off the coast of Donegal.

• Computing/ICT. The kids must survive without access to the Internet, posing questions about whether we need it, whether we rely on it too much, etc. Also consideration of how the Internet works, with submarine cables carrying 99% of the world's data traffic.

• Science: Physics. The author offers a brilliant "author's note" at the end, in which he talks about Noah's poor luck with technology and references an anecdote about Wolfgang Pauli and Otto Stern.

• Science: Biology. The children encounter various wildlife and eat dubious home-grown (or, at least, home-foraged) meals. Consideration of dietary requirements.