 Switchers: “I Know Who You Are. I Know What You Can Do...”
 Tess is a reasonably distant and lonely child, who takes long walks out into the forest and park lands each day, returning home each evening to somewhat bemused parents. They don't believe anything is seriously wrong with their child despite the fact she has no friends — they just think she's a loner that loves the outdoors. But it just so happens that Tess is very different from other teenagers, and harbors a secret that she keeps from every other person on the planet. She has had the ability from a very early age to change into any animal she desires, and her daily walks into the wilderness are due to her transformations and adventures in animal form. It is a wonderful life as a “Switcher,” and she's not lonely — just alone.
Until one day, when a boy begins to follow her home from the bus station and utters some terrifying words: “I know who you are. I know what you can do...” Who is this elusive Kevin and what does he want from Tess? Terrified that the fellow Switcher will reveal her secret, and suspecting that the “help” that he asks for has something to do with the steadily growing cold front that is moving southwards from the north pole and destroying all human-life in its wake, Tess agrees to accompany him to someone who knows what's going on.
This someone is an old lady named Lizzie, a former Switcher who tells the children about krools — monstrous creatures that are slowly pulling the earth back into an ice age. Whilst dodging the police and the government airforces, Kevin and Tess take it upon themselves to use their shapeshifting powers to stop the krools. But a person's Switching abilities cease when one turns fifteen, and Kevin's birthday is steadily approaching...
Switchers is a book that is initially difficult to get into. The idea of people changing into animals is a well-trod path in children's literature, and for a long while it seemed that this was just another rehash of what has gone before. Tess and Kevin are a little difficult to connect with — both are quite distant, and it's rather implausible that Tess would choose to leave her home and her parents in order to follow someone she barely knows to an unknown destination. Lizzie is also a bit of a tired cliche (crazy old lady with lots of cats) and there are a few scenes that are unnecessary or stretch on a bit to long (Tess and Kevin's escapades as goats, for example).
But the book drastically improves as time goes on. The “Switcher” device is put to excellent use as the story continues, with the children instigating their powers to travel swiftly, hide from the police, to bear the terrible Artic cold and to finally defeat the krools and escape human bombing — each transformation is more ingenious than the last. To tell would be spoiling it — half the fun of this book is realising what great plan the children will come up with next.
So although you may be dubious at first, stick with it as Switchers and its two sequels Midnight's Choice and Wild Blood are immensely satisfying and rewarding, just below the likes of J.K. Rowling, C.S. Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander, but on the shelf next to Tanith Lee, Sherwood Smith, Nancy Springer and other fantasy authors of this calibre. —Rebecca Fisher
 Midnight's Choice: “Where-ever There's Light There Has to Be Darkness.”
 Midnight's Choice is the second book in Kate Thompson's Switchers trilogy, concerning fourteen-year-old Tess who has the ability to change into any animal at will. It begins right where the last book ended, several months after Tess and her Switcher-friend Kevin have destroyed the terrible krools, with Kevin alighting at her bedroom window in his last (and now permanent) form: a glorious phoenix. It may be necessary to have read Switchers beforehand, just to sort out the characters, the background history and the abilities of Switching, as it is an important point to know that at the age of fifteen, a Switcher's powers disappear, and whatever form — human or animal — that they choose is theirs for the rest of their life.
But Tess's fifteenth birthday is not for a while yet, and instead she is enjoying the exhilaration and endless peacefulness of being a phoenix alongside Kevin. But there is another force at work — Tess's pet rat Algernon is being called forth by an unknown master, to dig alongside hundreds of rats in uncovering a mysterious stone artefact. Investigating in rat-form, Tess discovers a fellow Switcher named Martin, who has very different ideas on how to use his powers than Tess and Kevin ever had. Tess herself is intrigued, even attracted to Martin's interpretation of a Switcher's power, but is just as pulled toward Kevin and his newfound glory.
And then the zoo captures Kevin, and the phoenix becomes an instant attraction. People line up for hours in order to glimpse its beauty, rendering them almost drugged by its influence. But with the phoenix set to be sold to an American collector, Tess has only a limited time to release her friend before he's lost forever. With some enigmatic advice from a visiting Lizzie (the old woman who previously helped Tess and Kevin on their trip to the Artic), Tess must find a way to save Kevin and subdue Martin, all the while torn between them and the alternating choices that they embody.
Midnight's Choice is a good followup from Switchers, though I must admit enjoying the first book a lot more. Kate Thompson continues building on the mythos of the Switchers and of Tess's internal growth, but for me at least all of the characters remain quite detached — I could never feel particularly close or sympathetic toward them, and slow pacing in some areas doesn't help. Tess's parents in particular are confusing; I can't imagine any parents of a young teen letting her get away with half the stuff Tess does.
However, Tess is likeable enough, and unlike the krools of the previous book, the enemy she faces here is inside her own self. The duality of the phoenix and Martin is put to good use in examining the light and dark side to Tess herself, as is Tess's final decision on the matter. Although Midnight's Choice is not essential reading, those that do pick it up are likely to be interested enough to continue with Wild Blood, the third and final book in the series. —Rebecca Fisher
Wild Blood: “Do You Believe in the Good People?”
 Wild Blood is the final book in Kate Thompson's Switchers trilogy and deals with the inevitable choice that her young heroine Tess has to face: at the age of fifteen her Switcher powers come to an end, and she can choose either to remain human or to become any one of the animals that she can transform into permanently. To make things worse, her parents are going on holiday without her, and have sent her to stay with her Uncle Maurice, Aunt Dierdre and three cousins.
Life on the farm isn't too bad considering Tess now has a huge environment to explore, but she misses her fellow-Switcher Kevin who she needs to help her make a final decision. Furthermore, there are strange things happening at the farmhouse: odd-looking animals, shadowy figures in the woods and suspicious activity from her bad-tempered uncle and three secretive cousins. There is a mystery concerning the disappearance of Uncle Declan, and no one in the family is eager to talk about it.
And there is even more at risk — Uncle Maurice seems set to sell of the beautiful forest land to developers, and threatens to call up exterminators to rid the house of all the rats. Since Tess is on familiar terms with these rats, and since Kevin has finally gotten hold of her, she comes up with an ingenious way to save the rats, but a plan that has terrible consequences.
In the previous books — Switchers and Midnight's Choice — I was always rather confused at the emphasis that Thompson places on the rats, but now with a wonderful reworking of The Pied Piper of Hamelin , it all makes sense. Thompson uses a wonderful blend of old folklore and fairy myth in order to create an interesting story that is superior to Midnight's Choice, though not quite up to par with Switchers. Although the final conflict and choice between opposing factions of the story are brought to quite an easy solution (even an abrupt one), readers who have followed Tess's story will get their questions answered.
For the first time I felt that I could relate better to Tess: she was rather distant in the previous books, but now finally she and Kevin come across as understandable, three-dimensional characters. Likewise, Uncle Maurice and the cousins Brian, Orla and Colm are interesting enough, but if you were a fan of Lizzie you'll be disappointed: she appears in the first couple of pages, imparts some more cryptic advice and then is gone. But she does better than Martin, who doesn't appear at all, and though Thompson does give us an update on his condition I was hoping for more character development on his behalf.
There are some components of the book that just don't work, namely the Star Wars references to the droids C3-PO and R2D2. Within the book there are Switching characters that turn into these droids, and visualising this borders on the ridiculous. How can one appreciate the mood of the Tuatha Da Dannan when there are science fiction characters from an entirely different story running around? All the instances in which they appear is extremely jarring, and often just plain silly: like when C3-PO tries to subdue a bear. I hope George Lucas doesn't sue.
Likewise, toward the end of the book the origins of the Switching powers are revealed, and as you may have guessed, it derives from the "wild blood" that is passed down from the Tuatha Da Dannan to their descendants. This is all very good and well, but in the first book Switchers, Thompson establishes the fact that all children are born with Switching powers, though only a few discover and retain them. So what are we meant to believe? Are all children descended from the Tuatha? I highly doubt it, and therefore Thompson has contradicted the fundamental component of her trilogy.
Of all the Switchers books, I recommend the first installment — the next two never measure up to it, and may in fact leave readers disappointed and/or confused. It's up to you. —Rebecca Fisher |
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