Lion Boy: The Truth
by Zizou Corder
A lot more cosmopolitan than most trilogies, Lion Boy has taken us to Paris, Venice, on the Orient Express and to Africa. Now it finishes up on the Island of San Antonio on the Caribbean. The second book left Charlie Ashanti in Essaouira, North Africa, having delivered the circus lions back to their natural habitat, reunited with his parents, who had been rescued from the evil Corporacy.
But we might have guessed that the family reunion was a temporary relief in the helter-skelter adventure that pits young Charlie against the wicked world-dominators who have been deliberately causing child asthma in order to make money from their pharmaceutical "cures". (Charlie's scientist parents have the formula for the real cure).
Charlie and his pursuer Rafi are both kidnapped by Maccomo, the lion-tamer - who has escaped from the lions' vigilance - and are taken to the Caribbean by ship. Cue two more ships, carrying Charlie's parents and the King of Bulgaria with two lions. (It's that kind of story). On San Antonio, the Corporacy, keen to kidnap anyone of outstanding talent in any field for their wicked DNA experiments, keep their captives compliant with a drug piped all over the island.
Naturally Charlie has a plan to save the day, the island and the whole world from the Corporacy. Well, it's important to be positive in children's books so one mustn't cavil at how easy it seems. What bothers me and has all through the trilogy, is the vagueness about the time it's set in. We know it's the future, in which only idiots or villains drive "petrocars" but then, astoundingly, King Boris takes Charlie's parents to stay on Cuba with his friend the Head of State, Fidel!
Still, this is a quibble. Zizou Corder (Louisa Young and her half-Ghanaian daughter, Isobel Adomakoh Young - still described as twelve, three years after the first book) have completed a lively and different trilogy that lives up to the hype. The new look cover, admittedly handsome, smacks of a typical Marketing Decision, i.e. it doesn't match the other two. The Truth does finish with "The End - for ever!" as if it came as a relief to the authors, but I'm sure we'll hear more from Zizou Corder, or at least her components, in the future. I'll look forward to it.
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