4.0
Delta and the Lost City
ByPublisher Description
' . . . ought to be the children's hit of the summer' - I Paper
Follow Delta the wolfdog around Pompeii in 79 AD while the shadow of the great volcano Mount Vesuvius looms, from the bestselling, award-winning author of The Umbrella Mouse, Anna Fargher. Illustrated throughout in black and white by David Dean.
It’s the year 79 AD, and the earth around Pompeii is quaking . . .
Young wolfdog Delta finds herself on the run and escaping her family’s villa after bearing witness to a horrible crime. With the help of her eagle friend, Bellona, Delta navigates the tricky terrain full of threatening creatures and thieves outside the ancient city's walls.
But the earth is warning of a much larger threat, and determined to warn her family, Delta must race against time and find them before it’s too late . . .
Journey with Delta through an inspiring journey around the ancient city of Pomepii and the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
'Ambitious and wonderful' – Michael Morpurgo, author of War Horse on The Umbrella Mouse.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesDelta and the Lost City Reviews
4.0
“A book about one of the biggest natural disasters in the ancient world probably doesn't strike many as the sort to be a potentially sweet narrative, but Fargher's doggy heroine manages to bring a little light to Pompeii.
As is the trend with middle-grade at the moment, the Delta of the title is our protagonist, a wolf-dog living in a countryside villa in the shadows of Pompeii with her mother, Luna, eagle friend Bellona, and the human cast: enslaved woman Gaia, her son, Neo, Lucius, the master of the house, and Herminia, Lucius' daughter. Also present is Herminia's husband Marcus, but as we discover very early on, Marcus isn't exactly a pinnacle of niceness. When Delta witnesses a horrible crime in her home, she finds herself on the run with Bellona, evading beasts and thieves in the wilderness. But, as she sets about trying to right the wrong that has torn her family apart, Vesuvius begins to rumble, and another disaster is on its way.
Animal stories fit really nicely into the genre of childrens' historical fiction, and Delta is no different: it's not the first novel to tackle Pompeii for younger audiences (I say as an avid Roman Mysteries reader at the age of 9), but Delta's perspective brings new aspects to light that might otherwise be missed in a novel with a human protagonist. The Vesuvius scenes especially are very poignant in their detail and narration, and lots of the smaller historical details (such as the crowds tying pillows to their heads to cushion the falling rock from the volcano) are peppered in nicely, in a way that's subtly educational without being overbearing. While I'm not an artist myself, David Dean's illustrations work well with the tone throughout: it's characterful while also being stark monochrome.
Delta's relationships with her animal family members are also really refreshing to read. Her conversations and interactions with Bellona gives their relationship an almost big-sister feel, whereas it isn't often that parental relationships are explored in animal stories, so Delta's interactions with Luna, and her consequent desire to find her later in the novel, makes a really nice change to the standard Incredible Journey-esque canine character motivation to find human owners. It also creates more of an analogue between Delta and her readers, for whom close relationships with adult caregivers are presumed to be important.
It's always a complex manoeuvre to discuss slavery in ancient Greek and Roman stories for children in a way that accentuates how awful the institution of slavery is, while equally reinforcing the endemic use of slavery as an economic system within the ancient world. Fargher managed to strike a pretty good compromise in this regard by using Delta as a viewpoint character: her position as a dog places her in a liminal position to view this from a separate viewpoint. She isn't a free creature herself - she's a pet, and some of the events of the novel are tracked based on whichever collar she's wearing - but equally she isn't an enslaved human, meaning that she can view the system from a removed level while simultaneously empathising with the injustices we see. There is a scene in the first third where Gaia and her son Neo are separated in a slave market, which is particularly harrowing - while Delta's POV means this doesn't become completely upsetting to a child reader, it doesn't shy away from the trauma and injustice associated with the scene, and simultaneously places Delta on par with Neo due to both of them being separated from their mothers, a strong emotional core for childrens' fiction. However, the novel very nearly sidles into the trope of the 'good slave master', which it avoids purely by the skin of its teeth. Despite his friendship with Severinius, a wealthy Roman boy whom Neo and Delta rescue from bandits, and consequently the son of Neo's enslaver, Fargher is thorough in ensuring that Neo remains miserable the entire time he is separated from Gaia: Severinius has a sense of justice, but equally one where slavery is an endemic part of his life, and as such he treats it like this. Since Greeks and Romans are big parts of the Key Stage 2 curriculum, I imagine this would be an interesting classroom conversation to have.
As I implied earlier, Marcus, Herminia's husband, isn't the nicest of the cast of characters: as we learn pretty early on in the novel, the business he runs is a scam, he's a greedy criminal, and he doesn't treat Herminia well - not helped by the fact that she is pregnant with his child. There's a genuine sense of menace to his characterisation: he's obviously an abject villain given the numerous crimes and cruelties he inflicts, but his presence as an abusive husband towards Herminia makes him increasingly sinister in a way that's accessible to young readers. Fargher does a great job throughout of taking what might be deemed very adult themes and presenting them in a way that's emotionally-resonant while equally not traumatising. In terms of my qualms with this novel, most of them are line-level editorial issues which may just be an issue with the proof copy: while I imagine these have been rectified, I'll mention them here anyway since they were present in my reading. There are several lines which are clunky and don't read particularly well, and which would have benefitted from another read-through, but again, these are very easily rectified.
Overall, Delta and the Lost City is a fun little novel with a lot of heart at its centre, and a new canine hero to join the legions of dog protagonists in childrens' books: she's a joy to read, and I'm sure she'll resonate with a wide audience of children and adults alike.
Thank you to Macmillan Children's and Netgalley for an eArc in exchange for an honest review!”
About Anna Fargher
Anna Fargher was raised in a creative hub on the Suffolk coast by an artist and a ballet teacher. She read English Literature at Goldsmiths before working in the British art world and opening her own gallery. She wrote her first book, The Umbrella Mouse, on her iPhone notepad during her daily commute on the London Underground, and it was selected as Waterstones Book of the Month. She is also the author of The Fire Cats of London. She splits her time between London and Suffolk where she is often found exploring the coastline and marshlands under the huge East Anglian skies.
David Dean
David lives near Manchester with his two cats, and has been illustrating professionally for over twenty years, though he’s been drawing since he was old enough to pick up a pencil. For the past decade he has primarily worked as a book cover illustrator and has now created close to 200 covers, for books by some of the UK’s best-loved children’s writers. That people keep letting him do this baffles him, but brings him endless joy.
Other books by David Dean
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