The Climbing Boys
Written as a tale of adventure, this is an accomplished novel that deals with class, gender, employment and welfare issues for children in its well-imagined 19th-century Dublin.
When his father falls ill, Hugh ‘Scholar’ O’Dare is forced to leave school to help support his family. He becomes an apprentice in the family business – cleaning chimneys. As he works with his older brothers, he is spared some of the worse aspects of the trade but meets and befriends other sweeps not so fortunate. The rescue of one, young Bert McCoy, provides the focus of the story. Real characters of the time appear in this well-researched work, and one, Daniel O’Connor, ‘The Liberator’, plays a significant role, cleverly introduced by having the boys clean his chimneys. The political issue of Catholic emancipation, and the oppressive colonial laws affecting the Ireland of the time, are dealt with sympathetically, whilst never losing focus on the children’s story.
Dialogue plays a large part in establishing character, scene and narrative in this novel, and is always pert, bright and authentic-sounding. Excellent research is used with subtlety and relevance, and the settings and set-pieces – Christmas Day Mass, the Lampkins’ party, the Wren boys on the street – as well as the small details of place and time, are well-rendered. Descriptive writing is at a minimum but is evocative and effective, particularly with regard to scents and smells – the ‘fusty ashes’ of the chimney flue, the church smell of ‘damp coats and incense’.
Highly recommended for children of 8 – 12.
