Queen Narelle by Sally Murphy

Title: Queen Narelle

Author: Sally Murphy

Genre: Verse Novel

Publisher: Walker Books

Published: 7^th June 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 80

Price: $16.99

Synopsis: A beautiful and moving story of friendship, family and love from award-winning author, Sally Murphy.

Narelle is the queen of her household, ruler of the family and, most importantly, Maddie’s wisest and best friend. So when things are not going right for Maddie, and school feels like a lonely and sad place, it is Queen Narelle who regally watches, waits and listens to her favourite human in her time of need.

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Narelle the cat lives with the family she is queen of – Mum, Dad, the noisy one, and her best friend, Maddie, whom she calls My Maddie. Narelle is the only one who notices Maddie isn’t happy, because everyone else is too busy to notice that Maddie is going through something bad at school. This novel is told in verse, alternating between Maddie and Narelle throughout as Narelle watches over her household and tries to comfort Maddie, and as Maddie tries to work out what she is going to do at school without her friends.

This is one of the latest verse novels I have read, and I think it is one of those stories that works very well as a verse novel, and what I liked was that the poems didn’t rhyme, but still had a strong impact and allowed Maddie and Narelle’s personalities shine through. Hearing Narelle’s voice was wonderful – it was exactly how I thought a cat would sound, think, and see their world – identifying most people with descriptions of what the cat thinks of them whilst having a strong connection to one person – and I could feel the love Narelle felt through the book for Maddie, just like my pets had for us – it is a unique loyalty and love. A special relationship, as pets can often be our first friends before we go to school, so Maddie’s connection with Narelle was beautiful. She reminded me of my cat, Clyde, as they were both friendly and caring, yet Clyde was a little more laidback than Narelle – I imagine he would have had some similar thoughts though, and he was also very chatty as well.

The verses are upbeat at times, but also have a heaviness at times that give a sense of what so many of us go through at all stages in our lives, and how hard it is to lose friends and to have friendships end – sometimes over silly little things, sometimes because we just grow apart. But it also gives hope that we can change things and make new friends. Where we can find people who like what we like and who will make the world a little happier for us. Maddie and Narelle are very lovable characters whom I loved spending time with. Maddie is very much like me – the bookish girl who enjoyed reading at lunchtime and liked spending time in the library and with my cats. I still enjoy spending time with my books, and wish I had a cat to read with these days. So, this book will hold a special place in my heart and is one of those books that I wish I had had when I was younger.

One of the things I love about kids books these days is that they celebrate all kinds of interests and types of children – I wish I’d had more books like this when I was growing up, as there seemed to be a trend when I was growing up of books that encouraged kids to fit in with everyone else, rather than to be themselves. The latter books are wonderful to see, and to see authors and publishers targeting a wide range of interests to try and keep kids reading and interested in books, because there will always be something out there – something that a child will find at the right time they need it. And novels like this are engaging and fun, as well as making readers feel less alone – to make them feel like what they like is something cool and fun, and that they will find the people who like that as well. I am now hoping to track down Sally’s other books, so I can include something about my reading of verse novels in my NCACL Verse Novel post in the next few weeks. I loved this book and hope others do as well.