Promise the Night

Promise the Night by Michaela MacColl is a high-intensity adventure story based on the childhood of pilot Beryl Markham. Although intended for tween readers, it's meaty enough, with its frequent questioning about self and others, to stand up as a YA novel, particularly for readers who enjoy historical fiction.

We meet Beryl Clutterbuck as a ten-year-old girl awakened in a mud hut in Africa. Her watchdog is attacked by a leopard and taken into the night. As Beryl leaps out of bed to pursue the leopard, the story assumes its thrilling, almost breathless pace. We watch Beryl race through three years, becoming an honorary member of the Nandi (a local people), racing thoroughbred horses, hunting various wild creatures, and grudgingly show more attending a boarding school for the sons and daughters of colonials.

As a novel set in early-twentieth-century British Empire, the text must deal with the issue of race. Initially, this topic is treated obliquely, but when Emma (a new colonist abandoned by her anthropologist husband) arrives, racism becomes a more overt theme. Neither Beryl nor the narrator comments explicitly on the racist remarks, leaving readers to work out the situatedness of these attitudes.

Young Beryl's personality is likely to appeal to a range of readers. She is independent to a fault and resists the limitations others try to impose on her because of her sex. Often these qualities mean that Beryl refuses to acknowledge social conventions, whether British or African, and she sometimes comes across as quite mean, particularly in her interactions with other females.

Between chapters we meet an older Beryl, now a daredevil pilot crossing the Atlantic on a dare. These sections — ostensibly excerpts from a logbook — are not uniformly successful, but they do provide some thematic continuity and an opportunity for the author to modulate the novel's pacing.

This is a solidly exciting reading experience. I would recommend this text for upper elementary school and classroom libraries. There is much to engage readers here, particularly in settings where they can discuss the book with other readers (especially a librarian or a teacher). The author's afterword and bibliography are nice additions to the text. show less

An excellent historical fiction novel based on the life of a real person, Beryl Markham, the first woman to fly solo west to east across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1936 (Amelia Earhart's flight was east to west). The novel takes place in 1912, during her childhood in British East Africa (now Kenya), when she was 11 and quite a tomboy. Since her mother had left years ago, unable to live in such primitive conditions (huts with dirt floors), Beryl had been able to run wild. Her father is busy running a farm and a horse racing stable and doesn't know how to control her, so she runs and plays barefoot with her best friend, Nandi tribal boy Kibii. Despite her father's attempts to "civilize" her (a governess brought in only results in stubborn show more battles and Beryl running away; her father's married live-in companion, Emma, does not immediately bond with Beryl), Beryl loves the wild countryside and going on hunts with the Nandi and learning the ways of a warrior, which goes against the Nandi tradition of only teaching boys to become warriors. The childhood story is interspersed with pages from the grown-up Beryl's diary, as she makes her recordsetting flight, a technique I had just read in Amelia Lost, a biography of Amelia Earhart, which uses it much more extensively, so I was a little disappointed to see the same thing here. But it adds an interesting twist to the childhood story; you know she grows up to do this thrilling flight, and you want to know how both stories end.

I enjoyed this book a lot; I had not known anything about Beryl Markham's life (in fact I got her mixed up with Isak Dinesen, of the movie Out of Africa!), so it was interesting to learn more about her. She's a spunky character as written here, an independent free spirit whose love of Africa is abundant. I also enjoyed learning more about the ways of the Nandi people. And there is exciting action--a lion hunt, a jaguar attack, and tribal rivalries. I was cheering for Beryl all the way! As an adult reader I want to know more about the rest of her life, as she became a very successful racehorse trainer and also pilot; I think kids reading this will also be intrigued enough to look for more information on her. show less

Galloping into the air much like the horses she later trained, Beryl Clutterbuck Markham was a young women coming of age in a time not prepared for her vivaciousness. Growing up the only daughter of a successful farmer and horse trainer, Beryl turned to the native Nandi people in her East African home to teach her discipline and survival. Every day was an adventure filled with lions, leopards, a “step-mother”, a governess and eventually school in the city. Beryl grew from each of her experiences to become a woman revered by many, but her youth was filled with not only skepticism but danger at every turn.

Generally speaking I’m not a huge reader of historical fiction, particularly fictional stories based in reality. What I’ve show more loved about book reviewing has been the opportunity to stretch myself and discover something I never knew existed or that I would not normally have given a second glance. Promise the Night by Michaela MacColl was one of those such books. Initially, the thought of a middle grade novel about a young girl growing up in Africa based on the true events of Beryl Clutterbuck Markham’s life simply didn’t grab me. What I’ve discovered though is that not only was I wrong, but that I would have missed out greatly on Michaela MacColl’s writing had I passed this novel by.

Beryl was a young wild girl and were it not for her father’s concern for her future well-being as well as that of the reputation of their family she may have grown up as one of the Nandi she so loved. Her adventures of lion hunting and leaping in the air above her own head were the things most young children only dream & read about. What was fascinating was Beryl’s headstrong behavior with nearly everyone she came in contact with. It was this determination and no-nonsense sincerity that finally landed her in the cockpit of an airplane ride across the Atlantic in 1936. The story is actually told in alternating parts between her youth (around age eleven) and her adulthood centering around her actual trip. As I read both the pieces of her life slowly fell into place and it became an incredible adventure I thoroughly enjoyed.

Promise the Night by Michaela MacColl isn’t only a story about a young girl with a strong personality, but it’s a coming of age adventure most middle grade readers will thoroughly enjoy. Beryl Clutterbuck Markham’s life was an adventure a minute. She ran to the African tribe of the Nandi, had a terrible governess who beat her so much that she had to escape, she chased down and hunted wild animals, trained gorgeous horses and eventually landed in the pilot seat of a small plane. Her life inspired many and will continue to through the wonderful words of Michaela MacColl. As I said, historical fiction is not normally my cup of tea, but in the case of Pomise the Night I’m grateful I made an exception because I truly would have missed out on so much.

Originally reviewed and copyrighted at my site There's A Book. show less

This is my second book by Michaela MacColl and I'll be looking out for her third - I enjoyed both of them thoroughly. While the subject of Promise the Night couldn't be more different from her first, about young Queen Victoria, both had the same jaunty, exciting style that I'm totally unable to stop reading without seeming at all rushed. MacColl seamlessly blends fact and fiction (mostly fact, according to the author's note) to show the interesting side of history to any young reader. I'm definitely older than this book's target audience, but I couldn't put this down - I'd recommend it to any eleven year-old girl. Any small faults of style or story I noticed would go right over the head of a middle school-er. Highly recommended!

I got this book free through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.

This is an excellent story, full of all sorts of roaring African adventures that will keep 9-to-12s of both sexes enthralled. But there's more depth to the book than I would have thought: in addition to Beryl's tramping around the African forests like Tarzan, you see more subtle themes of growing up, and trying to get on with others different from you. Beryl would be a delightful heroine even if she didn't later become a famous pilot.

Beryl Markham was one of the famous pilots of the golden age of aviation, even becoming the first pilot - male or female - to fly the East-to-West route across the Atlantic Ocean solo. Yet even before this amazing feat, Beryl led a remarkable life. Raised on a remote Kenyan ranch by her father, Beryl Markham grew up racing horses and living a life atypical for daughters of European settlers. She became best friends with a Nandi boy, Kibii, and grew up alongside him and his tribe, breaking both ethnic and gender barriers. This historical novel tells the story of Beryl's childhood.

Beryl Markham's early life makes for interesting reading, whatever your age. English colonialism, African tribal practices, horse racing, early aviation, show more boarding school drama, and more are all covered. My main complaint with this book, though, is that the only one of these that's really discussed in-depth is Nandi lifeways. I don't have a problem with lifeways forming the basis of the novel - the anthropologist in me absolutely loves it - but I think the author could have delved more deeply into the other aspects of Markham's childhood rather than just mentioning them more topically. MacColl based the majority of the book's details on Markham's own memoirs and in many ways what's covered in the novel is probably there because it is what's covered in Markham's writings, but part of historical fiction is taking a little creative license with the details that aren't all there. Otherwise, you end up with parts of a book that are fantastic in the history they tell and parts that seem like they're not fleshed-out enough. Even with this complaint, though, MacColl succeeds in keeping the history parts of the book exciting, and in this way Promise the Night is a good read for Middle Grade audiences who get very little African and colonial history in school. When I was that age, I would have devoured this book and never noticed everything I just said I didn't like. show less

As a fan of West With the Night, I was immediately draw to this mostly fictionalized account of Beryl Markham's early life in Africa. MacColl does an amazing job of drawing her characters as if they were in the room with you. This book is what all good historical fiction should be - a seamless blend of fact and fiction.