Norah’s Ark by Victoria Williamson – Blog Tour

Aah! I’m so excited to be part of the Blog Tour for Victoria Williamson’s new book, Norah’s Ark!

At its core, Norah’s Ark is a book about friendship, courage, and animals, but it’s also very much a book about the UK in its current state.

Williamson’s eponymous Norah is a foodbank user, living in temporary accommodation, and as such represents a demographic of child that is so often overlooked in children’s literature, despite the fact that in 2021-22, 4.2 million children in the UK were living in poverty.

That’s 29% of all children, or 9 in a classroom of 30.

Yeah… I needed some time to let that one sink in too. And they’re not even the most up-to-date statistics.

Important as Norah’s background is, it isn’t the main focus of the story – the narrative follows Norah and Adam as they try to rescue various animals from the park near Adam’s house, and from around the town of Hull. Drawing inspiration from one another, they learn to face obstacles in their own lives – for example, Norah stands up to the girl who has been bullying her, while Adam learns to advocate for himself in the face of his mother’s overbearing anxiety.

I actually really loved the setting of this book, knowing Hull and Grimsby in some small capacity. I feel like the polarity between Norah and Adam’s living situations (Norah being a foodbank user and Adam living in a lovely, big house), very much reflected my own experience of the town and its surrounding suburbs and villages. Williamson worked this contrast beautifully through the narrative too – there was no Prince and the Pauper romanticism to it, rather a sympathetic objectiveness which meant that though I was absolutely rooting for the two main characters, I wasn’t rooting for them because of Norah’s poverty of Adam’s cancer. I was rooting for them because they were just good kids.

My only criticism, small as it is, was the flood of very serious information about Norah’s mother, right at the end of the book. Alcoholism, post-natal depression, and custody battles are all fairly weighty topics and though I didn’t necessarily feel they needed to be discussed in more detail to forward the plot, I wonder if a little glossary at the back might have been helpful for children who haven’t come across these concepts before. Additionally, there seems to be the implication that Norah has Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), though this isn’t explicitly stated. Again, just naming the condition might have given parents reading with children an opportunity to open a conversation about this. As I said though, it’s a very minor point, and not one that I feel detracts from the story at all.

Finally, I think it would be remiss of me not to mention rescue animals as part of this review. I’ve been absolutely blessed to welcome a rehomed cat and dog into our family over the years, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am that they’ve been part of my life. At the moment, with cost-of-living crisis being as it is, so many families are being forced to give up their pets due to housing restrictions in rented accommodation, and the cost of food. Norah’s struggle to keep even a hamster and pet spider really highlights the need for provisions to keep children and their pets together. So that being said, I’ve donated what I would have paid for this book to the Blue Cross animal food bank, had Neem Tree not kindly sent us this copy.

20% of Williamson’s royalties from sales of Norah’s Ark will be going to Shelter.

What’s your favourite book about animal rescue? I’d love to hear your favourite pet-rescue tales… or should I say ‘tails’! Have you ever adopted a pet? What’s their story?

As ever, with love,

Fran ❤

I’ve set up a ‘bookshop‘ of sorts, over on Bookshop.org, so that I can point you to somewhere to buy that isn’t Amazon. I get a small commission for any sales made there. This helps to support me running this blog. If you’d like to get your copy of Norah’s Ark this way, please just click here. Thank you for your support.