The New Policeman

I enjoyed this story, I listened to it on cd and found the musical interludes a joy. The story places a contemporary Irish child into mythic Ireland with a chance to return time to the world.

A boy ends up in the faerie world as he tries to buy his mother some time for her birthday! Fun!

time is leaking out of the human world into the fairy realm. our days are passing faster and faster and their's get longer and longer. Music plays a big role.

Did you ever really wonder what happens to that sock lost in the laundry? Have you ever wanted to record a sound track for a favorite novel? Where does our time go? The New Policeman fiddles with all sorts of theories, including what happens to our missing laundry socks. Solidly grounded in Irish

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mythology, The New Policeman follows Liddy as she searches for answers. Why is there so little time for music anymore? Why is her traditional Irish musician family too busy to play?

My friend and fellow BBYA member, Amy Chow, is an accomplished violinist. She says:

“The music that follows each chapter musically describes the chapter itself…. The piece ‘A cup of tea’ (page 31) is a melody that runs on, barely stopping for a breath, gaining in tension that never really gets released, and has a repeated note figure followed by an alternating figure with the bottom note the same as the repeated note. All this right before the story says, ‘There was never enough time,’ and right after, ‘a mad race to pack in all the things that needed to be done.’ The passage following the music has very short sentences and much the same feeling that was described in the song ‘a cup of tea.’ It's ironic that there is barely enough time for a rushed cup of tea.”

Readers fluent in music have an added level of enjoyment to an exceptional and unique piece of writing. Otherwise readers may wish to play Celtic music while reading this one; I recommend it! This is another of my favorites to win Printz recognition this year.

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I'm torn about this book. It was a good story and told fairly well and I truly enjoyed the musical elements, but I was never enthralled or surprised. I did love the last few pages and think that they might have been worth the entire read.

JJ wants to get his mother more time for her Birthday. JJ is a nice Irish boy torn between his desire to fit in with friends and to embrace his irish music/dancing heritage. His quest for time takes his to the land of the fairies, where he learns what happens to those socks that get lost in the

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laundry (there's a "sock leak" between their world and ours), solves the problem of why there is so little time these days and resolves a family mystery. This original story incorporates irish folklore in a fun way, is filled with music and tells an intricate tale well enough to hold readers attention. grades 5 and up

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(YA) Thompson, Kate
The New Policeman. (F) Time seems to be spinning away faster and faster. J.J. Liddy promises his mother he will get her the birthday gift she truly wants—more time. J.J. is a gifted musician from a family with a music tradition. His grandfather was famous for his flute and

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fiddle music and, it was whispered, for killing a priest. On the land his family owns is an ancient fort with a souterrain or underground room. J.J discover that the souterrain contains the passage into the Land of the Fairies. Here J.J. finds that time from his world is leaking into the land of eternal youth causing havoc in both worlds. In J.J. worlds a new policeman in town doesn’t seem to quite fit in. Set in Ireland the story includes a collection of Irish folk music and touches upon Irish legends.

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Fantasy, juvenile, not bad. Annoyingly padded by sheet music.

Kinvara, Ireland is plagued by the lack of time -- there don't seem to be quite enough minutes in the day to do all the tasks that absolutely must be done. When J.J. Liddy promises his mother the gift of more time for her birthday, little does he know what a challenge he'll face.

Each chapter is

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fronted by a piece of traditional Irish music. I wish I still played enough to tackle them, as I suspect for the musically inclined, the tunes will add yet another layer to this fascinating story. It reads smoothly and easily, and seems much shorter than 431 pages. My only quibble is the ending, which seems a bit rushed after the long drawn-out build-up.

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Some suspense but the ending wasn't as good as it could have been. Interesting concept -- time is leaking from the fairie world into the real world.

I wasn't immediately pulled in to the story, but found myself wanting to find out what happens next. It's a mixture of Irish lore and magic. Short alternating chapters keep the story moving. I think there may be more here on a philosophical level, but it's an enjoyable story on is own.

Booklist starred...
Heart-pounding Irish music is the common ground between material and magical worlds in this ambitious fantasy, which begins in western Ireland. When J. J. Liddy is 15, his mother jokingly asks for a birthday present of more time. From an eccentric neighbor, J. J. learns to his

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astonishment that his mother's request may not be impossible to fill. Bravely venturing into an alternate fairy world, J. J. takes on a thrilling, epic quest in which he confronts dark family rumors and tries to repair a cosmic time leak between his world and 'the land of eternal youth.'

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Delightful music and Irish legends woven together with a modern youth's story in a mostly believable way. Strong characterization, rollicking good story.

It took a while to get used to the (very) short chapters and, for lack a better term, the musical interludes, but once so accustomed, they weren't intrusive on the story at all: and I liked how the scores effectively named the preceding chapter.

I felt for all of the characters, especially the

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family left behind, and Thompson handled the situation both with empathy but not too much pathos. There's enough depth and complexity in the emotion even for adult readers, though it's clear enough for the younger audience. However, J.J., the young protagonist, is 15, and for some reason pictured him quite a bit younger. The plot was, perhaps less than complex or original, but the characters were engaging enough that I simply read it all in one sitting: literally couldn't put it down, though it only took me a few hours.

Overall a fun read, but unless you are willing to read it all at once, the short chapters and basic story might be too obvious. Still, it kept me reading up past my bedtime ;) and I'm glad to have read it.

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An excellent blend of myth and music and Kinvara. Entertaining story with some interesting characters from Irish myth and legend and the type of people you meet in Galway city or county occasionally.

I liked the blending of modern and myth in this one, well worth a read. It did take me a while to

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get into it but once in it flew, I yearned for any musical instrument to play the inter-chapter pieces.

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Fun read. A little bit of fairy-ness, but not too much.

This is the first book in The New Policeman trilogy. I enjoyed this book; it was a unique middle grade novel that was a blend of fantasy, time travel, faerie, and music elements. It was a quick and easy read that I found really interesting and engaging. This book is a very complete story all on its

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own.

The people of Kinvara can’t figure out why they are always so pressed for time. Time seems to be literally slipping away from them. When J.J’s mother asks for more time for her birthday J.J. is determined to oblige her. What starts as a quick jaunt to bring a neighbor some cheese quickly turns into an adventure in a different world where time is supposed to stand still.

This story takes awhile to get going. The first hundred pages or so are dedicated to learning about J.J.’s ancestors and their strange musical past. Each chapter has a short piece of music after it (which I did not go and play) about something that was discussed in the preceding chapter.

I enjoyed the writing style. This was a very engaging story, the characters were likable, and I enjoyed J.J.’s close relationship with his family. Once the story got moving I was sucked into the mystery behind the time leak and curious about the other world.

Overall this was a great story. I ended up really enjoying the plot, the characters, and the magic. I would recommend to middle grade and older readers who are interested in faerie and time travel. I am unsure whether or not I will read the next two books in the series; this book wraps up the story nicely and I don’t really need anything more to read right now.

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When will publishers learn to put a CD in a book??? I am going to find a fiddle player, record the reels and jigs, and put copies in all the books I can find. So there.

I liked this book a lot more after I finished it. The sum of the parts is much greater than the parts themselves. It's a little

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slow, but good.

It also captures the joy of playing music as well as any other book. My other favorite for that is [book: The Maestro] by [author: Tim Wynne-Jones].

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I loved this book, especially the way the author muses on the inspiration of musicians, which could equally apply to other creative pursuits as well. Makes me badly want to visit Ireland!

J.J. Liddy, a young musician and dancer living in the small Irish village of Kinvara, finds that time is becoming scarcer and scarcer in this immensely entertaining work of children's fantasy. When his mother, who is also a musician, asks for more time for her birthday, J.J. sets out to find it,

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discovering that quite a bit of his world's time has been slipping into the fairy realm of Tír na nÓg, doing damage to both places. As J.J. travels into Tír na nÓg in search of lost time, meeting many unforgettable characters along the way, the new policeman in Kinvara, Garda Larry O’Dwyer, also seeks after something, although he can't quite recall what it is...

As someone who loves both Irish mythology and Irish 'trad' (traditional folk music), I found Kate Thompson's The New Policeman absolutely marvelous, enjoying it from beginning to end. Journey stories of this sort, in which children encounter the figures of fairy and folklore, are well established in the world of Irish children's literature - Patricia Lynch's 1934 The Turf Cutter's Donkey and Pat O'Shea's 1985 The Hounds of the Morrigan are two notable examples - but Thompson manages to do something a little bit different with her tale, in which both human and fairy-folk are on the move. The incorporation of music - I counted at least twenty-three different named tunes and songs, while reading - was also lovely, and made me wish for an accompanying CD! Recommended to anyone who enjoys myth-tinged fantasy fiction, or who has a weakness for Irish music.

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A particular bonus in listening to this audiobook was that, at the end of every chapter, there was played a traditional Irish tune the title of which had something to do with the chapter.