This poison is not for kids

Author Maryrose Wood's latest book, The Poison Diaries, is a crash course in herbology but fails as a full-blown romantic saga

Writing for kids is not a child's play, and the author's latest rollout is a testimony to the idea. The book brews a mushy story in the surprising world of magical plants and fungi, the study of which is called herbology. The book written for young readers in the age group of 13, is a mixture of love and revenge.

In a nutshell
Isobel Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland, supplied the recipe for the 18th century romance. The story is inspired by her real poison garden in Alnwick Castle in England (which in turn was motivated by the one in Padua, Italy) draws thousands of visitors each year. The main characters in the book are a young boy named Weed, who can talk to poisonous plants, Jessamine who has spent most of her life in a cottage with Thomas, her father, a respected apothecary and Oleander, the prince of poisons. The book, in the form of journal entrees, chronicles Jessamine and Weed journey.

The flip side
Though the book finds wonderful inspiration in Isobel, the treatment by the author is not even closer to that. The plot, mind-numbing, revolves around poisonous plants and the closely guarded garden in which they are grown. Usually gothic tales of romance and deceit work, but not this time. The control on the tone of the book is loose for an adolescent booklover's taste. The dialogues fail to hang around.

Saving the sinking boat
The characters and their introductions are the only saviours. Worth noting is that of the young orphan Weed who makes a pitiful entrance as a frightened weak bundle of bones, surviving on water and hardly eating anything but as the story progresses the mysterious waif transforms into an attractive chap with whom Jessamine dreams of being in love with.

One loves peeping into Jessamine's life and it isn't difficult to travel through the pages with her but falling in love with her isn't easy. Oleander, the prince of poisons, is another character that makes a late entrance in the story, but earns interest.

The other characters are simply fillers. Keeping Wood's substitute vocation as a comedian in mind, it is hard to fathom on whom exactly the joke is. Would we recommend the book to a 15-year-old? We seriously doubt that. But as she said in her interview once: "No matter where you are in your career, there's always another rung on the ladder". Lets expect she has more to offer than what we are figuring at the moment.

Publisher: HarperCollins
Price: Rs 299