TEENAGE FICTION

THIS Costa Awardnominated book is a perfect combination of humour and poignancy, a story that traces a group of children through 16 years of social, physical and emotional change, culminating in WWI.

It begins in 1902, when Clarry’s mother dies three days after she is born, and her father abandons her and her older brother Peter, to be raised by relatives and servants.

Each summer, they are sent to Cornwall to stay with their charismatic older cousin Rupert. The children all follow different paths. Clarry demands a good education and Peter and Rupert enlist for war. McKay is a superb writer, stitching historical details into a family drama of loss and, finally, a bitter-sweet triumph over their past. |