Winner of the Book Review Competition

We're proud to present the winner of our Book Review Competition:
Rosie Mullins, from year 7 at Woodgreen School!

Rosie delivered a detailed and coherent review which had the right amount of plot information to whet the reader's appetite, but without giving the story away, she talked about special features she enjoyed, and she gave it a well-reasoned age rating, which, interestingly, is lower than what most of us adults would have it estimated at, suggesting a whole new debate as to whether we're underestimating/ overprotecting our children? (Mind, this here bookseller had read James Herbert and Stephen King by age 12 and is perfectly fine.*) Well done, Rosie, and keep that passion for books burning!
  
"Gone by Michael Grant is a book that follows the lives of Sam, his friends and his enemies; they are stuck in a dome that has fallen over their home town of Perdido Beach and everyone over the age of 15 has POOFED (disappeared). However, people begin to take sides, food runs out, and eventually water too runs out, but also, lots of people begin to develop strange, but interesting powers… The stranded children find themselves exposed to the threat of conflict, danger and death, as the idea of living in a world without adults quickly becomes a sudden reality. With no phones or televisions working either, the town soon becomes a prison for these 'survivors', and with no way to get help, time is running out for each remaining individual: the day you turn fifteen is the day you disappear, just like everyone else. The children of the dome fight for survival until not very many people are left in the scary Fays (the name of the dome). But, there is a way out and Sam and the others try to find out!
     This thrilling book series has something for everyone: it’s a book of mystery, comedy, romance, horror, suspense, sadness and it makes you feel so many other feelings. In my opinion, Gone and the other books, all the way to the final book, Light, are highly dark even for the young adult audience which they are aimed at. Grant is successful in writing scenes of death, mutilation, and moral dilemmas form the basis of the plot in each book in very graphic detail. There are so many reasons why I love this book, and you would too if you read it.
      Firstly, unlike many other books, each chapter begins with an amount of hours/mins that are counting down to a big moment at the end of the book (but you don’t know what that is, unless you carry on reading, and you can guess). Furthermore, a second reason why I love this series is that each chapter ends with a cliff hanger, hooking you on making you want to read the next chapter.
      How does series make me feel? The way the book is written makes you feel like you are in the dome with them. For example one of my favourite characters, Astrid, makes you feel happy, annoyed, sad and worried for her all at the same time. Each one of these characters in this fantastic book has a unique personality, which is studied in has layers of meaning and understanding. Astrid is known as ‘Astrid the genius’, she is Sam’s girlfriend, and most respect her, but, she is strong minded and can fight if she needs to. Another favourite of mine is Sam, he is looked up to and everyone expects him to lead the fays. He is one of the ones who has a special power – he can shoot killer beams of light from his hands, which can burn through metal and strong walls.
      Was it easy to read? This book is quite easy to read once you have begun, you just need to remember the names of people and that’s easy to do. Grant tells everyone’s side of the story, so you may have more than one point of view, which makes the book more interesting. Once you begin, and get into it, you don’t want to put it down.
     Who would I recommend this book to? Well, as this book is very violent and contains many other inappropriate things to younger children; furthermore it is quite gory, gruesome and graphic, I would say at least 11+. Additionally, as this book has equal boy characters to girls, it doesn’t matter what gender you are – it would be enjoyed by both. However I think that the people who enjoy this book most are readers who like sci-fi books (such as: The Hunger Games, ranging to Stephen King admirers). Frighteningly gripping Gone, and the successive novels in the series, will not fail to delight most readers.
Once I had read Gone, I felt as if I had lived through the Fays with the surviving characters. I was pleased with the way it ended, it made you feel satisfied with the book. This book will be enjoyed by all who read it, and all of the 6 books were great, each ending on a cliff hanger – which leads onto the next thrilling book. I found that this book was so well woven together all the way though. Gone by Michael Grant is a book for all!"
(*friends/family/shrink might disagree)

Book Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Reviewed by Hannah Train, age 12, Wood Green School

 

I loved Looking for Alaska for several reasons. Firstly, the general idea of the story. The meaning and fine line between living, loving and dying, and how it affects the people and things around you. Secondly, I also loved the layers of meaning around the main characters life and death (Alaska) and how it affected her friends in college, close or distant. Thirdly, I like that you could interpret the book in different ways from someone else, as it could leave a different message to different people. Such as Alaska’s quote: ‘How will we ever get out of the labyrinth of suffering.’

Looking for Alaska made me feel the pain of losing someone you loved and not knowing what happened and why. You can really feel the pain and confusion when they find out Alaska had died. You can distinguish the personality of the different characters by how they reacted to the news and it really shows how they cope with this loss. The book was generally easy to read, but I would not choose to read a book because the print is too small and I don’t chose books because it’s too hard or easy. But I would say this book is for 12+ as the whole plot is quite mature.

I enjoyed lots of parts of the book, firstly, it really made me think very deeply about living and dying and the mysteries of life. It really made me think how Alaska died, was it an accident or was it suicide? Secondly, it also left me guessing and wondering after the book was finished. Thirdly, some of the things Alaska said were really meaningful and had several layers of meaning behind it. This book will stay with me forever.

Book Review: Shadow by Michael Morpurgo

Review by : Chloe Louise Lewis, age 8, Witney Community Primary School

I am reviewing my favourite book: Shadow. It's written by Michael Morpurgo and illustrated by Christian Birmingham. It’s about a boy called Aman and his mother who escape from Afghanistan and come to England. On their way to England they find a springer spaniel. Aman decides to call her Shadow. She leads them to England. Sadly they got caught by the police and were taken to a detention centre. Aman tells Matt [his best friend] the story of how he and his mother got taken to the detention centre in the first place. Matt and his grandpa and all his other friends and family try to get Aman and his mother out of the detention centre. Unfortunately it started to rain and some of Matt’s family went home. His aunty and uncle aunty Mina and uncle Mir came from London. They travelled all this way and it didn’t work. Matt and his grandpa soon found out that Aman and his mother had left to go to the airport in the early hours of the morning. Then a rainbow came out. Matt felt that he had hope still left in him. The officers behind the gates told Matt, Grandpa and everyone else who was still there to go home that they would never come back again. Then out of nowhere came a black car. To Matt’s surprise Aman and his mother were waving to Matt and his grandpa and all the other friends and family who were there. The car stopped and out stepped a young girl about 9 years old she had shadow on the lead and she helped a tall looking man in an army uniform out of the car. Aman ran over to shadow and flung his arms around her neck.

 

I loved that on every chapter there’s a clear and interesting title that made me want to read on. The book made me feel excited to read the next part to the story. I think that the fun bits were that Shadow lead Aman and his mother to England. It made me feel adventurous and happy. It was easy to read because the words were big and bold and were spaced out so it was clear to see.

Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Review by Ella Shadbolt, 12, Woodgreen School


"I feel like someone breathed new air into my lungs. I am not Abnegation. I am not dauntless. I am Divergent.”

Imagine living in a fractured society, where at only sixteen you are forced to make a choice. A choice that will change your life. Do you leave your family, friends, everyone and everything you love and care about? Or do you stay? And what happens if you don’t fit in?

Veronica Roth’s Divergent, the first novel in the compelling dystopian series, follows Beatrice, better known at Tris, as she is forced to make this decision, always knowing she will never be part of this broken civilisation.

The story follows her as she takes a giant leap to a whole new life in Dauntless- the faction known for bravery. With secrets to hide, mysteries to uncover, and skills to learn, Tris struggles to overcome her fears and enemies. Through this she seeks to discover those she can trust. But can she leave behind the past and battle on through the future…

Divergent is extremely thought-provoking, questioning how can we suppress a young personality in order to try and keep a simple society. The human race is so unique and complicated that everyone is a combination of emotions and talents; debating the right to be different and the hostility that is forced upon the unique.

As you read each page of this marvellous creation, I can guarantee you that everyone will be gripped. Whether you enjoy adventure and action, or prefer a romantic tale, Divergent will grab you with its many cliff hangers.

Divergent is an unforgettable read that will ensure you read the second book 'Insurgent' without pausing for breath in between. So venture into this unfolding world and see where your future lies within the walls of this amazing book...

Winner of the Book Illustration Competition

It was genuinely difficult to decide between the entries as they were all full of creativity and insane talent, but the submission we finally settled on by vote to carry the victory wreath is by Immy Holt, age 12, from Henry Box School, for its playful charm. Congratulations, Immy, and keep up the good work!!

Review: Karyn Langhorne Folan's Survivor Stories (Doomsday Kids # 5)

   

I've reviewed the Doomsday Kids installments previously, still not giving up hope that this fantastic self-published series will receive the due and deserved attention of big publishing houses, just as Howey's Wool, Weir's The Martian and The Rabbit that Wants to Fall Asleep did. 

Amy’s Gift left us hanging cleverly, just giving away enough to know that the Doomsday kids had finally reached the safe haven they had left the Mountain Place for, nearly perishing on the arduous journey there, a near-death Amy rescued mid-birth by no one other than Liam’s mother, and all kids taken to  Survivor City’s hospital to recuperate.

And we all took a collective sigh of relief. Right?

Well, turns out it was too good to be true after all.

Survivors’ Stories, book 5 in the series, starts, it turns out, after considerable time has passed, and the first we meet is not Amaranth or Liam or Nester, but Jax. And it turns out he has not seen his friends for a long time. Slowly, through his, and later, Katie’s and Samir’s eyes (remember him?), it unravels that Survivor City is anything but a picnic. Overcrowded, with not enough food, water, medical aid or even housing for everyone, the supposed haven is a hellhole of starvation and corruption, run by a psychopathic general with social darwinist aspirations in which the weak and ill – all of those not able to contribute –  are cast aside, killed or left to die. A caste-like system controls everyone’s activities and connections, dissidents are being “floated”, former friends kept separated to avoid rebel activity from growing. The nuclear winter may be over, but now another sinister effect of the atomic bombs becomes apparent: with a damaged ozone layer and atmosphere, man is forced to work at night to escape the lethal UV rays and merciless heat.

Before, in the Mountain Place, at least the kids had each other. Now they’ve got no one. Alone in a postnuclear Orwellian nightmare, Jax, Katie and Marty are risking their own lives trying to find each other and their friends. But the brief moments of making contact come at a huge cost.

 I won’t give much more away except that the descriptions of their dismal existence, their attempts to connect, the friendships, loyalties and betrayals they face are heartbreaking, and that the entire time I found myself missing the core gang, of whom you mostly get glimpses and rumours. The horrors inflicted on this little community after they already had to go through so much is gut-wrenching and in some ways a greater horror than “just to die” of nature’s indifferent exposure – their suffering now is a choice of misguided morality and perceived necessity of a twisted man with solid delusions of grandeur.

But there is hope in this tale, and love, intense friendship and sacrifice that makes you plough through the pages, more than likely choking back tears, needing to find out what happens next. And I can guarantee you your heart will be put through the shredder – evidence of Folan’s skill to create wonderful, three-dimensional characters with a depth and warmth you will never forget.

An intensely gripping continuation in the Doomsday Kids series that does not just even for one minute refuse to ease up on being the incredible, cinematic reading experience it is, but also serves as an urgent and topical warning in the current Trident debate. 

Doomsday Kids 3: Amaranth's Return - A Review

With book 3 in the Doomsday Kids series, Folan has truly revved up the tension and the stakes.

I have previously reviewed Book 1 and Book 2, and it's safe to say that I've become absolutely hooked.
In fact, when I, after an agonising wait, got this instalment through, I tore through it in just a few hours. Who needs sleep anyway? This was just a few weeks ago, and already I have read it again. And even though I knew what was going to happen, it still gripped me as much as the first time around.

One thing I absolutely love in this series is how each book focuses on a different character and manages to refine them into multi-faceted beings that live and breathe and love and ache and fight and survive and fail in your head. Not that the other instalments don't characterise them enough, but in this format you really get the whole gist.

This time, the story is told from Amaranth’s point of view, the troubled, rebellious outcast with a dark past – and finally we learn where she came from, the demons she is fighting, her previous history with the other characters, and how it has shaped her into the person she is now, explaining all her erratic and angry behaviour. Yet there is no cliché to her at all.
 

           "Amaranth's Return" has some seriously dark undertones, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, a new level of grit and maturity that will make this book perfect reading for adults as well, showing what humans on the edge of survival can be truly capable of. There is no whitewash, no light version of the post-apocalypse. There were a few times when I had to put the book down and catch my breath. And if I had had any doubts in book 1 whether a postnuclear world had been “adequately” described in terms of how horrific it will be, those doubts are gone. Amaranth and Rod, who has been reduced to a pitiful shadow of his former self by radiation sickness, are on their way to find out if Rod's mother has survived, facing a world which makes their mountain place look like a holiday camp. Outside the bubble of their well-prepped shelter, as inadequate as it may have seemed to them at first, the outer world has well and truly gone down the toilet. Humans have been reduced to feral creatures out of sheer need to survive. Even the more organised groups have lost all their humanity.
It’s an equally  horrific and heartbreaking world, impossible for a reader to abandon or forget. There is cannibalism, a sinister, cultish commune, and a climatic moment of true cosmic horror. But there is also bravery, despite the tensions tightening bonds between – of all people – Wasserman and Amaranth, an old character returning and a new character being introduced. By the end you will quite possibly be bawling, over someone you never thought you'd care so much about.            

           It’s rare that I have been so emotionally involved in something that is (misleadingly) classed as teen fiction. This is quite possibly some of the best self-published fiction I have ever read, along with Hugh Howey’s Silo trilogy and Andy Weir’s The Martian. I have worked as a bookseller and reviewer for years and have seen much less deserving writing receive publishers’ attentions… in fact, I want to slap them silly for not headhunting Karyn Langhorne Folan.

All of it is written in such a fantastic descriptive way that the story unfolds like a film in your head… a film that will leave you quite possibly pumped with adrenaline and your nails bitten to the quick.

And again the story ends with a magnificent cliffhanger that makes you want to scream in frustration that you have to wait for the next instalment.

But at least it's coming. At least it's coming!

Not reading this is NOT an option!

 Lots of booky love,

 

Patty :)

 

Our September Children's Book of the Month: The Maze Runner

When I read The Maze Runner by James Dashner a few years ago, I was gripped, and tearing my hair out that it initially didn't seem to find the recognition it deserved. It was similar with The Hunger Games, but sometimes books just need to come into their own.

Surely Hollywood's garishly blinking arrow has helped draw attention to it, too, with the movie being released soon. It's sad that it perhaps needed the Dystopia Rage kickstarter of The Hunger Games, because it's a terrific book in its own right. But the main thing is, it's being read. Hurrah and huzzah! And because we love it, we made it our Children's Book of the Month.

 

The story starts with young Thomas waking up to a lift door cranking open, and a bunch of kids staring at him. He doesn't know how he got there and what happened to him, but he now finds himself at the centre of a humongous stone maze. In the day, there are exits opening, leading out into the maze, and he soon learns that for a long time the strange kids venture out there, trying to find a way out. One sinister thing is that the maze changes overnight, so any progress made in a day becomes redundant. The other is that they have to be back by sunset, because then the gates close, and anyone trapped outside in the maze will be at the mercy of the Grievers... horrific monsters, half animal, half machine.

As if that wasn't enough to deal with, there are also tensions among the kids, as Thomas finds out soon enough...

 

This is the start of an utterly riveting teen dystopia series that lovers of the Gone series by Michael Grant and The Hunger Games by Susanne Collins will utterly enjoy. Mind, while it is classed as Teen literature, it makes more than a cracking read for any adult fan of the genre, too. Have a peek at the first chapter here. Some find it takes a little while to get going, but just a little persistence will bring much reward and make it nigh impossible to extract it from your hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't miss our Children's Book of the Month for July!

Review: The Rain by Virginia Bergin

There is little as sinister as the very basis of our lives becoming life-threatening to us. Always having watched apocalyptic movies and reading books on the subject, it wasn't even the idea of something toxic that freaked me out so much, it was the idea that something as basic as air and water could make our very own habitat our enemy.

Rain, probably the epitome of nourishment, becoming poison is just too much for my head. Yeah yeah, Hunger Games, Battle Royale... that mankind can be a source of evil doesn't really come as a surprise anymore. But forces of nature that get us off our high horse of evolutionary advancement – I can't help but equally worship and be terrorised by them.

Years ago I wrote an apocalyptic short story about poison rain. And bang, here is a book that deals with that very subject.

The premise is that a meteor trojan-horses a bacterium from outer space into our atmosphere, which, when in contact with water, multiplies like crazy. And it really loves to feast on people.

The story starts with young Ruby being at a party, making out with a guy in a jacuzzi, when rain clouds gather – and a hysterical parent ushers them inside. Not knowing what is happening, her heart throb sneaks back outside to gather his belongings, only to stumble back in, screaming, scratching his face to shreds. And Miss Ruby suddenly, confused and clueless as to what's going on, other than the scraps of news she hears about “staying out of the rain”, finds herself in a world collapsing. She gets a lift home, only to be quarantined by her parents, and watching the neighbour die a horrible death on her doorstep.

And her mundane life of friends, mobile phones and shopping becomes one of thirst, death and survival, where even tap water is the enemy, or anything contaminated with the new poison rain.

Neighbours become enemies fighting like animals over the last bottles of drinkable fluids.

All in all a pretty nail-biting read.

There is just one gripe I have with it.

I hated Ruby. From the start. She is a spoilt, whiny, sullen teenage princess, whose persistent English version of the valley girl talk (“Oh my gawd, my Dad is such a loser!”) totally, ohmygod, drove me up the fricken wall. There is a key scene when her Dad is asking her to pay attention to some life-saving information he wants to pass on, and she just sits there moping about having left her mobile phone at her friend's house. You just want to slap her around! All she seems to worry about is make-up, fashion, boys, even AFTER THE FRICKEN APOCALYPSE. I mean, that's what SHE LOOTS!

I understand the author wanted to perhaps create 'that' character kids can identify with, but if the general teenage populace is really that airheaded and mopey, I don't want to live on this planet anymore! She is a high school bully who complains that the guy trying to save her life is the pimply nerdy guy.

I give her that, she does develop over the course of the story into someone not as annoying, but the improvement is not great. It is hard to love a story – and don't get me wrong, the book itself is amazing! - where the main character is the shallow brat that one can barely stand to be around for five minutes in real life, much less read about in a book for days.

So here's my verdict. It's a fantastic, gripping tale. Well-written in general, but I had to grit my teeth through Princess Mopey's valley talk and make-up sampling, to give the book credit where credit is due. Part of me wants to think I have just outgrown teenage books, but the truth is, I love them! I have enjoyed the Gone series, The Maze Runner series, The Enemy series, all of which managed to give teens some credit for brains and being able to act like someone not as tedious as Ruby. Teenage literature doesn't necessarily need cliché teenage characters to hit the target market. And creating an unlikeable protagonist is bound to backfire. Luckily this book just had enough other good features to redeem itself.

Yours, infectedly,

Patty 

Mockingjay - The First Trailer

If you haven't seen it yet, here it is!! The first trailer for the third Hunger Games movie "Mockingjay Part 1" is out there, and it's fricken EPIC! I can't add much to what has already been written up on wonderful Nerdist Chris Hardwick's (who this bookseller always fancied a wee bit when he hosted MTV's Singled Out waaaay back in the days, but one digresses) website, but I can only confirm. It's not just the trailer for another teen movie. It is subtle. It is suave. It is CREEPY.

Talk about teaser. We'll still have to wait 'til 21 November. Gaaargh!

Ah well. Might as well go and read the book first. 

We haz it. Just saying. :)

May your local bookshop be forever in your favour.

Toodle pip,

Patty :)

Karyn Langhorne Folan's Doomsday Kids and the pros and perils of popular dystopia

Having grown up in the Cold War, I have always had a morbid fascination with anything related to doomsday, but in particular with nuclear holocaust. I’m aware that my reading dystopia now is an obsession born of that fear. It’s been the equivalent of continually prodding a hole in your tooth with your tongue or picking a scab.  Despite it terrifying the living daylights out of me, I couldn't help but returning to the scene of trauma, observing, gathering information, considering possibilities. Maybe in an attempt to rationalise absolute horror or the possibility of not just my own extinction but that of our entire planet. 

         It was a possibility in the 80s, one we got very very close to around ’84, and to this day I can’t decide whether it makes suitable Young Adult fiction. It is too unimaginably awful to be child’s play. Of course, there is the current trend of post-apocalyptic teen fiction, but it’s all set in a fairly far-off dystopia which is safe enough for a young mind to contemplate and play with. Enough interspersed with young romance and heroism that makes those scenarios abstractly symbolic enough to not become gratuitous. But something as real and close to home as nuclear holocaust?

       I have always been in two minds about it. I think kids need to know about certain issues, and shouldn't be left in the dark about them. And we definitely shouldn't talk down to them. But then again, it’s our job to protect them from fear too big to be processed healthily in a young mind, and I think if kids read these kind of books, they need to be talked about with adults and contextualised. It’s not something juvenile cognition can cope with on its own.

       I first read a children’s book about Hiroshima, The Day of the Bomb by Karl Bruckner, the true story of Sadako Sasaki, the girl with the thousand cranes  – ironically a present for International Children’s Day, when I was about 9. Then there was the equally harrowing Raymond Briggs film When the Wind Blows, which some fool had broadcast on a Saturday afternoon, during a children’s matinee. All this in a time where talk of nuclear threat was on the news on a daily basis. Altogether, for me it was a bit much – it gave me nightmares.

      Then, when I was 11, there was a terrifying book called The Last Children by renowned German author Gudrun Pausewang, dealing with an atomic attack on central Germany and the effect on and pitiful demise of a family. It was syllabus material then, and no doubt valuable in a time when every ounce of peace movement was needed. But it’s still one of the most horrific books I have read on the subject. It had everything. Graphic descriptions of a scorched earth. Horrible mutilations. Radiation sickness. The disintegration of civilised society. Deformed newborns. And one particularly powerful scene of a teenage boy whose legs had been torn off by the blast and who only got around by means of a rickety, soiled pram, hanging himself off a tree by a wall on which he had written “Damned parents”: The parents who had stood by and done nothing to stop the nuclear arms race. It was meant to be a cautionary tale, and, justified, Pausewang didn’t hold back.

       The more astounded I was recently when I saw that Louise Lawrence’s Children of the Dust is classed as 9-12. While it is by far not as bleak as Pausewang, and actually has an ending of hope,the first half is still pretty full-on. I have recommended it to parents, but with a word of warning - I don't think it should nor is meant to be read "alone".

       Still, as a grown-up, I can’t help myself but read everything on the subject I can get my hands on. Thus it was inevitable that I picked up Doomsday Kids. And here’s the verdict:

It is doubtlessly well-written. I love the characters, who are mildly cliched (there’s a jock and a princess and a weird girl and the loner type, but then, teenagers tend to fit themselves into one category or another for a sense of belonging, so I think those “classifications” work), but the variety of them makes for some tense, conflict-ridden reading. Imagine those different types locked into a small shelter, having to get along, because the only alternative is a bombed out, radioactive world outside. I like that different ethnic groups and disability were represented (the little sister has Down’s Syndrome): you ended up getting a good cross-section of the population. And none of these characters were static: each one of them grows and develops and becomes deeper and more rounded with every page. None of them end up being fully good or fully evil, no one having a moral high ground. They’re kids suddenly confronted with the end of the world, having to survive without their parents, where they suddenly can no longer trust even those they thought to know well, and adults become a threat more than a source of protection and help. They are kids who have to deal with sickness, injury, hunger, emotional distress. They make good and bad decisions. They are fallible and vulnerable. They’re kids.

The story is carried and paced well, suspense is kept up throughout. It ends on a cliffhanger that made me scream “What? You can’t stop now, man! WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN?” – so in that respect it has done a great job of storytelling. And yes, I am excited that there will be sequels.

      It’s a fairly harrowing tale – again not as extreme as Pausewang, but still pretty gruesome. I can’t decide whether I liked or disliked how amazingly those kids had it together, all circumstances considered. But would a young mind be calmer because it couldn't grasp the true horror...or would it collapse for the same reason? Again, that would probably vary from person to person, but that mental struggle didn't come across as strongly as it could have. Also, I couldn't help but think that the threat of radiation sickness was somewhat underplayed. The actual scope of what nuclear war means is missing, reducing it to the playful horror of a computer game. Maybe it’s intentionally played down in order to protect the young reader, and maybe it's still coming in one of the sequels, but inevitably I worry that it creates a “meh” attitude towards the subject matter. What bothers me is that it seems to treat nuclear war more as a form of entertainment in the wake of the current YA Dystopia trend. 

        The question raised for me again is: Is softening young adult post-apocalyptic literature (especially using scenarios that pose or have posed a real threat) irresponsible? Or should young adults be protected from these subjects by giving them a “light” version? I’m in two minds about it, always aware of the fears I lived with as a child, but now, at the same time, glad I wasn’t patronised by a sugar-coated apocalypse.

I have grown up with these type of books being treated as a warning, being politicised, being catalysts of public debate. I think if we’re dealing with true threats, they shouldn't be used as a mere source of entertainment.

Because, maybe  - MAYBE   -  we’re meant to be scared to death of some things.

Traumatisedly yours,

Patty