The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare by Zillah Bethell

Book of the Week: 10 June 2018

When steak from the vending machine costs £80,000, a bag of King Edward potatoes at £5,000 seems like a bargain. Auden and his mum are shopping in Cambridge and, as you might guess from the price list, the world is different from our own. This is a future Britain where it hardly ever rains and countries have gone to war over water. Food prices have soared and water is rationed. The immediate problem facing Auden and his mum is that they have moved across the country to Unicorn Cottage which has been left to them by his uncle, Jonah Bloom. Auden’s mum says the cottage is untidy because Jonah was an eccentric inventor who had no time for tidiness, but Auden thinks someone has broken in and has been looking for something. When he makes friends with his allocated ‘New School Buddy’, Vivi Rookmini, who lives with her mother in rooms in a Cambridge college, they find an extraordinary invention in Uncle Jonah’s shed and Auden thinks his uncle has been working on a cure for Auden’s inability to see colour. This is exciting enough for Auden, but what happens next turns out to be a lot more important and will affect the future of everyone on the planet.

I also read My Messed-Up Life by Susin Nielsen this week, about Violet who thinks the answer to her single mum’s problems would be to date George Clooney. It is a fun read but I think practically all her books have featured as Book of the Week over the years, so it only gets a mention rather than a headline.