India Smythe Stands Up

India Smythe Stands Up by Sarah Govett

Book of the Week: 13 October 2019

Illustration by Nina Duckworth

India Smythe should be introduced to Sam from The Gifted, the Talented and Me by William Sutcliffe – I’m sure they’d have a lot to talk about. Sam’s family became rich, forcing him to mix with ‘the gifted and talented’ and India sounds posh thanks to her Grandad changing the family name from Smith to Smythe. Thankfully, they are both ordinary teenagers coping with things that plague most young people – cool, good-looking kids who make everyone feel inadequate, teachers who they class as either supportive or pitiful (India thinks their deputy head is ‘massively old and deaf’ which is probably code for ‘over 40’) and parents who are embarrassing in the way that only parents know how.

India has been invited by the cool crowd to join them at ‘the Fence’, one of those romantic chain-link kind, that separates the girls’ school from St Joseph’s, the neighbouring boys’ school. Here she meets Ennis, who is prone to dim comments and winking, but who is considered so hot that she feels she must date him. Can she resist the forces of geekery, represented by her practical friend Anna who dresses as if she is going hiking and is consumed by ‘the political intrigue of orchestra practice’, or will she join the cool crowd?

Although we may well guess the answer to that question, it doesn’t stop us identifying and having sympathy with India and enjoying the laughs along the way.

This addition to the recent crop of great funny books is rendering my reading list out of date. Check out How to Rob a Bank by Tom Mitchell and Pay Attention Carter Jones by Gary D. Schmidt.

Slade House

Slade House by David Mitchell

Book of the Week: 6 October 2019

Illustrations by Neal Murren

October is a month when temperatures drop and the clocks go back and our thoughts might turn to reading something chilling whilst sat by a warm radiator. This month’s book is an adult book for older readers – the disturbingly creepy Slade House by David Mitchell.

It’s 1979 and thirteen year old Nathan Bishop and his mother are headed to Slade House to attend Lady Norah Grayer’s musical soirĂ©e. Whilst his mother plays music with the adults, Nathan meets Jonah, Lady Grayer’s son, and they play a chasing game around the outside of the house. Nathan sometimes notices a shimmering effect in the air around him and sees that the small, black door through which they entered the garden of the house, is looking faint and dim. Jonah invites him upstairs where they pass several portraits and an old, grandfather clock. He draws level with the final portrait and sees it is a painting of himself but with black holes where his eyes should be. What is going on in Slade House? We and Nathan very shortly discover to our horror.

The story then skips ahead to 1988 where a police officer is investigating the cold case of the disappearance of Nathan and Rita Bishop in 1979. This sets the pattern for a regular change of narrators, but without losing any of nail-biting tension or sympathy with the characters, even when some of them are less than likeable.

The book manages to be unsettling, cleverly-constructed and funny all at the same time. If you enjoy it, try The Bone Clocks by the same author.

Note that Slade House is a book with adult content, strong language and disturbing scenes.

If you enjoy the feeling of the hairs standing up on the back of your neck, there are two current displays you could choose from in the Library.

SHIVER! classics and modern literary fiction

HANUTED! Creepy stories in the fiction section