Straw Fire

Children and their parents, especially sons and fathers, seem to be central. Angela Hassall handles Kevin's sense of let-down quite well when his estranged dad sends a message that a much longed-for holiday is off. There's realism too in the spiteful vacillations of Kev's erstwhile buddy Samantha, now a deceitful moody 13-year-old minx. I'm not sure that the author develops fully enough though the breakdown in relationship between Mark Smedley and his father, who is Kev's teacher, which presumably contributes wholly to Mark's devastating pyromania. This is a quite low-key tale really, probably best suited to thoughtful early-secondary readers.