I read it really quickly on Saturday afternoon. I enjoyed it! Didn’t think I would at all. Felt quite ‘light’ – not a great literary work but touching story line which touched on a number of fairly deep human emotions.

Did you enjoy it? Why/why not?……! How quickly did you read it? Why? What questions were raised by the author? (either that kept you reading in order to find the answer OR bigger questions of life) Issues? Themes?
What was it about? Can we summarise it in a matter of sentences?
Story line – Convincing? Touching? Would the children identify with any part of it?
Which characters did you like/not? Well drawn? How?

Themes and Issues Raised

Family relationships, adoption, loyalty, loss, loneliness, friendship, disability.

Concurrent story lines

Saffy – feelings of separation, search for belonging, search for the angel. Will she find the angel? Will she ever feel accepted?
Caddy and Michael – will she pass her driving test? Will their relationship develop?
Window into family life – Will the father come home? Will Indigo conquer his fear of heights?

Enjoy it? Why?

Gripping story line? – want to have the questions the author leaves us with, answered?
Children taking risks, adventure (Saffy and Sarah’s plan) threading through.
Empathise with Saffy? – taps into human nature – search for belonging.
Intrigued by eccentric family set-up – absent father (and mother?), children fending for themselves much of the time, fierce loyalty among the children.
Humour.

Composition

Weaves the stories together – pace.
Page 10 – Saffy finds out she’s adopted. ‘the problem’ of the book. The introduction of the angel on p.45 provides the momentum for the rest of the book.

Style

Lots of dialogue and action.
Less passages of description (house on p.17).

Application in the classroom

Class novel? Quite girly but is it? – if you can get past the pink cover!
Could use it as a class text in year 5 or 6 – narrative unit.
Could read it as a class novel then use it as a context for non-fiction writing – debate, letter writing etc.

• Character work – hotseating (either one character or a panel, at key moments), diary writing at different points of the book (Saffy, or Saffy and Sarah after an argument to get two sides of one situation), exploring feelings – and putting language to this.
• The dialogue is used to move the story on, develop character and to create humour (eg p123/4 – driving episode), very effectively. Could look at a particular passage and consider how this is done. Also, the words for ‘said' and accompanying adverbs could be considered, together with some drama, to assess the impact on meaning, success (or not) of authorial choice. Could pick another event in the story and write their own passage of dialogue in a similar style.
• Letters – e.g thank you letter from Saffy to her dead granddad thanking him for the statue and … retelling the story of how she got it, together with the roller coaster of emotions she felt. So much room for developing thinking, reasoning, prediction. Also, organising of ideas into a logical sequence of paragraphs, developing ideas within paragraphs etc
• Could consider what might happen next and plan/write/write part of the sequel. Could focus on a number of story development, pace, character development, varying sentence structure for effect, word choice, dialogue etc. Next book comes out in December!