Synopsis: When Rob, ‘no one calls me Robin and gets away with it’, adopts a stray Jackdaw from his local dump he is quick to scoff at his friend’s warning of ‘the Jackdaw jinx’. But, when the Jackdaw’s arrival coincides with a spate of burglaries and a near fatal accident, Rob has to face up to the fact that his feathered friend creates more than one messy problem for him to clean up.

Review: The Jackdaw Jinx by Kathy Ashford introduces the reader to a lively lad called Robin. As well as preferring to be called Rob, this is a boy who is happy to play amongst other people’s rubbish on a dump which is under threat. Whilst his supportive Mum campaigns against the closure of the dump, Rob adopts a jackdaw he finds there and who appears to want to be a part of his family.

 Rob’s best friend, who is called Mole, (the story explains this) is a well informed girl who warns Rob that jackdaws are jinxed and that his feathered friend, now named Joe, is likely to cause problems, possibly fatal ones.

Initially the problems Joe causes are those one might expect to be associated with the tricky business of keeping a wild bird in a home environment. These problems create amusing episodes, although the plot thickens when the children discover that most of their neighbourhood has been burgled and numerous bright and shiny articles have mysteriously disappeared.

Additional characters include Mrs. Bunion, a particularly un-neighbourly neighbour, and a policeman who, much to the disappointment of Rob, in no way resembles an officer from his favourite programme, ‘The Bill’.

When the children start to play detective, Mole is put in great danger and the tension mounts. In the end Joe’s love of shiny things leads him to discover pieces of emerald glass which prove ancient and valuable and consequently save the dump. Kathy Ashford keeps the plot galloping along and includes plenty of slapstick humour and up to date references for young readers to relate to. The friendship between Rob and Mole guarantees the book’s appeal to both genders and the illustrations from Satoshi Kitamura compliment the text well.

This is a lively read for young independent readers and one that might work well as a guided reading text and lead to some thought provoking drama.

2006-10-02