Synopsis: Daisy is sent from New York to England to spend a summer with cousins she has never met. They are Isaac, Edmond, Osbert and Piper. And two dogs and a goat. She's never met anyone quite like them before - and, as a dreamy English summer progresses, Daisy finds herself caught in a timeless bubble. It seems like the perfect summer. But their lives are about to explode. Falling in love is just the start of it. War breaks out - a war none of them understands, or really cares about, until it lands on their doorstep. The family is separated. The perfect summer is blown apart. Daisy's life is changed forever - and the world is too.

Review: Meg Rosoff divides her first person narrative into two: Part 1 is 156 pages, Part 2 is 30. This dramatically reflects the progress of the story, which slowly builds an idyllic picture of the summer in which Elizabeth (she prefers Daisy, because she feels it better reflects her plain existence) is sent to England to visit her cousins. Daisy is being evacuated from some future threat of war in the US which readers will immediately identify with a 9/11 type situation, but the threat eventually becomes reality in Britain, and Daisy and her cousins' idyll ends abruptly, as they eventually become refugees, split up, flee from the invading forces and witness terrible events.

In the early pages of the novel Rosoff seemlessly introduces two distinctly twentyfirst century adolescents (Daisy denying her eating disorder, Edmond the prematurely responsible oldest of a family, parentless because their mother is a highflying political negotiator) into an ageless evocation of eternal summer, in which they discover and secretly consummate their love. This dissolves as anarchy grips the country, and Daisy takes responsibility for the survival of Piper, a younger cousin, and by so doing, saves herself from the physical and psychological repercussions of her anorexia.

 We hear nothing of Edmond's experience until Part 2, five years later, in which Daisy, who had been sent back to the US to recover without knowing if Edmond had survived, returns to find him withdrawn and electively mute, assuming that she has rejected him. The 30 pages of this part powerfully relate their tortured reunion, and Daisy's knowledge that this slow process of healing will evermore be how she lives now.

This is a significant first novel whose resonance to Key Stage 3 and older readers lies in diverse areas of which the causes of eating disorders, the abdication (and assuming) of parental responsibility, the effect of war upon self, society and relationships are only the more obvious. Not to be missed.

Branford Boase 2005 Winner

Guardian Fiction  Prize 2004 Winner

2006-11-30