Something Invisible

Something Invisible is Siobhan Parkinson's second book for Puffin and what a well-produced book it is. Excellent paper that increases the pleasure of the reader and a great eye-catching cover by Photolibrary.com.

Something Invisible is Siobhan Parkinson's second book for Puffin and what a well-produced book it is. Excellent paper that increases the pleasure of the reader and a great eye-catching cover by Photolibrary.com.

The story itself returns to territory where Parkinson is so at home and about which she writes so convincingly and engagingly; the territory of relationships between young people. In this new book the main protagonist is Jake, aged eleven, who has been abandoned in infancy by his father who didn't like babies. His mother has since then found another partner, whom Jake thinks of as his dad, as distinct from his run-away father.

Everything is fine until his mum has a baby girl named Daisy. Then the pre-adolescent turmoil in Jake's mind really starts to boil and bubble and is further increased by the entry into his life of Stella, a girl of his own age, and her family of siblings.

Add to this an aged neighbour, Mrs Kennedy, with her own particular take on life, and we have a truly intriguing interplay of characters with fish – living and dead, in tanks, in paintings and in rivers – adding to and almost becoming a metaphor for Jake's future. But don't let the word "metaphor" put you off. The book is firmly based in reality, as it evolves to what seems like an inevitable conclusion.

Something Invisible By Siobhan Parkinson from Puffin Books €6.99 Age:10 plus

Tony Hickey