Frozen Out

Novelists who effectively tackle the 'Ulster troubles' theme in their writing for children succeed in combining insights into the everyday business of growing up with a sympathetic understanding of the special circumstances affecting the young in Northern Ireland. GŽbler's attempt to do this, in a story which sees ten-year-old Phoebe and her family move from Kensington to Co. Fermanagh, concentrates on Phoebe's growing understanding of the nature of friendship and of the way it can be shaken by betrayal. On this level the novel works reasonably well most of the time and there are many shrewd (and often humorous) insights into pre-teenage dreams and disillusionments. But its appeal is diminished by a cast of totally unconvincing adult characters and, even more, by dialogue which never catches the idiosyncratic spirit of its setting. The place may indeed, as Phoebe's father comments, be 'stuck in a timewarp circa nineteen fifty': but its complexities are greater than GŽbler allows.