The Ant Colony

Expertly plotted and continually gripping, it is hard to remember that this is only Jenny Valentine’s third novel. Its theme is running away, no longer a subject holding out any promise of romance or fulfilment in contemporary children’s fiction. Half told by teenage Sam, escaping from a terrible event in his recent past, the rest of the narrative is taken over by sparky, ten-year-old Bohemia, better known as Bo. She is the miraculously nice daughter of a mother deeply into substance abuse of every kind. There are moments when this badly neglected child sounds more like Pollyanna than would seem likely in the circumstances, but the author always manages to row back just when sentimentality starts to threaten. Yes, it all ends well for everyone concerned, who in this case amount to all the other various lodgers living with Sam and Bo in a run-down house in London’s Camden Town. They too end up almost unbelievably positive, but this is a feel-good story, lacking some of the hard punches found in Valentine’s wonderful Finding Violet Park but still an excellent as well as heartening read for all that.