Pig City

Louis Sachar’s latest is another school dilemma that grows out of control. As such, it has a capacity to grab anyone who’s ever been afraid of embarrassment, been left out or fallen in love! Laura’s ‘Pig City’ gang grows by extracting insurance from new members, in the form of something so embarrassing they would never want it revealed. As these embarrassments in waiting are gathered, we gain an unnerving sense that the whole plot will, at some point, career out of control. When it does, the result combines a gripping read with a genuine and heart-warming drama.

As with his other school stories, Sachar manages to take up the rights and wrongs of how kids treat each other without becoming preachy. He also really understands the complexity of children’s interactions. No-one is so good or so bad we can’t believe in them. These kids are real.