Misfits

Many teachers will welcome the paperback edition of this collection of short stories - my hardback version has been a component of GCSE Wider Reading for some time. The eight stories in the collection are all about outsiders or people who do not readily fit into society's often rigid categories. I particularly enjoyed the contributions from Penelope Lively, Jane Gardam, Emma Smith and Frances Thomas but found the rest of the collection rather uneven. The title of the John Wain story 'Jack, Vince, Jo-Ann and the Raving Revvers' dates it somewhat but its message is still relevant today. The stories are wide-ranging, dealing with the theme in an imaginative way and the book is a useful one for fourth and fifth-year - perhaps even brighter third-year pupils.