The Sound of Propellers
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Cover Story
The illustrations on our cover are taken from Starting School by Janet and Allan Ahlberg, published by Viking Kestrel (0 670 81688 4, £6.95). We are grateful to Viking Kestrel for help in using these illustrations.
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The Sound of Propellers
This is a superbly well constructed tale of espionage and intrigue, mixed within a captivating scenario of thirties Britain, seen through the eyes of a child. Murugan has just arrived at boarding school in England from India, and naturally finds life rather complicated. Is it a place where the children sleep on boards? What is a dormitory? A kind of camel? Somehow, while making Murugan's character believable, indicating the latent or blatant racism of the time, King still manages to keep the plot ticking over. His Stig of the Dump became a classic; I wonder ...