Falling Into Glory

Post-war Tyneside where 17-year-old Robbie is enjoying a growing sense of being intellectually, as well as physically, strong: he's madly keen on playing rugby and he's studying for his A-levels. Hearty adolescence is the ground soil out of which Westall writes a moving love story about Robbie and Emma, a teacher almost twice his age. The book mixes gawkish masculinity with a sensitive and tender depiction of a love- affair which moves in delicate stages from the idealism of infatuation to the physical realities of commitment. The mixture is both in Robbie and Westall, too. It's a dramatic, powerful and often surprisingly tender story which many older KS4 pupils could enjoy.