Away with Words

This is a book about words, their importance and their power, for good or ill. Gala and her father have moved from Spain to Scotland to live with her dad’s boyfriend. The contrast between Fortrose and Cadaqués couldn’t be bigger and Gala misses everything about her old home. She can speak both Spanish and Catalan but not much English so school is difficult; reported speech, her conversations with her fellow pupils and teachers and with her dad’s boyfriend Ryan, are interspersed with wavy lines, a clever way to illustrate what it’s like for her. Gala notices another girl who seems ever quieter than she is. Natalie is silent, a target for the school bullies, but Gala is intrigued to see her collecting others’ words as they fall from their lips; in the world of the story, you can see, pick up and preserve spoken words.

As a friendship develops between the girls, we learn that Natalie, selectively mute at school, uses the words she collects to make poems. Soon the two are creating poems together to leave, anonymously, for those they see needing help, reassurance or kindness. All is well, until someone at school starts using words to the opposite effect, to be cruel.

At the centre of the story is Gala’s gradual acceptance of her father’s decision and her growing happiness in her new home, but most unusual is that representation of words as physical things, tangible tools to change the world we share. Cameron’s decision to give them physical form is startling and powerful, though equally thought-provoking are Natalie’s selective mutism and Gala’s initial wavy line filled understanding of her new community.

Hayley Long’s Costa Book Award shortlisted Sophie Someone plays with language to similar intriguiging and memorable effect.