Eggs

This compact, funny and often moving novel is the story of an unlikely friendship. David, aged nine, is motherless. A freak accident killed his mother: she slipped and fell because someone broke a safety rule and failed to post a warning about wet floors. Trapped in a private world of bereavement, David now compulsively obeys all rules (with the exception of obedience to the loving grandmother who now cares for him) believing that if he sticks to enough rules for enough time his mother will one day come back. Primrose, who is 13, is also motherless in her way, being the daughter of a scatty fortune-teller from whom Primrose is so alienated that she has set up an independent household in an antiquated van. They meet first in a wood, where David, seeking refuge from an Easter egg hunt, finds Primrose under a pile of leaves pretending to be a corpse. When they meet again under scarcely less unorthodox circumstances, they strike up a tempestuous friendship which helps the emotional needs of each of them until, at the end, life re-starts properly for both.

They are eccentric children, as will be clear, and their escapades are often very funny. But they are eccentric for good, explicable reasons, and the novel is written with warmth, sympathy (not only for the kids, but adults like Nana who care for them) and much psychological insight. Spinelli’s gift is to show both the world as the children see it, and the children as the world sees them. Readers across David’s and Primrose’s age-group will laugh a lot and learn a lot from the poignant comedy of this excellent story.