The House in Hawthorn Road

Beth is angry and lonely; the family have had to leave London to live in Dublin after the death of their Gran. It is not as if it is even a nice house – and the back wall has to be knocked down to make the kitchen bigger. She has no friends and a new school to contend with. It is the last straw when a strange boy invades the home causing mayhem – and disappears. Who is he? Where has he gone? The answers to these questions draw Beth into the strangest situation imaginable…

Megan Wynne is no stranger to writing but this is her debut novel for a young readership. She takes her readers on an intriguing time-slip adventure as Beth and Robbie move between the decades that separate them; nor is it just the children, the adults find themselves involved. A bold move that is handled confidently ensuring the reader is drawn into the fiction. The characters are lively and believable and the time differences interesting. We move between the ‘50s and the 2000s; so close and yet so different – and a subtle lesson in recent history. The narrative is further strengthened by the author’s use of multiple viewpoints which include the adults as well as the children. The whole is told in a direct unpretentious contemporary style that avoids long descriptive passages relying on dialogue to create immediacy, character and background. The result is an enjoyable and engaging novel that may be recommended to confident KS2 readers. We must look forward to more from this author.