When Our Worlds Collided

Three young people’s lives are changed when they witness the fatal stabbing of a teenager in a Manchester shopping centre. They are all black, as is the victim of the murder, and two of them recognise him from school; otherwise, they are very different. Jackson comes from a middle-class family and goes to a private school; Marc is a boy in care who has been passed from foster carer to foster carer; and Chantelle is a girl always in trouble at school, who lives with her gran and her sister, has never known her dad and isn’t in contact with her mum. As I have described them, you may feel that you know them already and what kind of novel this might be. But part of the import of Danielle Jawanda’s story is that such assumptions can be misleading and damaging. A constant theme in the book is the misreading of people and situations because of race, particularly in the treatment of young black people by the police and the media, but there is more here. Each of the three protagonists is an individual with their own way of looking at the world. Each tells their own story in their own voice and, while they gradually form a bond, they also misread each other and misunderstand what they themselves want and need. The point is made right at the start that these are young people with heart and courage; after all, they are the only people who stop to offer help to the dying Shaq. Then, understandably, they feel powerless to offer any real help. But in their subsequent story, despite the problems and prejudice they face, there is hope, as they gradually begin to understand what they can do to make an everyday difference, for themselves and for other people.