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Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead (view source)
Revision as of 06:14, 25 September 2012
, 06:14, 25 September 2012no edit summary
This is not the usual 'I'm a loser and everybody hates me' sort of story, in which life is an unmitigated disaster for the whiny young protagonist (and in which, frankly, you sometimes find yourself sympathising with his enemies). Georges is a bright, endearing boy with an enquiring mind and a willingness to accept a certain amount of absurdity in his life. He is fairly shy at school but relates well to adults, and despite the essential weirdness of Safer, the leader of the Spy Club, he is quite willing to make friends. He is also, just as importantly, strong enough to say no when things go too far.
This is a book about lying, about a world where few things are what they seem to be on the surface. And it's also about courage—various courage — various people find, during the course of this book, that they have no choice but to face their fears. There is spying—quite spying — quite a lot of it, in fact—but fac t— but few life-threatening escapades or mortal danger. This is not spying as Anthony Horowitz or Andrew Hammond might portray it: the book has a lighter, more muted tone, where the everyday is important but not heart-stoppingly scary or even melodramatic.
The story is seen from the point of view of Georges, but several other characters have quite large parts to play. And for once, in a book for young people, they're not all the same age as the protagonist. Georges loves both his parents very much, and is clearly loved by them; the PE teacher Ms Warner and the Bennie the Egyptian shop owner add humour and warmth to the story, and sweet-toothed Candy, aka Safer's younger sister, is a strong, sturdy and likeable character in her own right.