The World Turned Upside Down by Leila Rasheed
| The World Turned Upside Down by Leila Rasheed | |
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| Category: Teens | |
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Reviewer: Luci Davin
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| Summary: 17th and 21st century teenagers are caught up in the conflicts of their day. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 130 | Date: April 2010 |
| Publisher: Stratford-upon-Avon Literary Festival Ltd | |
| ISBN: 978-0956506405 | |
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Stratford upon Avon 1642 – The English Civil War has come to the town. Mary is a young Catholic at a time when her religion was regarded with deep suspicion. She is drawn to Jack, even though he is a Roundhead soldier with no money, land or status, and he is from an inferior background to her.
2042: Camilla has been set a school project, to research the English Civil War, and to do so with the help of an outsider, a refugee from flood-hit East Anglia, Darren. Part of the project is to look at some old printed books in the library, a novelty to Camilla who is used to finding out all she needs to know online on her Me-chine. What are these dusty, heavy objects? She becomes friends with Darren, but he has some dangerous, subversive views on the environment. He is the son of a Green activist, and he shares his dad’s views. The country is in a Situation, with riots and the authorities willing to use force to subdue any dissent. Camilla’s mother is struggling to hold on to her much-needed job as a teacher of online courses.
Leila Rasheed has written other children’s books but this one was specially commissioned by the Stratford Literary Festival. It’s a short book, and the narrative shifts between Jack and Mary telling their own stories, and Camilla’s chapters in the third person. There is quite a bit of detail to get straight, but it is a really interesting story, with parallels between the past and a rather scary near future. There is a hint that friendships may develop into possible romance, but the young characters in both the 17th and the 21st centuries are taken up with other things most of the time, and Rasheed resists letting the romance get in the way of the story.
I found the depiction of 2042 particularly interesting and alarming, with the portrait of environmental catastrophe and repressive politics well on the way.
The cover was designed by a local art student in Stratford, and shows a young couple holding hands with two groups of armed men behind them, the 17th century fighters on horseback with bows and arrows, and the 21st century ones in combat gear with guns. It’s an eyecatching cover which sums up the themes of the book better than the covers of so many books do – it is a real shame that it’s not easier to find a picture of the book online.
Thank you to the publisher for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
Another young adult novel about a near future authoritarian society is The Last Free Cat by Jon Blake.
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