Middle of the Sandwich

"I feel sometimes like I’m the only person in the world who’s read this book. It’s tiny. I think it’s hundred pages. It’s about a girl from a single parent family. She is quite shy, used to keeping her own company and not doing much. Her mother has to convalesce after a major operation. Her mum needs to recover. So she, Helen, is sent to live with her aunt. The aunt is a practical, no-nonsense, beloved primary school teacher. She has her life all set up and now she must accommodate this child. But the girl is just miserable. The new school she must attend is tiny – only about 40 kids – so it is even harder to integrate than if it had been a larger school. “You can’t really be an outsider in a city in the same way as you can where nothing has changed much in remembered history… As someone coming into a city, you are part of its change, its dynamism.” It’s a weird no-man’s land to her and she is isolated. Her mum is sick and we learn that her father died some time ago. The aunt is both sympathetic and terrifying at the same time. She’s just sort of practical and bossy. She is doing her best. But she can’t quite reach the girl. The story is about what Helen learns about herself as much as about everything else, which I think is important. I must have read this when I was quite new in secondary school when so much was changing for me. I think when you move somewhere new there are all the hidden codes that you don’t know or understand. All the way through, you really feel for her because she’s trying really hard and doesn’t quite know how to do it. It is an unexpectedly funny book and very positive in many ways."