Families - and how to survive their many shapes and sizes, quirks, foibles and baggage - are the subject of a new fiction series for top primary readers and above in which children grapple with the swings and roundabouts of their decidedly non-nuclear set-ups.
Ann Bryant’s Step-Chain stories present a network of young people linked by their parents’ separations, divorces and new partnerships. With her soap-addicted audience in mind, Bryant has created a community absorbed by everyday family situations.
One Mum Too Many, You Can’t Fancy Your Step-Sister and She’s No Angel (Egmont Books pound;3.99 each) are funny and fast-moving with plenty of dialogue. Characters are well observed and credible and children’s feelings about parents splitting up, and their attitudes towards new partners and step-siblings are given sensitive and positive treatment.
Although Bryant presents the difficulties faced by split families head-on through a series of dramas - for example, when a spiteful and spoilt little step- sister wrecks a prize cello before that big concert - the under lying mood is upbeat.
In Karen McCombie’s Ally’s World series for the same age range, Ally’s mum has had a mid-life crisis and left the family. There’s plenty of boyfriend trouble, stressful friendship dynamics and worries that Dad might find a new partner in Mum’s absence. Dates, Double Dates and Big, Big Trouble and The Past, the Present and the Loud, Loud Girl (Scholastic pound;3.99 each) are full of witty detail and proceed at a cracking pace.
Pete Johnson’s handling of separation in Rescuing Dad (Corgi Yearling pound;4.99) combines humour with a little more grit. The bitterness that can arise between partners, the ensuing lack of communication and the hurt this can cause to children are graphically expressed. However, the comic lengths that Joe and his sister Claire go to in their attempts to get their parents back together make this an entertaining read.
Jeremy Strong is on top form with his latest novel for readers from Year 4 and above, My Mum’s Going to Explode (Puffin pound;3.99), the tale of a family which has to cope with a belated baby - or two - on the way. Strong is a master of comic detail. I enjoyed the deaf gran who always gets the wrong end of the stick and her Hell’s Angel partner Launcelot. This story whizzes along and leaves a warm, jolly afterglow.
