The Spectacle Salesman's Family

Viola Roggenkamp

What a warm book! Don't be put off by the sepia cover - this is a book full of colour and life despite the traumatic events of the parents' and grandmother's life. It is another novel of growing up but it's so fresh and beautifully written.

Extract

The wooden floor is cold; the air outside is gentle and a different colour from how it was in March, in March it was cold as ashes, this year April is as warm as May normally is, and I've been allowed to wear knee-socks for the last couple of days ... my mother opens the patio door, and the room is immediately filled with birdsong. They burst in with their news; they've been piling it up against our barricaded door since the early hours of the morning.

Parallels