Reviewed by Dianne Bates
Robert Newton came to public
attention when he won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for his children’s
novel When we Were Two. This is his
eighth book for children.
The prologue of this latest novel for readers aged 10 to 13 years ends with the words, ‘…on the cold September I
turned thirteen and met the Creeper everything changed.’ Someone throws a Jack
Russell belonging to Creeper off the top of the commission tower where Lexie
lives which puts things into motion. Life is indeed bleak for Lexie whose
single mother is a heroin addict and there are bullies in her high rise grey
apartment block.
Lexie and her bung-eyed friend Davey
befriend the Creeper, an elderly isolated Russian named Sergei Romanov. After
cleaning his grotty apartment, they help him establish a garden on the tower
top (Mr Romanov’s garden). Lexie’s life dream is to go to Surfers’ Paradise
which her deceased father used to talk about. Eventually this happens, but much
more does, too.
There are many dramatic and
unpredictable moments in this novel with a few laugh-aloud scenes as well. It’s
fast-paced and the three main characters are vividly depicted as are some
secondary characters such as the Indian grocer Ramesh. Being alone so often,
Lexie has created an imaginary friend, Miranda, who is pasted on her fridge and
to whom she speaks quite often. This didn’t ring true for this reader.
Sometimes, too, especially at the beginning of the book, there’s a lot of bleakness and
unsavouriness: the grey surroundings of the tower, a woman fries a placenta and
then eats it, Mr Romanov carries away the dead dog’s mushy remains and Lexie fishes
for its collar in the rest of the remains.
Eventually, after an exciting
trip towards Surfers’ Paradise with Davey and Mr Romanov with lots of twists
and turns, there’s an unexpected change in travel plans. This section involving
a police officer didn’t seem feasible to me, and the tail end of the book seemed rushed, but there’s no doubt many young readers will enjoy this mostly well
written book.
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