My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece, Annabel Pitcher (audiobook)

Five years ago, Jamie’s sister Rose was killed in a terrorist attack in London. He doesn’t really remember Rose, because he was only five at the time, but his family has never recovered. His mum left just a few weeks ago after having an affair with Nigel from the support group. Jamie’s dad drinks all the time and hates all Muslims. Rose’s twin sister Jas – now fifteen – has dyed her hair pink and got her nose pierced, an act seen as a betrayal by their parents, because she doesn’t look like Rose any more. It’s like Jas and Jamie are less visible than the urn on the mantlepiece, less present than the hole where Rose ought to be, the gap around which their whole family revolves.

After Mum’s desertion, Dad, Jas and Jamie move to a small village in the Lake District to start a new life. At his new school, Jamie doesn’t fit in. His teacher always seems to ask the very questions he can’t answer, and is frustrated by his reticence and apparent stupidity. The other kids call him “freak,” with the exception of sparky, mischievous Sunya, who recognises in him a kindred spirit, a fellow super-hero. But Jamie dreads to think how his father would react to his friendship with a Muslim girl, when he blames all Muslims for Rose’s death.

Jamie is a bright, unusual child with a vivid imagination. His narration is full of bright similes and metaphors which fit perfectly:

“I was more nervous than the most nervous person I could think of, which right now is the lion from The Wizard of Oz. My tummy had something bigger and scarier than butterflies inside it. Maybe they were eagles or hawks or something. Or, come to think of it, they could have been those monkeys with wings that kidnap Dorothy and take her to the witch that's scared of water.”

Jamie doesn’t really remember his sister Rose. Every day he sees the effect of her death on his parents, but for him that’s normal. He doesn’t remember when life was any different. For the outside reader, it is clear that something is very, very wrong. I felt intense pity for Jamie’s parents – one could never get over the loss of a child – but they are unreasonable in the way they treat their surviving children, so wrapped up in their own pain that they resent Jas and Jamie for not being Rose, or for not letting their lives revolve around her absence. When Jamie had to write a school essay about a hero, and chose footballer Wayne Rooney, his mother made him rewrite it about Rose, dictating the memories he didn’t have. Then, at a birthday party, when Jamie asked for food, his dad filled a plate – to put on the mantlepiece beside Rose’s urn. Jamie is such an optimistic child, but his hope is painful to an older, wiser reader (or listener listener) because of the awareness of the crushing disappointment that is to come when his wishes don’t come true, or if they do, they aren’t what he had hoped. At times the story just seems to be disappointment after disappointment, and Jamie has to learn the difficult lesson that adults don’t always get it right, don’t have all the answers and do let you down. But they get there, slowly, until Jamie concludes:

If OFSTED inspected my family, then I know what grade we'd get: Satisfactory. OK, but not brilliant, but that's fine by me.

I downloaded the audio version of this book when I was struck by a bad migraine attack. I couldn’t sleep for the whole time but wasn’t up to reading, so I let David Tennant read this to me instead. Although he is a talented voice actor, seemingly able to imitate any accent he tries, in this case his reading is simple and understated, letting the story do the work, narrating with the right amount of innocent hope, eagerness and subdued sadness. I bought the audiobook from Audible.co.uk, but was quite disappointed that it came as one six-hour track, so I couldn’t burn it to CD to wake me up in the morning. In future I think I’ll stick to buying  audio books as CDs.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J. K. Rowling

Isn’t it funny how your brain makes startling revelations when it’s winding down for the night? I was planning to start this review by explaining that, due to an enormous to-read pile, I couldn’t really justify rereading a seven-book series, but compromised by listening to the audio version of Harry Potter on my CD alarm clock. I’d got as far as explaining why Stephen Fry is the perfect narrator for the series, and describing him - like Hogwarts, like the series itself, as a British national institution, when suddenly it came to me: is not Stephen Fry the nearest thing we have to a muggle Dumbledore?

Maybe I drew this conclusion because Dumbledore is the nearest character within the story to a narrator, seemingly all-knowing, all-seeing and completely in control. Do I draw the connections because Fry happens to be reading the story, or are the similarities the reasons he was chosen? After all, they share many of the same qualities; both are wise and ridiculously intelligent, impossible to dislike with a comforting air to them; old-fashioned and a bit posh in a cosy, nostalgic sort of way. You feel that everything is under control in their hands. All Fry needs is the beard, the pointy hat and about another hundred years on his age.

But onto the story. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone in the USA) is where it all began, the first in a series of books which revolutionised children’s literature and got kids - and adults - discovering the wonder of books, who might not have done so otherwise. With the hype surrounding the release of the later books and then the films, it’s a bit strange to return to the beginning and read (or listen to Mr Fry reading) as if it were all new.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has a very different feel to it than the later books in the series. It is noticeably a children’s book, written in simple language, with colourful, comical characters who are sometimes more like caricatures. We discover with Harry the wizarding world, a truly magical place, brought to life by Rowling’s vivid descriptions: Harry’s surprise that people in wizard photos move - and Ron’s surprise that muggle pictures stay put at all times; the novelty of going to school in a castle with towers, dungeons, secret passageways and staircases that lead to different places on different days, the wonder of flying on a broomstick and the thrill of playing Quidditch.

In later books, the wizarding world ceases to be quite so surprising - though there is something new to discover in each volume. The description gives way to plot: a plot with so many threads and strands that I am impressed and astonished at Rowling for keeping everything under control and weaving it all together in the end. Even in The Philosopher’s Stone, when the world is not yet fully formed and characters are still taking shape, there are hints at what is to come, throwaway lines that mean nothing and are forgotten until a later installment when they gain a new significance. I stand in awe of Ms Rowling’s mastery of her story - this is a writer who knows her story inside out.