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A review by laural27
Dandelion Clocks by Rebecca Westcott
5.0
What a stunning book this is! The cover is just beautiful and alludes to the beautiful story hidden inside the cover.
Dandelion Clocks tells the story of Olivia who is a normal eleven year old girl with crushes, friendship rivalries and the desperate need to have her ears pierced. Her brother has Asperger’s syndrome and therefore her home life is very structured and predictable and altogether a little bit boring.
However, Olivia begins to realise things aren’t quite right after a while and as her mum becomes more withdrawn and her father spends more of his time looking sad – Olivia senses something bad is on the horizon. She begins to wonder if her parents may be divorcing but what she never imagined was that her mum would be dying.
When faced with the prospect of losing her mother very suddenly, Olivia begins to question the fairness of life and whether anything can ever be the same again.
This book is just the most innocent portrayal of death and loss seen through a tiny pair of honest eyes. Olivia, our protagonist, has no comprehension of the idea of death and what it means to lose someone and as the plot progresses we see her develop and go on such a journey from being a very naïve young girl to becoming a very responsible and well-rounded teenager with a passion for life.
The book is told through time frames (Two Months Before, Three Weeks Before, Six Months After etc) which really helps to ground the reader in the moment and understand what kind of stage Olivia is at. At first, we are not quite sure what the countdown is leading to but, being a more accomplished and older reader, I was able to guess straight away what would happen, but for child readers, I think there would be more of a shock factor involved.
The characters in this book were so very well developed and I felt such a love for all of them – especially Olivia’s brother and her dad. They all go on such a dramatically emotional adventure but stick by each other every step of the way. One of the strengths of this book is the level of emotion Rebecca has managed to stuff into it. I was constantly trying to stop a few tears from escaping!
The ending of this book was so bittersweet and I found myself wanting to run out into the street and tell everyone to be happy and live happy lives – it’s such a good book to show you the importance of enjoying every last minute.
I can’t really form many more coherent sentences about this book because this is one you just HAVE to read. Not maybe, you HAVE to read it! I also think this should be a book taught in schools – it is that brilliant.
I cannot wait to read Rebecca’s next book and I cannot recommend this enough!
Dandelion Clocks tells the story of Olivia who is a normal eleven year old girl with crushes, friendship rivalries and the desperate need to have her ears pierced. Her brother has Asperger’s syndrome and therefore her home life is very structured and predictable and altogether a little bit boring.
However, Olivia begins to realise things aren’t quite right after a while and as her mum becomes more withdrawn and her father spends more of his time looking sad – Olivia senses something bad is on the horizon. She begins to wonder if her parents may be divorcing but what she never imagined was that her mum would be dying.
When faced with the prospect of losing her mother very suddenly, Olivia begins to question the fairness of life and whether anything can ever be the same again.
This book is just the most innocent portrayal of death and loss seen through a tiny pair of honest eyes. Olivia, our protagonist, has no comprehension of the idea of death and what it means to lose someone and as the plot progresses we see her develop and go on such a journey from being a very naïve young girl to becoming a very responsible and well-rounded teenager with a passion for life.
The book is told through time frames (Two Months Before, Three Weeks Before, Six Months After etc) which really helps to ground the reader in the moment and understand what kind of stage Olivia is at. At first, we are not quite sure what the countdown is leading to but, being a more accomplished and older reader, I was able to guess straight away what would happen, but for child readers, I think there would be more of a shock factor involved.
The characters in this book were so very well developed and I felt such a love for all of them – especially Olivia’s brother and her dad. They all go on such a dramatically emotional adventure but stick by each other every step of the way. One of the strengths of this book is the level of emotion Rebecca has managed to stuff into it. I was constantly trying to stop a few tears from escaping!
The ending of this book was so bittersweet and I found myself wanting to run out into the street and tell everyone to be happy and live happy lives – it’s such a good book to show you the importance of enjoying every last minute.
I can’t really form many more coherent sentences about this book because this is one you just HAVE to read. Not maybe, you HAVE to read it! I also think this should be a book taught in schools – it is that brilliant.
I cannot wait to read Rebecca’s next book and I cannot recommend this enough!