Groove Book Report: Clover Moon - Jacqueline Wilson

Clover Moon’s imagination is her best escape from a life of hardship in poverty-stricken Victorian London. When tragedy plunges her into a world of grief, Clover realizes that everything she loved about the place she called home is gone. Clover hears of a place she could run to, but where will she find the courage – and the chance – to break free? And could leaving her family be just what she needs to find a place that really feels like home?

Introducing the brilliant and brave new heroine from the wonderful world of the bestselling and award-winning and prolific English writer Jacqueline Wilson.

It's a tale of loss, determination and bravery, as Clover fights to get the life she deserves, as she suffers the violence and hardship of home.  After tragedy strikes the family, Clover in particular, she decides that she is going to make her life better once and for all. It takes a while - but she battles and then wins.  Clover is safe and happy, and the fear and misery that once burdened her heart is gone. Unfortunately, near the ending the story takes a sudden turn, when the person Clover feared and hated from her past orders her to come back. To return to her old life of terror.  Although it's a sort of cliffhanger, the story has a kind of happy ending, I promise.

Wilson Jacqueline  is an extremely well-known and hugely popular author. My 7 year old Kate literally devours her work, as she did this one. Her most 'creepy' book The Illustrated Mum was chosen as British Children's Book of the Year in 1999 and was winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award 2000. Jacqueline has won the prestigious Smarties Prize and the Children's Book Award for Double Act, which was also highly commended for the Carnegie Medal. In June 2002 Jacqueline was given an OBE for services to literacy in schools and in 2008 she was made a Dame.

Like her previous books, my 7 year old daughter eagerly awaited the arrival of this book. Wilson has a way of capturing my daughter's imagination like no other author and she has done it again with this one.  Kate was gripped from start to finish as she followed Clover's story. This is, as with many of JW's other stories, set in Victorian times. In this tale we find Clover living in difficult circumstances with a future working in service ahead of her. The story kept my daughter turning the pages right to the end and she loved every moment of it. (Particularly when a character from another book popped up!)

I don't want to spoil the story but suffice to say that Wilson continues to delight with her tales and that my daughter loved this one. It comes with Kate's 'five star' recommendation. If you love Hetty Feather, then, she said, you will certainly love this book too!  What more can you say.

http://www.jacquelinewilson.co.uk/