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{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=The Earth Hums in B Flat
|sort= Earth Hums in B Flat
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=330
|publisher=Canongate Books Ltd
|date=May 2010
|isbn=978-1847673053
|amazonukcover=Strachan_Earth|aznuk=<amazonuk>1847673058</amazonuk>|amazonusaznus=<amazonus>1847673058</amazonus>
}}
And now, here is a second paperback edition of one of 2009's most promising new writers, Mari Strachan. With a quirky title like ''The Earth Hums in B Flat'', I knew I'd enjoy whatever came next ... and I did!
Choosing a child as the viewpoint character of a novel requires confidence and imagination. To succeed is to convince the reader of events at two levels – the child's world within the adult world surrounding her. The very best novels about childhood, like say Harper Lee's classic, ''[[To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee|To Kill a Mockingbird'']], also reflect a wider cultural truth. In ''The Earth Hums in B Flat'', a claustrophobic Welsh village is both protection and straitjacket as the characters struggle to cope with their family secrets. If that sounds a bit tacky, fear not, because the viewpoint character, Gwenni, is all whippet and sharp corners.
I fell in love with Gwenni Morgan. I picture her as spiky, thin and grubby, with the musty smell of a Welsh two-up, two-down cottage about her. She's biddable and practical: essential to survive family life with her mother, who constantly uses her for domestic tasks and errands. So Gwenni has developed an imaginative world to compensate for her bare home environment. Faces people the peeling distemper on the scullery wall. Gwen sympathises with the life she senses in the beady eyes of a neighbour's fox fur stole. To her mother's horror, Gwenni seems quite fuzzy about the distinction between imagination and reality. We're never quite sure if Gwenni knows she is kidding herself or not, when she talks about flying again as she did as a young child. Gwenni is affectionately labelled by the community as eccentric, and you quickly see why.
{{toptentext|list=Bookbag's Christmas Gift Recommendations 2010}}
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[[Category:Literary Fiction]]
[[Category:Teens]]
