Changes

|title=When We Were Romans

|author=Mattthew Kneale

|buy=Maybe

|borrow=Yes

|pages=296

|publisher=Picador

|date=May 2008

|isbn=978-0330435727

}}

Hannah has two children, Lawrence and Jemima. I'd guess that Lawrence is about nine and Jemima quite a bit younger, probably just out of the toddling stage. Scared that their father, from whom she's divorced, is stalking them, Hannah takes the children plus a car full of toys and Hermann the hamster and drives to Rome. Hannah met the children's father when she was living in the city and she still has friends there. It's obvious to the reader very early on that Hannah has a mental problem, but Lawrence, who narrates the story, is oblivious of this. He just wants his mother to be happy and to keep their lives on an even keel. Of the three he's the only one who might be able to do this.

If you'd like an example of a book narrated by a child in his own words then you can't do better than Mark Haddon's [[The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time]] although it has to be said that Haddon's task was simplified by the narrator being a child with Asperger's Syndrome rather than a child with a sick parent. You might also enjoy Shanta Everington's [[Marilyn and Me]] where the heroine and narrator is a young woman with learning disability.

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