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The Good People by Steve Cockayne (view source)
Revision as of 16:23, 29 August 2020
, 16:23, 29 August 2020no edit summary
{{infoboxsortinfobox1
|title=The Good People
|sort=Good People
|date=July 2007
|isbn=978-1904233633
|amazonukcover=Cockayne_Good|aznuk=<amazonuk>1904233635</amazonuk>|amazonusaznus=<amazonus>1904233635</amazonus>
}}
Kenneth strikes an unusual figure for what Amazon mistakenly think is a teenage fantasy book. Either the aging ageing man is dangling from a tree wearing a wartime ARP helmet, in protest at the demolition of his family home and surrounding woodland for executive housing to be in its place, or he is sprawling across a table in a bus station café, with one eye on the errant behaviour of modern teenagers and drafting a sprawling recollection of the time he knew and loved Arboria, all for the benefit of a future reader identified only as Jamie.
Kenny as a youngster grew up in World War Two, with his brother Robert, parents and mother's mum, all living in the same family pile, Hedley House. The family is soon extended by an evacuee, Janny. The youngsters at least are aware of what lies beyond the garden gate - the world of Arboria, and its inhabitants who remain in constant antagonism with the Barbarians. The world features The House in the Air - a suspended platform that provides a birds'-eye view of the kingdom, and a guardhouse with the inhabitant Tommy Spelling, and his logs.
{{commenthead}}
{{comment
|name=Connor Mcleod
|verb= said
|comment=The author asks if it was perhaps too subtle for a teenage audience - and I would have to say yes.
Reading this book for the first time at 15, and recently again at 20, I have had completely different experiences.
It is too developed for less mature readers, and yet too childish for an adult.
It’s on an unfortunate edge, but overall remains an interesting story radically different from other teenage fiction.
}}