Storm

Nicola Skinner's Storm is a very funny and very angry story for 10 year olds, told by a girl who has already reached the end of her own.

What happens

Frankie Ripley arrived on a shingle beach in January, mid-storm, on a moth-eaten picnic blanket. Her parents had brought an easel, some paints and her mum's favourite coral lipstick. They had not brought a phone, a car, or anything at all that you might want at a birth.

Dad wanted to stand inside the storm and paint its colours. Mum was fed up with staring at the walls.

Ever since, whenever Frankie loses her temper, the whole family reaches for the same explanation. The weather on the day she turned up.

Which is quite hard to argue with when you're eleven and trying to have a serious conversation about the recycling rota.

She opens the book by warning you about parents and their birth stories. Have you got an escape route? Use it. Otherwise you will hear about the contractions, the traffic lights, the parking charges and, above all, what the baby weighed.

That's the voice, and it's wonderful. Frankie talks directly to you. She goes off on tangents. She writes lists. She drops in details she was clearly meant to keep quiet about, such as the incident that got her thrown out of Guides, which she calls a disagreement and her Guide leader calls arson.

Then she tells you something else, quite calmly, near the start. Every life story ends the same way, on the last page, with a death. Yours. And normally you're not around to hear that bit.

Normally.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This is narrated by a child who says she has died. Nothing violent happens in the opening. The information simply sits there in her chatty, joking voice, which is somehow both the charm of the book and the hardest thing about it. There's a last Christmas, a last argument about a restaurant, a last ordinary afternoon, and Frankie flags them as last while you're still laughing.

For a child who has lost someone, that could be far too close. For one who likes a narrator with a temper and a secret and nothing much to lose, it's brilliant, and the jokes keep coming all the way through the sad parts.

There's a lot of life in the rest of it too. Six year old Birdie and her jigsaws. A house called Sea View that her parents rebuilt themselves. A best friend called Ivy and a rival called Thea, who has a pony, shiny hair that doesn't frizz, and no arson convictions.

What to read next

If Frankie's voice is the hook, go on to Starboard. Same author, same seaside, and another girl with far too much to say who gets dragged into something much older and much bigger than she is.