Patrice Lawrence

A book that packs a punch that bellies the format. Lawrence has captured an extremely complex situation and given depth to her characters all within so few pages. She needs to have a word with authors like Donna Tartt.

Excellent book with a very stupid title. It should have been called Vixen or something with a more catchy title. There are three protagonists and each has their own problems. Ayrton is about to start a new school and is dealing with a super protective mother who is obsessed with keeping tabs on him. This stems from the fact that he was kidnapped as a baby and she has never forgiven herself for it. As a Year 7, he wants to break free from her and become more independent and make new friends, show more but Ayrton would really like to actually cure his mother's obsessive possessiveness once and for all.
Then there is Stanley, one of two twins who wants to find out why his family never talks to his maternal grandmother. He believes it is because she once stole a baby....Ayrton overhears this and his and Stanley's world's collide on the first day of school.
Then there is Senna. Her mother had her at 16 and basically the two of them are homeless - they drift from house to house. Currently, they are residing at a secretive artist's house that they clean and look after in exchange for lodgings, as long as they don't speak to her and stay out of her way. The artist is Vixen - a Banksy like figure who creates art with fox heads. Sen is sworn to secrecy but troubles at her posh private school means she draws Vixen's attention.
Then Stanley and Ayrton's digging into the woman who stole the baby/ grandmother's real identity leads them straight into Senna's world in a way that means she could become homeless again.
Lots of plot twists, characters are great. Hated the possessive mother so much but understood her. Vixen was a complex character who could have had more page time from the author - I felt she perhaps did Senna's part of the narrative a slight disservice as she concentrated on Ayrton a lot, but all in all a fascinating story that kept me engrossed. show less

On page 2 of Granny Came here on the Empire Windrush, readers will know what happens at the end but that doesn’t make the story any less sweet. Ava needs to dress up as someone she admires for school and granny takes her to the best place there is for costumes: attic trunks. As they go through trunk items Granny tells Ava about a couple of famous islanders that moved to England. They discuss Rosa Parks too and then they get sidetracked with Granny’s story. Ava learns about how scared her show more granny was to leave her birthplace and take a boat across the Atlantic. She learned how her grandparents met. The descriptions of granny adjusting to the London cold were chilling. Even though I knew how the story would end, I still had tears in my eyes when I read it. It’s a very heartwarming story. show less

This book works really well in a lot of ways - it's a story about immigration and tracing family history, it shows a beautiful close relationship between a grandmother and granddaughter, and it provides some nice overview introductions to a few important women from Black history as part of the framing narrative for telling the grandmother's specific story in more depth. While not necessarily required since I know this is more of picture book than strictly non-fiction, it would've been nice show more for there to have been some back matter about Trinidadian immigration to England, and maybe even some suggested reading about the women discussed in the story (Winifred Atwell, Mary Seacole, Rosa Parks) in case readers are inspired to learn more about them. show less