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lady_schrapnell, because without your recommendation I might not have tried these books and I would have missed out on a treat. I also seem to remember sartorias raving about Forever Rose, so thank you, too.
I wish the Cassons lived next door to me because I love them.
They appear in a five-book series, beginning with Saffy's Angel and ending with Forever Rose, which I think is my favourite of them all. I guess they are aimed at middle readers, though the later ones could stretch easily into the YA audience (or the 50 plus audience, ha ha). They are all delightful, the best kind of reading experience - funny, sweet without being sentimental, thoughtful, observant. They are "feel good" books without the sappiness that term sometimes implies or involves.
In Saffy's Angel, we meet Eve and Bill, both artists, and their children all named after colours of paint: Caddy (Cadmium), Indigo, Rose (Permanent Rose). Saffy is for Saffron, and she is a cousin but lives with the family after her mother's death. Over the course of the series, we also meet memorable friends and followers: Sarah, the girl who runs over Saffy in her wheelchair and becomes her best friend, Indigo's friends Tom and the lumpish and strangely charming David, "Darling" Michael the driving instructor who is in love with Caddy. If the books are "about" anything, they are about family life and relationships and growing up and identity - big important issues dealt with in anything but a heavy-handed way.
These issues are mostly presented through Rose's point of view - the last is entirely in Rose's inimitable voice - and McKay controls the pov brilliantly. One of the things that I like best about the books is the way you discover things casually, almost as an aside. We learn through people's reactions to things rather than being told directly (the perfect show rather than tell). For example, it takes about two, possibly even three, books before we learn the true state of Bill and Eve's relationship; the penny drops for us at the same time as it does for Rose (maybe readers more astute than I figured it out earlier, but you get the idea). The humour arises from keen observation of people's behavior, but is never unkind, even when directed at the awful teacher, Mr Spencer, whose "flesh coloured moustache spread hairily into the shape of a smile" when he asks the children to describe the worst thing they have ever done. Here's another example:
Tonight is the school Nativity play performed by Class 1 with an awful lot of help from the rest of the world because Class 1 can do nothing unaided. Mary and Joseph are the worst of the lot. If the real Mary and Joseph were anything like our Mary and Joseph there would be no Christmas because Christianity would have got no further than a big fight over who got the donkey somewhere along the road to Bethlehem.
Or there's the moment when Rose talks about how her older brother and sisters are growing up and away from her and she wants to call out "wait for me" like she did when they walked too fast for her: "They always turned back then, however much of a hurry they were in, but I do not think they can turn back now."
I just can't say too much about how likeable the characters are, and how much fun the books are. I was happy to spend time with them, and sorry now that the series is finished. Maybe we'll get one about Buttercup? Do you think? Dare we hope?
lady_schrapnell, because without your recommendation I might not have tried these books and I would have missed out on a treat. I also seem to remember sartorias raving about Forever Rose, so thank you, too.I wish the Cassons lived next door to me because I love them.
They appear in a five-book series, beginning with Saffy's Angel and ending with Forever Rose, which I think is my favourite of them all. I guess they are aimed at middle readers, though the later ones could stretch easily into the YA audience (or the 50 plus audience, ha ha). They are all delightful, the best kind of reading experience - funny, sweet without being sentimental, thoughtful, observant. They are "feel good" books without the sappiness that term sometimes implies or involves.
In Saffy's Angel, we meet Eve and Bill, both artists, and their children all named after colours of paint: Caddy (Cadmium), Indigo, Rose (Permanent Rose). Saffy is for Saffron, and she is a cousin but lives with the family after her mother's death. Over the course of the series, we also meet memorable friends and followers: Sarah, the girl who runs over Saffy in her wheelchair and becomes her best friend, Indigo's friends Tom and the lumpish and strangely charming David, "Darling" Michael the driving instructor who is in love with Caddy. If the books are "about" anything, they are about family life and relationships and growing up and identity - big important issues dealt with in anything but a heavy-handed way.
These issues are mostly presented through Rose's point of view - the last is entirely in Rose's inimitable voice - and McKay controls the pov brilliantly. One of the things that I like best about the books is the way you discover things casually, almost as an aside. We learn through people's reactions to things rather than being told directly (the perfect show rather than tell). For example, it takes about two, possibly even three, books before we learn the true state of Bill and Eve's relationship; the penny drops for us at the same time as it does for Rose (maybe readers more astute than I figured it out earlier, but you get the idea). The humour arises from keen observation of people's behavior, but is never unkind, even when directed at the awful teacher, Mr Spencer, whose "flesh coloured moustache spread hairily into the shape of a smile" when he asks the children to describe the worst thing they have ever done. Here's another example:
Tonight is the school Nativity play performed by Class 1 with an awful lot of help from the rest of the world because Class 1 can do nothing unaided. Mary and Joseph are the worst of the lot. If the real Mary and Joseph were anything like our Mary and Joseph there would be no Christmas because Christianity would have got no further than a big fight over who got the donkey somewhere along the road to Bethlehem.
Or there's the moment when Rose talks about how her older brother and sisters are growing up and away from her and she wants to call out "wait for me" like she did when they walked too fast for her: "They always turned back then, however much of a hurry they were in, but I do not think they can turn back now."
I just can't say too much about how likeable the characters are, and how much fun the books are. I was happy to spend time with them, and sorry now that the series is finished. Maybe we'll get one about Buttercup? Do you think? Dare we hope?
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