Jolly Foul Play reviewed in the Spectator
Jolly Foul Play just got a review in a rather unusual place – the Spectator magazine! It’s the oldest magazine in the UK – if Daisy’s father Lord Hastings read anything apart from the Boy’s Own Paper, I’m sure it would be this!
The whole article is here, and the excerpt about Jolly Foul Play is below:
Robin Stevens’s Jolly Foul Play (Puffin, £6.99) is the latest Murder Most Unladylike Mystery, set in the 1930s and involving two girl sleuths, one Home Counties, the other Hong Kong Chinese. It’s Agatha Christie for nine-year-olds with psychological insight from our Chinese heroine. Again, there’s a murder at Deepdean School — where no sensible parent should ever leave a child — and besides the usual bloodied hockey stick there’s a bit of lesbianism. Just saying. I’m told by my child reviewer that the plot is ‘realistic’. Golly!
The reviewer is quite correct about Deepdean, by the way. Goodness knows why they haven’t shut it down yet …
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I don't think I could love this review more! I think it's the flabbergasted surprise that murder and lesbianism in the 1930s could be 'realistic' that's my favourite part.
I'm so happy that it's appearing more and more in kids' books - it's something that's part of life in 2016 (and was also present in 1935), and it deserves to be mentioned! It shouldn't be any less appropriate than mentioning straight relationships.
