Shadow Bringer
Shadow Bringer. David Calcutt by David Calcutt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Nathan is a boy of indeterminate age (somewhere between 8 & 12, I would guess, from his behaviour in the story) who sees a UFO. It looks like a black bin-liner in the sky, but it falls into a pond, and when he goes to investigate the dog he is taking for a walk gets scared.
Rasha is a girl about a year older than Nathan who is prepared by an old woman to battle a monster in another world. eventually their paths cross, and Nathan realises that he has to battle a monster that can take many forms, and sows discord in the family he is staying with.
I thought the book was good in showing how the menace of evil manifests itself in day-to-day life. Everyday activities, like making tea and sandwiches, is shot through with the threat of something that is there and not there. But at the end little is resolved. We can see that evil causes conflict, but too many things seem to be unresolved. Of course in real life many things are left unresolved, and conflict is sometimes followed by reconciliation and sometimes not, but in this book one doesn’t know.
