Little Stones is fiction written so convincingly that it reads like a memoir.

It is the story of Hannah Reynolds, who is growing up in a single-parent family in Zimbabwe just as the country is falling apart. Her coming-of-age coincides with the collapse of the economy; hyperinflation*; erratic power and water supply; shortages of basics like petrol and wheat; and the 'confiscation' of white-owned farms by the 'Warvets'. Hannah is only ten, so she doesn't always understand what's going on, although she's skilled at bypassing the adults' attempts to shelter her from the situation:

During dinner, Nana, Grandpa and Mum started talking about the Warvets again. The Warvets were a big family who wanted to steal farms from everyone in Zimbabwe, and these days almost every conversation would end up being about them.

It's when she finally expresses her anxiety that her grandparents might give their farm away to another family, that her mother explains, that the War Vets were not an extended family. They were a large group of people called the 'War Veterans' who mobilised to take back what they saw as their land.

Her mother's reassurances turn out to be hollow, however, and the day comes when Nana and Grandpa are given 24 hours notice to get out, and they come to live with Hannah and her mother**. Both of them are at a loose end in an urban environment but have difficulty finding work, Grandpa filling his idle hours getting underfoot with unwanted household repairs, and Nana dismayed that she doesn't have the IT skills to get any kind of office work.

But Hannah's family is wealthy by anyone's standards. She has a pool, and a trampoline, and she goes to an expensive school where her best friend is Diana Chigumba. Her father is wealthier still, because he drives a BMW while her mother gets by with an ageing Mazda. Mum, in this book, is a bit idealised, while Father turns out to be a nasty piece of work, but Hannah still loves him, despite his insistence on access visits being more about maintaining control of his ex-wife. (And that, I think, is authentic. It's a dreadful thing for children to have to choose between parents, because children—in my experience as a teacher comforting many of them in separated families— usually do love both parents, no matter how awful one of them might be).

The tension ramps up as thuggery and violence come to Hannah's home, and though at her age she doesn't understand what has happened, the reader does:

...I heard a crash: the sound of glass shattering; then a scream that chilled the blood in my veins. Then silence.

After a while I could hear men's voices speaking in rushed Shona. I couldn't figure out what they were saying. The only words I understood were coming from my mother.

'Don't touch her. Don't touch her. Do whatever you want to me, just don't touch her. Don't hurt her, please.' (p.171)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/06/17/little-stones-by-elizabeth-kuiper/ ( )