The Casson family is dysfunctional and somewhat neglectful, but loving. Rose, the youngest, is weathering a frustrating teacher, the weeks up to Christmas, her family's various interests, and her friends' obsessions. This final book rounds up the Casson family stories... what happened with Caddy and Michael? Can this chaos be saved? will Rose ever start reading? Are there worse parents than the Cassons? We find out here. ( )

A Casson family story --cover. ( )

Rose is the youngest member of the Casson family. That means that everyone leaving is an ongoing issue, whether it's Caddie and college, or Bill, the father, who doesn't make the trip up from London as often as he once did. Fortunately, Rose is resourceful, as well as being the most gifted artist in the family, and she always has ideas.

I think the reason these books are so appealing is a combination of rather old-school qualities: the "family of eccentrics" goes back at least to Pride and Prejudice, and then there is the "school friends have adventures" which is at least a hundred years old by now. McKay allows her characters a great deal of unsupervised, unstructured time in which to pursue their interests, and plot, and get into trouble.

Highly recommended series for fans of The Penderwicks.

2013/10/14

Library copy ( )

Fifth and last in the 'Casson family' series. What a wonderful book. It's all narrated by Rose, who is now ten. Rose's mother has a bad cold that doesn't seem to be getting better, and her father is still living in London. Her brother Indigo seems to be out all the time, Saffron and Sarah are busy doing teenage things, and Caddy hasn't been heard from in a while. She set off across Europe to find Michael, but as far as anyone knows, she hasn't been successful.

So Rose often comes home to an empty house... until Indigo's friend David starts turning up, looking for food and friendship, and also somewhere to store his drum kit.

Just to add to Rose's misery, she has a very sarcastic and unpleasant teacher for Year Six. He is likely to discover that her only talent is art; she doesn't understand maths, and can't be bothered to read. She is still close friends with the unpredictable and brainy Kiran and the dull but worthy Molly...

However, Molly wants to do something that isn't dull, and Caddy phones out of the blue, and Rose's mother seems to be getting worse rather than better. We see all this and a great deal more from Rose's perspective, and it feels very real. I liked this a lot better than the previous book (written from four different points of view) and even laughed aloud a couple of times. By the time I was half-way through I was so engrossed I could barely put it down.

Great stuff. Really four and a half stars. ( )

I enjoyed this entire series very much! The first person narration in the fourth and fifth didn't work quite as well for me, so the first three (especially Saffy's Angel) remain my favorites of the bunch, but I am glad to have read all of them. Though now I see there is also a "prequel" (Caddy's World) that I will have to check out too!