posted on 08 Oct 2020

The House of Clouds by Lisa Thompson, illustrated by Alice McKinley

This beautifully told story explores the special relationship between a grandparent and his twelve year old granddaughter. It is too easy to be sentimental about this as it isn’t always a positive experience for a child. I can vividly remember the pros and cons of having my own grandfather to live with my family and so immediately empathised with Tabby’s irritation on the opening pages as she reflects on how her life has changed since her elderly Granddad has come to live with her family. The rather small house has been modified to fit in with his many physical needs and her mother has even had to give up her job in order to care for him:

‘Then weird things began to appear around the house. First it was the grey walking frame that stood beside the fridge and got in everybody’s way. Then a horrible padded seat was fitted on the downstairs toilet’.

Not only that, but she is expected to take his stinky dog for a walk after school every day and to have regular tedious chats with him. Another exasperating trial is that he often repeats the same stories and talks to her if she was much younger.

She is lucky enough to live at the seaside where she goes for regular dog walks but is feeling generally sorry for herself as she remembers that she has recently lost her best friend, Rebecca who now prefers the company of another classmate. But Buster the dog provides her with the chance to get to know Alex, a friendly boy of her own age whose mother is a vet and so has plenty of useful advice to offer.

One day, Tabby decides to explore the grounds of an empty cliff top house on the headland and is intrigued as she peers through the windows of a big barn in the garden. As with all the best suspense stories, I felt myself getting anxious as she notices a glass cabinet with dozens of sharp knives that are arranged on three shelves. And then something starts to move beneath a sheet on the floor! As she hurries away she notices a fallen sign for ‘The House of Clouds’ on the ground. When she gets home, Granddad asks about her walk and even mentions the house.  It seems that it used to belong to an artist friend of his long dead wife who used to be famous for her carvings of fluffy white cumulus clouds. Although Tabby has plenty of homework to get on with, she is momentarily drawn in by his curious story about the artist backed up with a box of photos at the top of his wardrobe that he asks her to reach down.

But catching up with social media updates on her phone is a bigger pull, so she doesn’t get to fetch the box for him or to think about the story until several days later. In the meantime, Granddad is rushed into hospital and everything changes dramatically.

Tabby and Alex eventually learn a lot more about ‘ The House of Clouds’ and the power of the artistic imagination to inspire and reassure people in very difficult times. Perhaps she should have listened more closely to Granddad’s fantastical stories after all?

We have already been impressed with the Blue Peter Award shortlisted ‘Owen and the Soldier’ by this author. This one is illustrated with several soft black and white drawings that bring the characters to life and add to the atmosphere. Aimed at children with a reading age of 8 and above, it is another successful collaboration published by Barrington Stoke that aims to capture emergent, reluctant and dyslexic readers with engaging stories.

Strongly recommended.

Karen Argent

October 2020