posted on 06 Aug 2024

He says…She says…. by Anne Fine, illustrated by Gareth Conway

The ever-excellent Anne Fine is back with another gentle and humorous tale for emerging and reluctant readers about inter-generational family dynamics. 

Childcare arrangements for busy working families can be an absolute nightmare when timetables go wrong. This is what has happened for Skye and Harry’s mom and dad when they find that the demands of their jobs overtake their arrangements for looking after the children. Urgent phone calls to various friends fail to solve the temporary problem and – inevitably it seems – the children are going to have to stay with their grandma, their dad’s mom. She’s just moved close to them, so it’s the perfect solution, isn’t it?

Well not for Skye and Harry. But why? Well, they are dreading it because their dad has been telling them terrible stories of just how strict his mom had been with him – constantly on his case to do jobs around the house, limiting his computer time, only giving him things to eat that were good for him. In short, she was a dragon!

So, the children brace themselves for a terrible time but when they arrive, they find that they’re in for quite a shock. What they discover is that their Gran is absolutely nothing like the woman their dad had described. Instead, she’s relaxed, welcoming and laid-back about everything.

The children get plenty of screen time, loads of treats to eat and aren’t forced into any horrible cleaning tasks. Who is this woman? Maybe, they think, she isn’t really their Grandma but someone pretending to be her. But no, this is the real deal. Finally, they see photographs of their dad when he was a little boy and he’s not having a terrible time at all – his stories were all absurd exaggeration!

What should they do? Maybe they should confront their dad with his tall stories – or maybe not because there just might be a way of taking advantage of this situation. 

But if you want to find out what Skye and Harry do, you’ll have to get the book and find out for yourself. You’ll also have the pleasure of full and part-page illustrations throughout provided by Gareth Conway. 

Available now from Barrington Stoke, you’ll be able to get a copy from your local independent bookshop – who will be happy to order you a copy if they don’t have them on the shelf.

 

Terry Potter

August 2024