Partnered together are two dads and
two mums. Their seven children are a diverse mixture of biological, adopted,
handed over and gender-challenged. They live a hippie life, are educated by
doing, and together with five pets are an intelligent and supremely happy
group.
Their existence goes askew when they get a call to go and collect PopCorn’s elderly father from Yukon after he sets fire to his house and has nowhere else to go. It is to be a temporary arrangement.
Grumps, as the children name their grandfather, is
unable to move into the modern era. He has great difficulty accepting the
Lotterys’ life choices. He’s rude,
angry, intolerant and cranky.
Soon, all the kids just want him gone. They want
their hectic life back and especially their peace of mind. But with family,
ties of blood are not that easily broken. Will the existing menagerie be able
to accommodate an old misfit?
This is Emma Donoghue’s first novel for children.
Brilliant use of language keeps the brain cells sparking. Filled with humour,
the unexpected, and a great many life lessons, the writer steers the story so carefully
that the reader clearly sees both sides, and sympathises with them
simultaneously.
This book sizzles. There’s not a moment of boring
in it. It flicks from scene to scene in rapid movement but is still captured by
the mind’s eye. I could see everything playing out before me as I read.
Title:
The Lotterys Plus One
Author:
Emma Donoghue
Illustrator:
Caroline Hadilaksono
Publisher:
Pan Macmillan, $14.99
Publication
Date: May 2017
Format:
Paperback
ISBN:
9871509851654
For
ages: 10+
Type:
Middle Fiction
