Here in the Real World

I don’t quite know what to make of this. I did like it. A lot. It’s easy to read, the characters are engaging – especially the ‘almost twelve!’ narrator Wade – and the setting of an abandoned, derelict church probably appeals to the adventurous child in us all. Playing in ruins and making them my own special territory was something I loved doing when I was young.

So what am I hesitating about? The length, I think. It’s a drum I beat regularly and one I’ll probably go on beating until they tip me into my coffin, but when did books get so LONG? My edition of Here in the Real World is 308 pages. Granted, the print is fairly large and there’s plenty of white space at the end of short chapters but even so: 308 pages?

As much as I liked it – and the ending packs a really satisfying emotional punch – I can’t help feeling it would all have worked better and had more of an impact had it been tighter. Leaner. And if it had been written thirty, or even twenty years ago, it probably would have been. Judy Blume and SE Hinton never wrote such big books. Their stories were neat and compact. Sara Pennypacker’s is just a little too loose and baggy for me.

Or maybe I’m just being an impatient old grump. My granddaughter read it and liked it and didn’t bat an eyelid at the page count. Ho hum.