Hide and Seek: A Novel

By Clare Sambrook

Book Overview

Meet Harry Pickles, the fastest boy in the world (well, at least in school), big brother to Daniel (who runs like a girl but is, in his own twerpy way, a star), and the firstborn son of Mo and Pa, the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1841956538
• ISBN13: 9781841956534
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Canongate U.S.
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.8" x 5.8"

Customer Reviews

Fantastic Book!

Hide & Seek is a book that taps into just about every human emotion. Some parts are wickedly funny and made me laugh out loud while other parts are painful and difficult to read. It is the story of a British family who loses a son and how this tragedy affects them. The story is told from the point of view of a nine year old boy so there were a few parts of the book that were difficult to follow. The author's unique writing style helped move the story along. The book is wonderful and a very quick read.

An excellent, if sad, read

This debut novel has all the characteristics of a good read. The characters are rounded, the portrayal of a child's experience seems authentic, and the ending doen't pander to sentimentality. The reader enters into the world of the protagonist swiftly and though it is a sad tale based around a tragedy, there is no sense of sanitization of the portrayal of either the main character or those portrayed as around him. The book is a snapshot in the history of one little boy and how he sees the world following the disappearance of his brother. I think that for anyone who has gone through such a process the book may be just too close to expressing a pain most of us would be thankful not to revisit. I found reading the book to my self enjoyable, but it really came alive when I read it as a bedtime story to a nine year old girl. She listened attentively, carried bits of the story from the night before in her memory the next day, and asked about the characters as if they were real. She didn't seem too badly affected by the story of a family in despair and seemed to make real sense of how the boy inhabited his world. I can only highly recommend this book, and also recommend that you read it aloud. It is a story written in a style to be listened to.

A profound debut novel that reveals horror, courage, and hard-won understanding through the eyes of

Hide & Seek is a stark, sometimes disturbing novel about a family struggling to cope with the sudden loss of a child. Much of the story is devoted to the perspective of nine-year-old Harry Pickles, an ordinary kid with friends and fantasies, who tries to wrap his head around the evil that caused the disappearance of someone close to him. British author Clare Sambrook presents a profound debut novel that reveals horror, courage, and hard-won understanding through the eyes of a boy.

Searingly sad, achingly funny --this one's a keeper

In telling the story of a little boy gone missing through the voice of his brother Harry, age "nine and a bit", Clare Sambrook provides a wrenchingly human study of a family in extraordinarily painful circumstances. The individual portraits that emerge of Pa, Mo, Auntie Joan and Uncle Otis, as well as Harry and the ancillary characters of his friends and neighbors are spot on. I really don't think they could be better. And the writing for the most part is superb. (For example, one might say "I fainted into my father's arms." Clare Sambrook says, "The tarmac sped up towards me, but when it hit me it was soft and warm and smelt of Pa." Lovely. And the book is filled with things like this.) The only false note I think Sambrook hits is in taking Mo down a path which, while the motivation certainly is clear, doesn't seem realistic in its execution. (Sorry this is vague but I don't believe in spoilers. I think if you read the book you'll know what I'm referring to.) So that--and the fact that in my opinion the title seems off--is my reason for giving this book less than 5 stars. Call it 4.5 and go find this book; it's well worth reading. Clare Sambrook is a gem of a writer and I look forward to her next one.