More Meg Rosoff (and more asters!)

I've just re-read Meg Rosoff's first novel, How I Live Now. Daisy, a troubled fifteen year old from New York, spends an idyllic summer with her English cousins in their rambling old farmhouse with its pebbled courtyard, stables and raised square garden containing only white flowers and a stone angel with folded wings. However, England is descending into war, the cousins are evacuated and Daisy becomes responsible for the safety and well-being of her nine-year old cousin Piper. When the two girls have to live in the woods for a week surviving on nuts, berries, and accidentally eating mushrooms which make them hallucinate the story is utterly gripping.

This is no portrayal of a quaint England. It's tough, straight-talking and at times terrifying, but an exhilarating read and a beautiful novel.

Meg Rosoff

These flowers are asters. I know that because the man on the market stall told me so when I asked for a pot of purple daisies. I must learn the proper names of flowers. Anyway, I've been enjoying them and the autumn sunshine today. I've also been reading Meg Rosoff's terrific coming of age novel What I Was. I don't read a great deal of contemporary fiction but I've liked Meg Rosoff's work ever since I read her first children's/teen book How I Live Now a couple of years ago. What I Was is set on the salty East Anglia coast, an area that I'm familiar with, and this has added to my pleasure in this book.