Review
Comment: Indigo's Star is a follow up to
Saffy's Angel, but I don't
see any critical reason to read the one before the other. Saffy' Angel introduced what Publisher's Weekly describe as this 'spirited
English family' headed up by scatterbrained Eve - who paints pictures of
anything that will pay and Bill, her increasingly absentee husband - a 'real' artist
who lives in his studio in London.
The four Casson children are all named after colors on the paint chart,
19-year old Caddy (Cadmium), Saffy (Saffron), Indigo (the only boy, 12 years
old) and 8-year-old Rose. As the titles suggest, the first book focused on Saffy but this time Indigo and Rose take center stage. Indigo is being
bullied at school and Rose is determined to help him; she's also determined to
persuade her father to come home....
Beyond the Book
McKay's first book,
The Exiles, was published in 1991
and went on to win The Guardian Children's Fiction Award. It was followed by
The
Exiles at Home (1993) which won the Nestlé Smarties Gold Award for the 9-11
years category and the overall winner. Then followed
The Exiles in Love
(1996). In 1994 she started on a new trilogy:
Dog Friday (1994),
The
Amber Cat (1995) and
Dolphin Luck (1998).
In 2002 she published
Saffy's Angel which won the
Whitbread Children's Book Prize. The sequel,
Indigo's Star, was published
in 2004, and
Permanent Rose followed in 2005.
Caddy Ever After will be published in June this year.
She lives in a small village in Derbyshire...
