Wr. Nicola Skinner
Ill. Flava Sorrentino
Pub. Harper Collins (2020)
Age Range - 10+ years
Frances's parents were not prepared for her birth: they had a blanket and an easel and some paint, but not anything useful, like a car or a phone. So it's no wonder Frankie has always had a temper. She was born on a BEACH, in a STORM. What Frances was not prepared for was dying in a freak natural disaster that wiped out her whole town. Waking up 100 years later, Frances finds a whole load of new things to be angry about. And that's before the visitors start turning up, treating her home like it's a tourist attraction. Which it is. Only there are worse people out there than tourists... and they're coming for Frankie. Frankie is about to discover that there are things more important than herself - and that anger has its uses. Because when you have a storm inside you - sometimes the only thing to do is let it out...
Storm tells the life story - and the death (ish) story - of 11-year-old Frankie Ripley. She was born in a storm, and that storm has continued to rage within her. At the beginning of the novel, Frankie loses her life and awakens as a ghost 100 years later. It's one of the most original stories I've ever read.
The novel deals with the issue of bereavment both intelligently and tenderly, and is an unpredictable and thought-provoking adventure. I'm unreserved in my feelings about this book: I adored it. It made me laugh, it made me cry, it kept me awake more or less through the night. You hear the term "unputdownable" banded around a lot these days. Storm IS unputdownable. It is, simply and unequivocally, a masterpiece. I adore it, and I urge anyone reading this review to do themselves a favour: read it. Seriously. It is magnificent.
teaching ideas
themes in the novel
- Death - Perhaps the most obvious one, but as Frankie spends 99% of the book in the afterlife, only fair to mention it!
- Anger - Frankie wrestles with some big emotions, and this is actually one of the main reasons I wanted to use the book in the classroom (aside from its awesomeness).
- Bereavement - Frankie loses her whole family, and struggles to come to terms with it.
- Exploitation - Frankie and Scanlon (and the other ghosts) are exploited by Crawler for commerical gain.
- Loneliness - Frankie spends a portion of the novel entirely on her own.
- Friendship & family - Frankie makes an unlikely friend in Scanlon, but...
- Betrayal - She feels her trust is betrayed by Scanlon at the end of the second part of the book (chapter 39).
- Acceptance - Frankie does come to accept her situation, and chapter 33 is a key turning point for her. There is a more emotional, full-circle acceptance later in the novel, when Frankie finally realises her purpose.