My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece

Product Information

Daniel Crawford: 12-16 years old to play a 12-year-old. A bully who likes to prod anyone who's different. He is horrible to both Jamie and to Sunya, which draws the two of them together as friends to rise up against him. I also think it would make a great film or television series, but only for older children. If it was for younger children, many of the serious bits would have to be taken out of the story. My favourite part of the book was when dad gave Jamie the second hug he could remember and a cup of hot chocolate. Jamie loved the hot chocolate, even though there were lumps in it due to the powder not being stirred in properly, because his dad had made it. In this book I like how Annabel Pitcher writes through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy. Jamie is a normal boy whose family is traumatised. The author has done an exceptional job of displaying the emotions of the characters, it is this and Jamie's hopeful outlook that make the book flow brilliantly and make you want to read every last word.

So even though his sister had been killed, his parents were getting divorced and he was feeling terribly sad and lonely, he still had to carry on and try to stay positive, no matter what. It's a great reminder that we often don't always know what's happening in our friends' lives and sometimes they might be feeling sad at school because of what's going on at home. Nigel Whitley: 14-18 years old to play an adult. Mum's boyfriend who knows of her pain and tries to help her cope with it. He is unknowing to the harm he is causing to her family.Dad (Robert Matthews): 14-18 years old to play an adult. A father who's wife left him after the death of one of his daughters. He is a drunk, constantly hung-over, and a terrible parent. He doesn't care about his current children because he's too caught up in the grief of losing Rose. He feels neglected by his wife, and misses her. He is extremely racist towards Muslims because he believes Muslims were the ones who planted the bomb that killed his daughter. It's sad to say that a book like this is timely and necessary, especially for a younger audience, but it is. It's also hopeful and surprising. A very strong debut by first time author Annabel Pitcher. There were parts when I couldn't stop reading and others that I felt were not so well achieved, but as a whole this book is so good and important. While it does feel like a huge lesson, it neither feels like one adults are trying to teach kids, nor one kids are trying to teach adults. It is a lesson about understanding and empathy and compassion and letting go, which are things that come in handy at any age. It has several powerful quotes that both broke and changed me, and I'm glad I got to go on this short but big journey with these wonderful characters. This book is not one of those books, while it is. This book is about a ten-year-old boy who, when he was five, witnesses one of his twin 10-year-old sisters being blown up by a terrorist bomb. It is random, though attributed to a Muslim terrorist group, and so his father hates all Muslims.

The parents also idolize Rose, to them she never did anything wrong, as if all she did no longer mattered, because she had died so tragically. It made me feel like the parents were not really in pain, but rather pretending that they were, because they did not have much to be proud of her, so they chose to ignore it, rather than see it as what it was, part of her personality. And this is not to say they did not love her, nor that they were not hurting, but that they felt somehow guilty, I din’t really remember where I am going with this, so make of it what you will. This book was about a boy called Jamie who had twin older sisters. When he was five his family had a picnic and one of his older sisters, Rose, was blown up by a terrorist bomb. Jamie hasn't cried in the five years his sister has been dead. On his sister's birthday his mum walks out on them. Young Jamie Matthews: 7-10 years old to play a 7-year-old. An innocent little boy, reliant on his mother and father. This story follows ten-year-old Jamie, after one of his sisters died during a terrorist bombing, and the effects this has had within his family. His mother and father are separated, mother has found another lover, father has become a fervent Islamophobe, and his other sister Jas, lives in the shadow of Rose, the one that died. But Jamie meets a girl, a Muslim girl named Sunya, that is nothing like his father says, and he begins to question whether or not he can follow his father’s views.I hope Annabel Pitcher is going to write another book, and if she does she will be a very successful author. If I were to rate this book I would give it 10 out of 10. My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece is one of the best books I've ever read and I really, really hope it is translated into French so that all my French friends can read it, as well!

I’ve been sitting here for a bit trying to collect my thoughts enough that I can write the kind of coherent review this book deserves. There are so many things I want to speak about and discuss but at the same time, I wonder if it wouldn’t be more appropriate to just ask you to please read this book. It might be the best one you read this year.

Keep in touch

Mom (Eve Matthews): 14-18 years old to play an adult. A mother who left her family after her husband became too controlling in the aftermath of their daughter's death. She felt constricted, and had an affair with another man. She leaves her family behind and moves to Chicago with her boyfriend, Nigel. Seeing her kids again after months makes her wonder if she made the right decision. Now Sunya, who's Jamie's best friend from school, is a Muslim girl with a great imagination who made me smile nearly every time she appeared. At first she stroke me as unrealistically kind and passionate, but as the story progresses we get to see how she's a real little girl with real feelings who's just trying to be her best self. She's definitely a character I would have loved to read about when I was a kid. Sunya Al-Wasi: 10-14 years old to play an 11-year-old. A Muslim girl who befriends Jamie despite his racist upbringing. She makes him see that racism is prejudice, and not reality.