Sunday, 11 July 2021

Mimi Thebo (2004) Hit the Road, Jack. London, Harper Collins 978-0-00-714278-1

 


A young adult fiction book about a teenage boy feeling a misfit at a school and beginning to clash with his mother, wondering if finding his father will help him find himself.

[Trigger Warning: Domestic Violence]

[Spoiler alert]

Jack is a young teenage boy who finds letters from his father to his mother. He has only hazy memories of his father but has heard that he is now living on the streets. He blames his mother for rejecting his father and sets out to find him.

Breaking all the rules he sneaks out after bedtime and meets a cast of interesting characters who are drawn into his search, risking their own safety in doing so.

In finding his drug addicted and homeless father, he recovers memories of the physical abuse his father subjected his mother to – and as a small child he witnessed 

His search reaches a dramatic and dangerous end but cements his friendship with the people who he has met and enables him to find “his tribe”.

This is really heart-warming tale and deals with the recovered memories of the abuse in a way that would be appropriate for a young teenager to read without diminishing the horrific nature of the abuse.


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