The Coal House

There can't be many recent children's books that touch on the north/south divide and include the year-long miners' strike. Maybe this was a consideration when The Coal House was awarded the Whitbread Prize. Alison Lucas and her widower father make a fresh start by moving north and taking over a rambling, former mine manager's house. Southerners fitting into a stressed northern mining community don't find it easy, and respect and acceptance must be earned by deeds, not by right of property ownership or accent. The dark, looming figure/past visited on the present aspect of the story adds a bit of gratuitous mystery. I preferred getting to know the locals in the pub. Stock a lower secondary library copy.