The Road

I'm loving The Road by Catherine Jinks. It's not just murderously scary, it's also supernaturally spooky - not my usual story tape scene. But it is very good. It is so tense and absorbing that even my partner - who often pretends to find story tapes annoying - has been caught listening with interest.

I'm not surprised because I am a big Catherine Jinks fan. When I was a teenager and going through my "All YA is beneath me, because I've read Wuthering Heights" stage I made an exception for Catherine Jinks' Pagan series. I loved those books with an hysterical passion that saw me ending friendships if someone didn't like them, or even just didn't love them.

When I was a teenager I believed that the books you liked defined your identity. (In my view, anyone who didn't like reading wasn't even a proper person.)

It reminds me of the great video serious Talking Faiths presented by the Immigration Museum. Students pair up to talk about their faith and identity. All the participants are very respectful and keen not to judge the other's perspective.

But in this video there is a sudden moment of discord. Two girls are cheerfully discussing Harry Potter (1:50) when it is revealled that one of them is a Twilight fan and the other one isn't. No amount of awkward giggling can disguise the fact that this budding inter-faith friendship has hit a rocky patch. The Jewish/Muslim thing was fine but the Twilight/non-Twilight divide might be a breaking point.

Fortunately later in the video they're back on less controversial topics and chatting happily about wearing the hijab (4:35).

So my point is - if anyone doesn't like The Road then I don't like you. (Same goes for John Brown Rose and the Midnight Cat.)