The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon

While most of us loved it, one was indifferent and one absolutely loathed it!

We all related to that long hot summer of 1976; some group members were looking after their young families at the time and some of us were teenagers still at school. The historical context was well presented, it all felt familiar, and for one member the place was familiar too, a location somewhere in the East Midlands. We all remembered having to put the television on to warm up; the TV programmes mentioned; and the casual racism!

We agreed that the descriptive language was fantastic and we recalled favourite passages about the oppressive heat, John’s emotional turmoil and Grace’s weak attempts at pre teenage rebellion.

The crux of the book was people being singled out for being different and it was only through the mouths of the children that Jesus became the most obvious example of this. The adults were unaware of their hypocrisy throughout. As the adults’ secrets emerged through the story (and there wasn’t actually much really happening, it was mainly back stories) it became apparent that the person they were ‘picking on’ was actually the least flawed of them all. From the group which included alcoholic Sheila, lazy May to the abused John and depressed Sylvie; none could grasp that Walter had actually done nothing wrong. Well, apart from the real ‘child snatcher’ who was herself a victim of circumstance.

It was the children, Grace and Tilly, who could most easily see through some of the web of lies that adults spin to get through life. Their observations, which include comments like, “Why do people blame everything on the heat?” “It’s easier than telling everyone the real reason” were very knowing.

Would we recommend it? All bar one – yes! This is a first novel and we look forward to the next one.

Our next book is The Incident at the Fingerpost by Iain Pears and we meet on Thursday, Sept 28^th at the Hundred.

Current good reads by members that they would also recommend are:

• The Map Addict by Mike Parker (if you are mad about maps like Jane and me!)
• The book the recent film Lion is based on – A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly
• A Place Called Winter by Patrick Gayle
• Neurotribes – the Legacy of Autism and how to think smarter about people who think differently by Steve Silberman