Customer Reviews

Indigo's Star

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great family story, with all the bumps and scrapes left in. Nobody loves their siblings all the time! These kids each have their own lives and interests, but care about each other, too.
Indigo's experiences with school and friends and sisters are totally believable, even when you can't believe they're happening. From bullies to stars, to music and friends, it all rings true. Read Saffy's Angel and Permenant Rose, too. They are all great books, but Indigo's Star may be the best.

I picked up a copy of Indigo's Star in a bookstore and sat down to look it over. A couple of hours later I was well into the story and I knew I couldn't leave without my own copy. This book is, in a word, perfect. The characters are one of a kind, the story is funny and warm-hearted, and all in all it has that special flavor that can only be found in the pages of a book by Hilary McKay. Read this book! You won't be disappointed.

Living as a 21st Century 12 year old boy can be tough. Especially when you're bullied relentlessly. Just like Indigo Casson. Indigo is different, herefore a perfect target for abuse. His head is flushed in toilets by a group of controlling, mean-spirited boys, just because he is different.
But then he meets Tom, an American boy visiting England, and everything changes.
Tom is a shock to everyone. With his non-chalant demeanor and blank expression, he is a difficuly one to figure out. Yet he is victimised as well. But the bullies soon learn that Tom Levin is not one to be reckoned with. He begins a quick friendship with Indigo's younger sister, Rose.
This book is a touching masterpiece. And completely worth the time.

I just finished listening to "Indigo's Star." It picks up where "Saffy's Angel" ended and is the touching story of Indigo Casson and the problems he has with a gang of thugs and bullies at his school. Indigo makes his first real friend, Tom, an American living with his British grandmother for the term. In many ways this is Tom's story as much as Indigo's. Tom is in England to escape the realities of his father's remarriage. He is a gifted guitarist and longs to purchase a special guitar at the local music store. Indigo's sister, Permanent Rose, latches on to Tom and considers him as much her friend as her brother's. She is determined to get that guitar for Tom. The rest of the eccentric Casson family returns from the earlier novel. Oldest daughter Caddy is at university and besieged by suitors. Adopted sister Saffy and her friend Sarah are fiercely protective of the family members. Permanent Rose is trying hard to engage their mostly absent father in the family's life. Their dottie mother, Eve, is enjoying more artistic success than her husband but cannot manage to keep groceries in the house.Helen Lederer's narration of the audio version is excellent.

This is another wonderful visit with characters that seem so real they are like my own dear friends. I cannot wait to read the next book, "Permanent Rose."
Highly recommended.

I'm the first one to admit that I was not bowled over by Hilary McKay's, "Saffy's Angel". I thought it was all right, but that there were some serious problems in the narrative. The family was just a little too quirky. The mother was absent-minded and negligent, while the father (who was the only person who took care of the kids when they were sick and in the practical sense) was seen as the villain. There was a preciousness to the novel that turned me off. It's not entirely surprising, then, that I approached "Indigo's Star" with a great deal of trepidation. You can imagine my relief when I discovered the book to be an amusing and mature look at bullies, children dealing with changes in their families, and absentee parents. It still tries too hard to be lovable at times, but the book's a good read. Better than its predecessor by far.

Indigo's been thoroughly happy with his life recently. Having come down with mono, he's been sick at home (and away from the bullies of his school) for weeks and weeks and weeks. Now, however, he's better and school is looming once again. Going back, he finds that almost nothing has changed. The bullies still have it in for him. The place still is noisy and has that peculiar school smell. The only real difference is that now Indigo's met the new American boy, Tom. Tom's moved to England to escape his father and insipient step-mother. He's angry, alone, and cares only about a beautiful black guitar he's seen in one of the shops in town. Suddenly Tom's adopted by Indigo and his eccentric family. Little sister Rose adores Tom at first sight and can't bear the thought of his going back to England. The rest of the family takes him in as they have with so many other strangers before. By the time Tom's stay is at its end, he's come to grips with a lot more than how to get himself a new guitar.

Though it's called "Indigo's Star", and much of the story concentrates on Indigo himself, the real star of the show in this book is little sister Rose. Rose was always the character I had the biggest problems with. A person who cares primarily about herself and her own needs, Rose was unreadably precocious in "Saffy's Angel". Here, McKay has allowed Rose a little more maturity. She's still demanding and outrageous, but this is tempered slightly by a new obsession. Rose has noticed that the family's patriarch, the snobby artist Bill, never comes home to the family anymore. It becomes her goal to get him back by any means necessary. This usually takes the form of letters, which grow increasingly inventive and funny as the book wears on. I was particularly pleased with a letter in which Rose talked about her older sister getting married and then threatens Bill with paying for the whole thing if he doesn't come home soon. Bill still is an overblown but responsible figure in this story, something that McKay acknowledges a little more by the end. So while I wasn't entirely comfortable with making the person who thinks to get his youngest daughter a pair of glasses a villain, it's hard to deny that his abandonment is anything but the work of a true jerk.

As for the story itself, it's rather good. McKay's always been stronger on plot than characters (which is a completely personal opinion on my part). Indigo's journey, culminating in a confrontation with the bully on the bridge, is believable. Tom's eventual acceptance of his new family works within the book too. Altogether, there's a great deal of growth and change going on in "Indigo's Star" that made for a satisfying read.

I don't think I'll ever become a full-fledged member of the Hilary McKay fan club. Be that as it may, I tip my hat to her over her second installment in the Casson series. If you've never read a book about this family before, I urge you to start here. This book is widely beloved, and probably deserves almost all the praise it gets.

this is a great series for ages9-14 it is touching and well writin
worth the mony but you should read saffys angel first enjoy1

Is about Indigo Casson, and has suffered from mononucleosis and has already been in the hospital for three weeks. Then eventually he gets better,and figures out it's Monday. At school, he gets picked on by this boy and his gang. His little sister, Rose Casson, knows what's going on, and the red haired-gang leader doesn't want anyone to know. Then one day, they pick on Indigo's little sister Rose. Indigo gets real mad and takes matters into his own hands and beats up the kid and nor him or his gang pick on him or Rose again.

A boy who gets picked on at school makes a new friend in an American visitor and learns to stand up for himself. His family is a riot.

As always, the Casson kids are courageous, delightful, complex, funny, resourceful, creative, etc. And their parents are criminally neglectful selfish pigs.

What the father does at the end of the book does not mitigate his selfishness. It only highlights it. He has lots of money but the kids go hungry. What a jerk! (That isn't the word I wanted to use!)

As has been mentioned, the book is as much about the kid with thorns, Rose, as it is about Indigo. But there is plenty about him.

Adults really ought to read some teen fiction, with an open mind. They would discover that adults are almost always portrayed as jerks, intentional or unintentional jerks. There must be a reason for that beyond "teen rebelliousness."

I agree that Indigo's Star is a better book than Saffy's Angel (though I liked them both), and also that it's as much about Rose as it is about Indigo. That's one of the things I like about these books -- all the family members (except the absentee father Bill) get their own stories. I did miss Caddy, mostly away at university in this one, though she makes up for it with the humor of the string of "rock-bottom boyfriends" (in Rose's words) she brings home for weekends.

The only thing that bothered me about this book, as it did about the previous one, is that Eve is just a little too irresponsible a parent for my comfort level. Certainly she deserves an opportunity to be a "real artist" herself, and she does love her kids, but I can't entirely side with any mother who simply forgets to buy food -- and still doesn't buy it, even when her children remind her.

On the whole, I loved this book for the quirky, wacky family itself, and the way Hilary McKay keeps the tone sweet (mostly) yet utterly unpredictable.