Customer Reviews

Invisible!

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What would you do if you became invisible? This is the question on the back of the cover and you've probably got hundreds of ideas of what you and your friends would do. The characters or in real life the imagination of author Robert Swindells though couldn't really come up with much. This book seems to be more about lecturing the readers on social issues such as gypsies aren't thieves, school bullies have issues at home that make them bully others and other important through the eyes of Robert Swindell life lessons.

The kids don't really get up to anything other than sneaking into two houses (the victim and the thief). Swindells couldn't even think up a decent idea for how his characters become invisible so just says its a secret passed down through the travellers (gypsies) generations that all kids up to around 13 can do it by walking heal to toe backwards around a perfect circle. Now obviously in real life there is no realistic way to turn invisible but you want whichever way is used to be in the imagination of the reader maybe possible.

The plot for this novel is very thin. Gypsy girl Rosie Walker moves to a small town called Inchlake and to make classmates like her she teaches a few of them the passed down gypsy secret that kids can become invisible. They call themselves the Inchlake Invisibles and get up to extremely exciting things like tormenting a dog so it gets told off by the old man walking it. Yeah that's about it. A few have accidents and work out there are pitfalls to being invisible, especially since if you hurt yourself no adults can see you. Rosie and the Inchlake Invisible decide to torment a bully, go to school invisible one day (although she doesn't get up to much, probably because Swindell couldn't come up with any ideas) and solve some recent theft crimes that Rosie's father named Daddy Bear has been accused of.

This book is very lazily written. Even though it is set in a small town police seem to not only be incompetent and stupid but unaware of a missing child called Peter Rabbit that was reported to them by his parents, not believing Rosie because she mentions his name when she tries to convince them with proof as to the real thief.

If you want good fiction stories about being invisible, invisible men (or kids) the best two novels are Memoirs of an Invisible Man by H. F. Saint, Smoke by Donald E Westlake. These two books are adult fiction and maybe a bit above the reading level of some kids.

If junior fiction is all your looking for then the best of this genre are My Best Friend Is Invisible (Goosebumps) by R. L. Stine, Invisible Fran by Jim Benton, You Are Invisible: CYOA #48 by Susan Saunders, The Invisible Day by Marthe Jocelyn, Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex, you can even get an illustrated version of H.G. Wells 1897 classic The Invisible Man (Great Illustrated Classics). There are many great alternatives out there, give this unimaginative rush job a miss. According to the back cover Robert Swindells writes books that are so scary you're afraid to turn the page. Well this book isn't scary at all, the only scary thing is that someone published a book this bad!

To find out exactly what a group of five ten year olds would do. This story is gripping, exciting and hard to put down. It is realistic, and Swindells is brilliant at getting into the mind of each child. It is very realistic, with a suitable entanglement of sub-plots. I would recommend it to anyone over eleven and under thirteen. Younger readers may find it scary, and older pupils may find it boring.