Editorial Content for Amy & Lan

Frith is a child’s dream come true. It’s a place where three families came together to fashion a farm out of some old buildings on arable land. These people left London in favor of trying their hand at raising goats and chickens, a calf and some pigs, and welcomed newly separated Em and struggling Finbar.

Amy and Lachlan (Lan for short) are seven years old when we join their stories, and we will follow them for the next five years. Frith has a number of other children for them to play with, but these two prefer the company of themselves. In fact, Amy often claims to hate one of them, a nasty little boy named Bill, who is several years younger and quite ill-behaved. His sister, Lulu, isn’t a whole lot better. Amy’s brother is a sensitive lad, so he’s okay.

"Sadie Jones has written an emotional tale of how relationships go wrong, how they go right and the consequences of both. Don’t miss this powerful book."

Amy and Lan are far from perfect, but that’s mostly due to, well, being kids. They have the wild imaginations of the young, and they employ them with abandon. While their parents are busy with all sorts of grown-up things, which Amy especially finds silly or gross, she and her best friend get busy finding mischief, like climbing high up in the barn, a forbidden place that is great for spying on everyone. And, oh, the things they see.

Not all of what goes on at Frith is a dream, though. Like watching Virginia the turkey get killed for Thanksgiving. It turns out to prove more disturbing than most of them thought. By naming the animals, it frankly makes their deaths too personal. How can they eat Virginia after knowing her for so long? Same with the chickens. So much blood. Not every endeavor these novice farmers try has a happy ending. Far from it. Running Frith by trial and error inevitably leads to occasional uncomfortable results, and not just the children learn the hard way how Mother Nature works. She takes her toll.

They struggle to succeed during the early years. Then it seems the closeness that made Frith a special community has begun to grate on them. The grown-ups aren’t acting very grown up. It appears that arguments are breaking out more and more often. Amy’s mum has uncharacteristic moody spells, and Lan’s mum is acting weird. The children don’t know what’s going on, but something certainly isn’t right. Amy and Lan have definitely noticed. Still, they keep doing what kids do --- playing and making believe. But while they all go blissfully about their lives, their delicate balance is teetering dangerously. It can’t last.

Lan begins the story, when they’re getting ready for the fun ritual of lighting the Halloween bonfire. He narrates for a while before Amy takes over. Each of them alternates telling how Frith developed, in their childish ways. Their seven-year-old voices slowly mature as the years pass. So do their observations. The connection between them is pure and innocent, which makes what happens so heartbreaking.

Sadie Jones has written an emotional tale of how relationships go wrong, how they go right and the consequences of both. Don’t miss this powerful book.