Crow - Nicola Skinner - ★★

AUTHOR: Nicola Skinner

ILLUSTRATOR: Rebecca Bagley

GENRE: Middle-Grade Fiction.

RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: Mixed feelings. A decent story by itself, but I don’t know if I want children to read a story with such an annoying main character.

Story Synopsis:

Hattie’s family, which comprises her father, her brother, and her pet rat, is moving from Bristol to a village in Somerset, much to Hattie’s chagrin. She doesn’t like talking to new people, and is quite irritated about having to attend a new school.

When she sees a scarecrow in one of the local fields, she decides to make her own scarecrow, whom she calls ‘Crow’, to scare kids away from her den in a corner of the school playground. Crow mysteriously comes to life, and turns out to be too serious about his job – scaring children. Hattie is happy with his attempts, but soon she realises that things are getting out of hand. What can she do?

The story comes to us in Hattie’s first person perspective.

At the surface level, this should have been a great story for kids. Most modern kids don’t even know what a scarecrow is, so to take the term literally and have a “scare” crow coming to life should have been a fun concept. Crow is initially reluctant to be so frightening as he is more interested in having fun with the other kids, but he is loyal to his “maker” and hence has to follow her dictates. This highlights how peer pressure can sometimes force you into being what you aren’t, and hopefully, kids will realise that there’s always a choice.

However, we hear the story from Hattie’s point of view, and therein lies the biggest problem – Hattie is not a likeable character, not just because of her behaviour, but also because the reason behind her anxiety and irritation is never explained. Kids should have been able to connect with Hattie’s nervousness about being in a new place and school, but the fact is that she doesn’t ever attempt to fit in. Right from the start, she is portrayed as someone who is rude (even to her dad), manipulative, and adamant. The book should have been about her struggles to fit in, but she doesn’t even attempt to fit in. What message does that give the little readers?

In such stories, it’s usually the new kids who are either bullies or distant or rude. But all the kids at Hattie’s new school are quite sweet and friendly, which makes her behaviour even more flabbergasting. For the first time ever, I liked every child in the book except the main protagonist, and that leaves me confused – would I want my children to read a book with such a lead character? One who is obnoxious without any justification being provided? One who is so aggressive that she doesn’t even feel guilty about others being hurt? One who has no qualms stealing her father’s favourite pair of jeans and ripping them to make a scarecrow? I don’t think so.

Because of the choice of writing this story in first person, we also miss out on some essential information that *might* have helped us understand Hattie. Where is her mother? Why wasn’t she happy for her dad when she admits that he hadn’t been happy for years after having lost his job? Why was she so resistant to the idea of making friends? No answers. We also don’t know how Crow suddenly comes alive. Also, what happened to her pet rat Sid? After all the fuss she makes at the start about Sid being dearer to her than her own brother, Sid doesn’t come up in the story again.

Of course, Hattie’s behaviour does improve at the end, and we get a HEA ending, as is expected in children’s fiction, but it’s a case of too little, too late.

The only thing I loved about the book were the illustrations. They are really cute and complement the story well. Another fun element was Struan’s mismatched idioms.

Though the language of the book is in Barrington Stoke’s typical Hi-Lo style, catering to a lower reading age while being targeted at middle graders, I am not very comfortable recommending this to the target audience. Try as I might, I simply can’t see the point of this book.

My thanks to Barrington Stoke and NetGalley for the DRC of “Crow”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.