My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I like Meg Rosoff. I like how she gets to the heart of her characters. I like how she writes with a KM Peyton-esque precision. And I like her warmth and the way she doesn’t look down on people (or mooses… moosei?). There’s very rarely a Rosoff that does not shine with this non-judgemental … kindness? I think that’s what I mean. She doesn’t judge her characters. She just presents them – as is. And that’s a great and rare gift.
Moose Baby is a very brilliant, very short story that glows with all of the above. It’s published by Barrington Stoke and is ‘dyslexia-friendly’. The chapters are brief and pithy and read almost as if Alan Ayckbourn did YA. That sort of nuanced, sharp domestic writing. Writing which is very much framed in the domestic sphere, around families and love and life, but at the same time viciously funny and astute.
I liked this a lot. It’s short and tight and is a masterclass in ‘short story’ writing, with an ending that made me grin. Meg Rosoff is very, very splendid at what she does.
Daisy May Johnson 