Age 10+

Tanglewreck is the name of a large old house and, appropriately, Winterson’s debut novel for children is sometimes ramshackle and rambling and has obscure corners, but there is also craftsmanship in the way it is built. It tells the story of Silver, an 11-year-old orphan girl, who becomes caught up in the hunt for an object that will impart power over Time, which is already beginning to buckle and stretch. Some details are beautifully made: as when Silver first approaches the “closed arms” of Mrs Rokabye, her unloving (and entertainingly written) guardian, and the story is at its best when it is funny. There are elements of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials: a beautiful, evil woman steals children’s full existence from them; religion is corrupt (in this case, it is the Catholic church); there are parallel universes. But the novel’s sentence-long paragraphs do not make it simple, and an inconsistent pace diffuses its emotional power. Ambitious in its range of times and places, the book can be confusing in its allusions, with, for instance, unexplained references to Schrödinger’s cat, Atlantis and Robert Hooke. It is far from a wreck, but it is a bit of a tangle.

(Bloomsbury £12.99)

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