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Unexpected Twist: An Oliver Twisted Tale

by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Tony Ross

Interest age: 10 to 12
Reading age: 10+

Published by Scholastic, 2018

  • Historical

About this book

Shona has just started at a new school, and although it’s OK as far as schools go, life is pretty hard at home: her dad’s benefits have been cut and her nan is ill. There definitely isn’t much money to go around.

In Miss Cavani’s English class, everyone is reading Oliver Twist, and Shona finds that there is quite a lot of similarity between her situation and Oliver’s. When one of the older boys at school offers her a free phone in detention, Shona really wants it – she can’t afford a phone otherwise. But what will she have to do to get it?

In this rather innovative book, Rosen tells the tale of a modern-day Oliver Twist – Shona – alongside the original text of the story, which the reader reads alongside Shona and her English class. Along the way, teacher Miss Cavani helps Shona through her difficulties but also aids the class in discussing Dickens’ themes of family, illness, poverty, social care, crime and antisemitism, which – as you might expect from Rosen, a frequent and knowledgeable commentator on antisemitism and the holocaust as well as other modern-day social issues – is handled very well indeed.

Shona’s story is completely relatable and well-drawn, demonstrating Dickens’ grasp of the human condition and will demonstrate to children that the themes he wrote about in Victorian times are still – sadly – very much with us. A brilliant read for Year 6s or 7s studying the Victorians, and a great read for more mature readers, too.

About the author

Michael Rosen is one of Britain’s best loved writers and performance poets for children and adults. His first degree in English Literature and Language was from Wadham College, Oxford and he went on to study for an MA at the University of Reading and a PhD at the former University of North London, now London Metropolitan.

He is currently Professor of Children’s Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London where he co-devised and teaches critical approaches to reading on an MA in Children’s Literature, having done the same at Birkbeck, University of London. He has taught on MA courses in universities since 1994.

He was the Children’s Laureate from 2007 to 2009 and has published over 200 books for children and adults, including the recent bestseller Many Different Kinds of Love and On The Move.

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