December’s Choice From The Reader Bookshelf

The Reader Bookshelf is a  carefully curated collection of literature for adults and children, exploring a different theme each year, this year’s theme ‘Wonder’ is about being bold, being curious and being open. Staff and volunteers around the country have selected 12 titles for adults which explore what 'Wonder' means to them.

We're delving into The Reader Bookshelf with a review by Rachael Elliott our Volunteer Experience Manager. This month Rachael shares her thoughts on Foster by Claire Keegan.

Foster tells of the experiences of an unnamed young girl from a poor family who is sent to live with relatives, the Kinsellas, for the summer. Through her perspective, we explore her journey as she forms new bonds, encounters new environments and experiences new emotions. My own inner child felt a deep connection with the protagonist as she attempts to understand the shifts within her world.

Resting within the simple language of the novel is a subtle, understated wonder that speaks of a curiosity to know what is happening within us, and without. Through the young girl’s eyes, I experienced moments of innocent wonder that brought a smile as she felt her way through a new home life: her hope that Mr Kinsella will take her ‘to town on the tractor to buy me red lemonade and crisps’; her surprise at a type of tree she views as ‘sick’, but is actually a weeping willow; a trip to the chemist where the Kinsellas ask for ‘Aunt Acid’.

Sometimes the narrator encounters emotions so new and elusive they defy naming. These are the moments I found myself returning to often, approaching each with a tender curiosity.

‘Kinsella takes my hand in his. As soon as he takes it, I realise my father has never once held my hand, and some part of me wants Kinsella to let me go so I won’t have to feel this. It’s a hard feeling, but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be.’

I recently brought the first chapter of Foster to the Shared Reading group that I lead at Morrison’s in Belle Vale, Liverpool. After our first pause, a group member came in straight away with ‘I love it!’ When digging a bit deeper, she reflected that what she was drawn to was the language, how clear and simple it is…yet how much there is to feel into behind the words. There’s a spaciousness in the story that invites us to wonder about the unsaid. It may feel a bit uncomfortable in this space, yet the liminal invites us to pause and opens up opportunities for wonder.

Foster has uncovered new shared reading possibilities for me. I’m eager to find the richness waiting to be discovered in the unsaid, in the depths surrounding simple, minimal prose. Although it’s a short novel, it is far from small. At the end of the story we are left unknowing in a place of uncertainty. And isn’t this precisely the space to embrace wonder