The Tulip Touch

Product Information

This book looks at the weird and wonderful ideas and actions of Tulip through the eyes of her friend Natalie. The girls attend the same school and enjoy a close friendship, much to the dismay of Natalie’s parents and teachers. Tulip likes to test boundaries, both at school and within her friendship with Natalie. Their friendship is tested on the greatest level when Tulip takes her pranks to extreme heights and sets fire to a shed. Although Natalie knows that this behaviour is wrong, she still does not tell the police about Tulips actions. Anne Fine has the talent for revealing great truths in simple language. Once the reader is hooked on wondering how far Tulip will go and whether Natalie will help her or stop her, it’s hard to stop reading! As well as unfussy sentence structure, the story is chunked into three parts which is then sub-divided into short chapters. It breaks the story into bite-sized chunks so readers can process in between. Invaluable given how much is implied in the gaps between this story. Anne Fine’s work has been translated into forty five languages. In 2003 she became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE. Anne has two grown up daughters, and lives in County Durham. Anne Fine uses simple prose to great effect. The language is usually more dramatic and economical than descriptive. Every sentence is precisely constructed to ensure clear meaning."

It's been years since I read this book. I had borrowed it from my mother's friend's daughter and it was one of the first slice-of-life children fiction that I fell in love with. The plot was simple, and it was because of that simplicity that it's complicated. And I loved it. Characters: I adored the characters. Each of them had their own depth, even if there weren't actually that many. This book was released in 1996, during my transition from primary to high school and it was probably a book that was in the high school library, as the cover feels very familiar. But I don't remember reading it, at least the story did not feel familiar, as I certainly would not have kept reading. Themes- unhealthy friendships, exiting an unhealthy friendship, guilt, school transitions, sibling jealousy, social isolation, finding your own path, domestic violence (implied)Anne Fine has also published eight highly acclaimed novels for adults, including In Cold Domain, All Bones and Lies and Raking the Ashes. The Killjoy won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and both Taking the Devil’s Advice and Telling Liddy have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Our Precious Lulu is her most recent novel. She doesn't fall into literary clichés with Tulip and has obviously done her research into how (sexually)abused/neglected children will often act (different from common expectation). She also nails Natalie's rabbit-caught-in-headlights car crash helplessness. This is essentially a book about bullying or a very toxic friendship. The toxicity of Tulip's words and attitude most of the time astounded me and the way she manipulated Natalie to do her bidding. But who was at fault really? I couldn't decide by the end. It did seem that Natalie allowed herself to be caught up in Tulip's world, and all the nastiness that came with it. (From their silly little games, to being nasty to the adults, to asking a mother if her dead daughter can come out to play.) But she also managed to cut Tulip out of her life after one particularly nasty incident. But not before what feels like a couple of years have gone by.

For a kid living in a big literary city like Edinburgh or London, meeting authors might not be such a big deal. Authors tend to work hard to promote their books and the ones I know do as many events as they can. But let me tell you, rural Aberdeenshire in the 80s was not a hotbed of literary discovery, and you coming to town meant a lot. I think that was the point when I realized writing could be a career. Maybe one day, I could be a writer too. Tulip creates unease from her first appearance and Anne Fine’s storytelling tightens the unsettling knot chapter by chapter. As Natalie is drawn towards this strange girl and her increasingly bizarre games, the reader realises the danger Tulip presents. I remember your visit vividly because I was an avid, avid reader of your books. You coming to town was like having a famous pop star parachute in for the day. The excitement of having an actual, real author come to speak to us! Someone whose books I could reach out and touch on the library shelves in the children’s section upstairs where you did your event. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2010-11-23 19:21:54 Boxid IA134802 Boxid_2 CH122801 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City Boston Donor

urn:oclc:877385881 Scandate 20110601223317 Scanner scribe8.shenzhen.archive.org Scanningcenter shenzhen Worldcat (source edition) Narrator Natalie's parents manage hotels, and while she is still at primary school, with a younger brother at the screaming stage, the family take charge of a hundred-room residence called The Palace and its grounds. Despite much repair work needing to be done the hotel is a warren for her to explore and lose herself in. Soon afterwards she and her father come across a solitary waif standing in a nearby field and take her under their wing, but it is soon clear that Tulip is a very strange, even a dangerous individual. This award-winning teenage novel -- it was the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year in 1996 -- is a hard-hitting psychological portrayal of an abusive friendship which poses the eternal question, are people ever born evil? It also asks whether it is enough for people to shake their heads and pass judgement while assuming it's somebody else's responsibility to deal with the root causes of antisocial behaviour. She skives off school, cheeks the teachers and makes herself unpopular with her classmates by telling awful lies. And adult readers may also pause to consider how even grown-ups can be powerless to change situations, either because of their own inadequacies or because systems aren't in place to allow justice to be done. Through moral ambiguities, challenges and personal courage we are led along the narrative path this novel hastens to take us.