Books

Book: Noughts and Crosses, by Malorie Blackman

23/01/09 12:21

Set in a world eerily similar to ours, the only difference is that along side the average teenage worries of family, romance and trying to survive education, you must deal with the fact that absolutely everything is dependant on whether you are a Cross or a nought; black or white. You can assume something of the discrimination at the base of this captivating novel by the simple grammatical statement of noughts being denied even a capital letter in their title. The story follows the lives of Sephy, a high class Cross and Callum, an inferior nought as the world around them struggles to change and they in turn struggle to find any stable path in it.

Through creating a world where back people automatically have more rights than white, Malorie Blackman has cleverly twisted the history of racism in the Western world. Furthermore by using the abstract terms 'noughts and Crosses' she puts enough distance between the issues in the book and our reality, enabling us to look with clearer consideration at how discrimination can destroy those it touches.

The multiple narrators give us a fascinating and sometimes heart-wrenching insight to the characters lives and with Malorie's empathetic writing we are placed in a position (so rarely achievable in issues of inequality) of unbiased understanding.

This book is gripping and moving and compelling and more adjectives than I could coherently put in this page, so I just urge you to read it! And if you love it as much as I did, there are 3 more in the sequel to keep you engrossed…