Just Henry

Product Information

This ought to be a nice little story, an award-winning YA coming-of-age tale of fourteen year old Henry, set in a not-quite-settled post-war England, learning that his assumptions about people are not always accurate. Yet none of it worked for me. So what went wrong? Firstly, the characters are so simplistic it’s hard to take them seriously. There’s a harassed mum, a bratty sister, a truly nasty and parasitic gran, a working class stepdad studying to better himself. There’s the angelic Mrs Beaumont, who waves her magic wand and makes good things happen. There’s the inspirational teacher, Mr Finch. Henry himself is ridiculously dorkish to start with, before being shown the error of his ways.

Henry is growing up in a household that includes his mother, his beloved half-sister Molly, his malevolent paternal grandmother and his mother’s new husband, Uncle Bill. His dead father was a war hero. Henry’s horrible granny has made sure that everyone knows how inadequate and totally beyond the pale her former daughter-in-law’s new husband is. Henry has a good teacher at school, Mr Finch, who puts him together with Pip (who is illegitimate and therefore shunned by the whole class) and Jeffries (whose dad was a deserter and is therefore also not to be played with or spoken to) to work on a project. Henry wants to be part of it because it’s about his passion: photography and the cinema. But how to deal with the two pariahs he’s been given to work with? Magorian is skilled at delineating the class distinctions and prejudices of the time, which will seem strange to present-day children. Just Henry is about a boy, Henry, whose father died in war. His mother married again, and to avoid his stepfather 'Uncle' Bill, he spends hours at the cinema. Being interested in photography and the film industry, he borrows a camera and takes pictures of people doing their daily duties. After developing the pictures in his school darkroom, he notices something in each one of them that changes his entire life.

Every picture tells a story

I could write so much more about this wonderful book but not without giving away some spoilers, and I hate it when spoilers are part of a review. The characters are well-intentioned but stupid. They decide based on emotions, and never stop to think if their assumptions are true. They create all manner of misery for themselves because of this. This is a gripping mystery-thriller and an insightful snapshot of time, set in post-war Britain. It's 1949 and life is bleak for Henry. He misses his father who died a war hero, and he escapes from his annoying stepfather and stepsister whenever he can and goes to the cinema - his passion.One day in the cinema queue he meets Mrs Beaumont who also loves films, and lends Henry a camera for his school project. Henry is disgusted that he's been put in a group with Jeffries, the son of a man who went AWOL, and Pip, who was born illegitimate; but he's about to learn that tolerance and friendship are more important than social stigmas.Henry will need his new friends when he processes the film and makes an alarming discovery.Like a bomb waiting to explode, Henry's world is about to unravel. About This Edition ISBN: Henry, aged 14, lives with his mother, stepfather, half-sister and grandmother in a British coastal town in 1949. Nobody has many luxuries because it is only four years since the end of the Second World War. Food is still rationed and everyone has to work very hard. The detail about everyday life in the late 1940s has been very well-researched for this book.

To this basic mix, the author adds oodles of photography, lots and lots of visits to the pictures, a bit of spying, crime, kidnapping, a talented girl who doesn’t read and a fairy godmother called Mrs Beaumont, who manages to guide the events of the story (which are fast-moving, emotional and exciting) to a happy ending that wouldn’t be out of place at the Troxy cinema. There are surprises aplenty, and you may well shed a tear before it’s all over. The evil granny is worthy of the best melodrama. She’s the spin-doctor supreme for Henry’s dead dad, so we are alerted to the fact that all is not what it seems to be. As 1949 turns into 1950 the boy has some serious lessons to learn, not least of which is that things are not always what they seem.He offers two useful features. The first is a dual purpose hairo-brush which is fantastic for scrubbing off stubborn pet hairs and other stains, the second is a carbon filter designed to combat unpleasant smells. The MicroFresh filter activated charcoal filter will minimise the bad smells your pets can create. This is a master storyteller at work with the sort of descriptive writing that is a joy to read. Just Henry is a soaring, uplifting warm bath of a book – a wonderful roller-coaster of a story which we all absolutely loved.'