You’re never too young for politics - Books - Times Online
Amanda Craig on Anne Fine's latest novel, The Road Of Bones:
Fine, the former Children’s Laureate, has addressed many contemporary problems, from divorce to bullying, with a robust and engaging wit. This is a departure from form, an angry, biting book about the horrors of the former Soviet Union that will repel and confuse many children. Lacking sufficient plot or moral intelligence, Yuri becomes increasingly heartless, believing like those before him that the end will justify the means. Not, alas, in this case....
It's not clear from that penultiumate sentence whether Craig thinks the book or the character lacks plot or moral intelligence. Probably both.
Craig is a great enthusiast for children's books, but I do not trust her taste and judgement, nor do I care for her sweeping generalisations, such as (from earlier in the review, when she is discussing Voices by Ursula Le Guin) "It is not sex but death that is the preoccupation of all great children’s fiction, and authors ignore this at their peril."
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