Kid Swap

Michael Lawrence

Orchard Books

140830273X

Jul 2008

Another welcome and wit-filled outing for Jiggy McCue sees the hapless protagonist assume the leading role in a new television series ‘Kid Swap’ where children from families with different socio-econimic backgrounds and systems of belief are brought together in a ‘light-the-blue-touch-paper’ and watch the chaos ensue type fashion…
The near-universal base of Jiggy’s various mishaps and humiliations will make these familiar for many and thereby extending a sense of affinity towards him. Underlying the laugh-out-loud plot-lines, lies a caution as to the importance of privacy in adolescene, the ability to make our own mistakes, to fall prey to our doubts and emotions and ultimately to develop and grow because of that. Accordingly, as an adult reader, it is hard not to breathe a sigh of relief that Jiggy attains some form of reprieve by the end of novel and that his late childhood remains his own, not sold-off or commoditised.