A Young Adult Book:
Needle.
By Patrice Lawrence.
Barrington Stoke, 2022.
One of Barrington Stoke's dyslexia-friendly publications.
NB: this review / comment went in a different direction than I planned. It is more personal, and long-winded, so I don't expect you to read it all under the images. Trigger warnings / content warnings.
As a knitter, I couldn't go past this book.
And, you shouldn't have to apologise for reacting to an act of willful violence and vandalism.
Blake is an arrogant, entitled, bully.
Charlene is a knitter. She is many other things, too. A foster kid. An angry kid.
A grieving child.
Her name and story hit more forcefully than it might for others.
Charlene - Charlie - is the name of an grieving foster kid I knew.
I knew her as my big sister's friend - who had a tough home life*.
I knew her as a single teen soon-to-be- mum, living with us. No formal fostering - she was an adult at that point.
I knew her as an ephemeral will-o'-wisp who would drift into our lives - and out again.
I knew her as the grieving mother - whose baby's funeral was traumatic. My mother was ready to do violence to the priest conducting it. Sins of the mother and all that: cot death, as a punishment for his mother's 'sins'.
I knew - it was never hidden from me - that she had been abused (details were). That she did drugs (past and present tense). That she was a sex worker. I was a little kid in a house of older teens and adults, and conversations happened, and didn't stop, just because I was around.
I knew her as the supportive friend, who went to our house first, after my grandmother's funeral, to help prepare for the 'after-match'.
I knew her as the head-injury victim, who was walked to our place late one night.
She had felt faint, so pulled her car over the side of the road. A young man saw it - engine on, lights on - on his way to the shops. It was the same on his way home. He opened the door and asked where she was going."Home" she said.And he walked her to our house.I knew her as the person sobbing in our lounge. I could hear her from my room. I thought my six-year-old niece had had a nightmare. But, it was Charlie.My Dad thought I should leave.Charlie said no, I would never do drugs after seeing this.
I knew her as the one who helped my sister laugh - really laugh - for the first time since she'd come home, with her children, after escaping her abusive husband (again).
I knew her as the person who, staying with us after this incident, woke up to the cat vomiting up a bottle of vitamin-C tablets, which my nephew had found and feed to the cat. (We had to put a door and a lock on the pantry after this incident!)
I knew her as the person who asked if we'd renovated the kitchen - because the sink was a different height from what she remembered.
We hadn't. She wasn't nine-months pregnant, doing the dishes, this time around.
She's still floating on the edges.
I get the occasional message from her.
Her demons are ever present.
She brought so much joy - and perspective - into my life.
I am glad that I don't see this trajectory in the fictional Charlene.
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