Artichoke Hearts Sita Brahmachari Published by Macmillan Children's Books ISBN 978 0 330 51791 1 You would expect something unusual from the latest winner of the prestigious Waterstone's Children's Book Prize in Britain, and you certainly get it in Sita Brahmachari's Artichoke Hearts. This is the story of a 12-year-old girl's first steps into adult life. On the surface, the tale is quite ordinary and nothing to shout about, but the writer turns young Mira Levenson's first brushes with teenage angst into a very addictive read. Mira, like the author, lives in a multicultural Britain and is part English, part Indian. Her mother's family is from India and her father comes from northern England. Nana Josie, Mira's paternal grandmother, is the strongest influence in the girl's changing life, and the portrait of this interesting character is the driving force behind the book. She gives Mira a silver charm in the shape of an artichoke heart, telling her that life is like an artichoke made up of many layers, all there to be peeled away. Mira has to learn what her grandma means. Now Nana is dying of cancer. She has to make the best of her time left with her favourite grandchild. Nana's final artistic project is painting the coffin that will be her final resting place. She asks Mira to help with this ultimate artwork. Mira and her best friend Millie don't always get along with the two boys in their creative writing group at school, but as each one starts to write a journal, relationships begin to develop. Artichoke Hearts is very much a teen girl's book, and although it is well written and challenging, it won't appeal to many male readers. But this possibility clearly didn't distract Brahmachari from writing a brilliant novel in an unsentimental voice. Her writing is at its best when describing Nana's final days in hospital. A lesser writer would have slipped into sentimental mode, but Brahmachari's account leaves readers with a lasting emotional hit. Artichoke Hearts covers feelings, relationships and moving on. It is a worthy but limited-in-appeal prize winner.
