Johnny Swanson
Eleanor Updale
Published by David Fickling Books
ISBN 978 0385 61642 3
We are told never to judge a book by its cover. That's just as well because some publishers of youth fiction pay very little attention to the cover they wrap round a novel.
Luckily that is not the case with the cover of Eleanor Updale's Johnny Swanson. It boasts the cartoon of a grinning curly-haired boy between rows of dodgy newspaper ads.
That boy is, of course, the book's hero, Johnny Swanson. We are in 1929 when England is still recovering from the first world war.
Johnny's mother, Winnie, lost her husband in the war and she has to work hard to support the boy. Johnny helps out by delivering newspapers for Hutch, a shop owner. Life is hard, but Johnny's sunny personality and natural optimism keep him going.
Johnny is small for his age and he hates it when other boys at school pick on him. When he sees a classified ad in the local newspaper promising to reveal the secret of instant height, he sends off money to the advertiser, thinking this will solve one of his problems.
The answer to getting instant height, he learns, is to stand on a chair. He's outraged by the trick.
