Showing Mimi and the blue slave by Catherine Bateson

Following on from The Wish Pony, Catherine Bateson's new novel returns to the world of magic realism to chart the stormy waters of a child's grief.

When grief strikes, you need an ally. For Mimi, that ally is Ableth, the wildly disobedient blue slave. He comes, he goes, he says and does whatever he likes, but he's always there when Mimi needs him most, offering his own brand of crooked wisdom. Ableth says, 'You need to learn to look under the surface of things. Look at water. It's just a great expanse of blue with little wavelets and riffs of foam. But underneath the surface are whole worlds of wonder. There are treasures and wrecks and bones . . .' But it's hard to look beneath the surface when your Mum is shipwrecked by despair, and you're the only one left to keep things afloat. There's a bric-a-brac shop to run, your first Christmas without a dad, and quite possibly a fugitive taking refuge in your back shed.This warm, captivating story celebrates the odd families we make, as well as those we are born into.