A gently episodic and humorous tale whose sharp-eyed, effervescent child narrators entertain... Beguilingly readable' Daily Mail Themes of growing up and losing the innocence of childhood are woven into the story, along with the difficulties of friendships. The effects of adult relationships on children beg the question of who really are the adults here.

Amy Connell and Lan Honey are having the best childhood, growing up on a West Country farm - three families, a couple of lodgers, goats, dogs and an orphaned calf called Gabriella Christmas. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. It was not credible that the supposedly feisty Harriet would allow her husband and best friend to conduct an affair for five years without taking any action. I absolutely adored this book, I loved that it was told from a child’s perspective, really gave it an edge. It just goes to show that children are more astute than we give them credit for. It took me sometime to get into the flow of reading this book, perhaps the build-up of the story line was a bit slow for me! But the last third of it, the move/ the parting was quite gripping and made me emotional.

It was interesting reading children’s perspectives of living in a hippy commune farm; although I have to say I was not entirely convinced by Lan’s and Amy’s voices. Gifted by Vintage and the Reading Agency* Amy and Lan is both an amusing and tragic presentation of rural life in the mid-late 2000s. Its two principal characters, Amy and Lan, provide a strong narrative voice for the plot. The story of Frith and the families that reside is told through the childish eyes of its two leads; trying to comprehend and navigate the complex dramas of the adults on the farm. Not much seemed to happen but there was a feeling that something would. The friendship between Amy & Lan is poignant, but doomed. I did like the parts where Lan finds joy in small things, and when he explained that the past and present are real but not the future. Sometimes hard to work out which of the children was narrating the story, which couples were together and who their children were.

Some of the recollections highlighted how wild and dangerous childhood can be, especially without the supervision of adults. Initially I found it quite difficult to follow and without any direction, one chapter being written as ‘Lan’ , the next as ‘Amy’, which made it a bit more difficult to follow which parents/family belonged to which child, but it’s worth persevering with. You may also opt to downgrade to Standard Digital, a robust journalistic offering that fulfils many user’s needs. Compare Standard and Premium Digital here.This is one of my favourite books this year. I loved the story of these two children and their families living on a farm. I was caught up in the lives of them all and enjoyed the self sufficiency of the farm. I felt like I knew these people and the ending made me feel emotional. I finished ‘Amy and Lan’ wanting to know how they adapted/enjoyed/survived the next ten years of their lives. Will there be a sequel?