All The Fun of the Fair by Caroline Hulse

‘Thing is, boys are better than girls. They just are.’ All the Fun of the Fair is set in 1996. In the small town of Monkford. where ‘the scouts go camping and the guides make jam’, eleven year old Fiona Larson struggles to fit in both at home and at school. This novel is a funny and revealing account of how she tackles challenges she barely understands.

Fiona is longing to go to the biggest event of her community’s year, the annual summer fair. She is the only person she knows who has never been to the fair, and it irks her. Because, before Fiona was born, her sister Danielle died at the fair, her parents have forbidden her to go. No-one will tell Fiona how Danielle died, and she is desperate to know the truth about the death of the sister she never knew. She sets about solving this mystery in her own characteristic fashion.

Fiona has a methodical mind but finds it difficult to understand how other people think. She uses lists to categorise and interpret information she has observed or discovered. The author, Caroline Hulse, uses these lists, along with Fiona’s collection of what she sees as paradoxes, to inject extra fun into a narrative which is already hilarious. I laughed out loud at Fiona’s attempts to figure out why her parents and school friends often react negatively to her efforts to fit in and make friends.

In some ways Fiona comes across as mature for her age, because she notices all kinds of fascinating details in the behaviour of those around her. However, her way of approaching problems is often childish and inappropriate. She plans her investigations using a home-made spy kit she keeps in a pocket sewn inside her coat, and talks her only friend into doing the same. When she tries to insert herself into a girls’ friendship group, her efforts to win them over are equally inappropriate. Fiona’s inability to grasp the social niceties often leads to problems of her own making.

Some of the questions raised by Fiona’s adventures are never answered, but the clues she unearths point the way to intriguing solutions. Young adults may enjoy All the Fun of the Fair, but I think those who grew up in the Nineties will fully appreciate the humour and the cultural references.

I was given a copy of All the Fun of the Fair in return for an honest review.