The Dangerous Life of Ophelia Bottom - Susie Bowers

 

Ophelia Bottom lives an unconventional life with her parents who are Shakespearean actors.  Together, the family travel around the country in their ancient and rather rickety van (Pantechnicon), performing rather disastrous plays as Bottom’s Travelling Theatre.  Ophelia longs to be like other children and then, one evening, during a particularly disastrous performance, Ophelia’s father is injured, which forces the family to stay in the town of Stopford for several weeks.  This means that Ophelia is given the chance to go to school and to live like a ‘normal’ child.  However, she finds the school’s motto ‘Plastic is fantastic – different is dangerous’ is strange and the longer she is there, the more she believes that there is something not quite right about Stopford and she is determined to get the bottom of things.

Ophelia just wants to feel like any other child, to live in a house, to go to school and to go a day without being embarrassed by her parents (it’s our job as parents to embarrass our children, isn’t it?!) but the joy of Ophelia is that she is wonderfully different and unique and this, for me, makes her rather brilliant in my mind.  Even when she gets the opportunity to get her dream and to be like other children, she finds herself not quite fitting in with the seemingly perfect school.  I would like to say at this point that I would have happily throttled Miss Smith, Ophelia’s teacher at numerous points during the book – she was definitely a character that enjoyed hating and I even found myself shouting at the book at her! 

Ophelia’s parents were a pleasure to read and quite opposite to each other.  Her father is larger than life and reminded my very much of Brian Blessed with his loud voice.  It is clear that he loves his family and cares in his own way.  Her mum, on the other hand, is more sensible and is very keen for Ophelia to have a conventional education.  She worries about the practicalities like money and food is the parent who keeps them on an even keel.  The pair compliment each other well. 

I have to also mention Professor Potkettle who really made me shudder.  He is a truly evil villain but his bumbling speech masks a lot of what is going on.

The Dangerous Life of Ophelia Bottom is a joyous read that deftly combines messages of the environment, plastic damage, friendship, family and being true to yourself.  I particularly love the messages about being an individual, which is something I encourage my son and the children in school to be.  Due to be released on the 4th August, this will definitely be heading in to school next term.