The Mum Hunt
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
How hard can it be to find the perfect partner for your dad?
Esmie misses her mum, even though she was only a tiny baby when she died. She has a photo by her bed, and sometimes – when she needs advice or just fancies a chat – she asks her mum for help. Sometimes she even hears her reply.
But Esmie thinks her dad is lonely. And her big brother Matthew would definitely benefit from a female influence. So Esmie decides to take action: she's going to find her dad a girlfriend. Beautiful, clever, charming, kind to children and animals ... How hard can it be to find the perfect partner for your dad?
In the book which won her the Red House Children's Book Award, Gwyneth Rees tells a story of healing and love with characteristic charm and humour. The Mum Hunt comes to Bloomsbury for a refreshed cover look and renewed marketing and publicity to bring new readers to this quirky, lovely modern classic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Esmie, the 11-year-old narrator of this engaging novel, complains that no one makes enough of a fuss over her: not her widower father, an overworked police detective; not Juliette, the family's feisty 22-year-old French au pair, so bold as to have her own social life; and certainly not her 15-year-old brother, Matty, who splits his time between bickering with Esmie and with their father. Deciding that her father is lonely, Esmie joins forces with Juliette and Matty to place a personals ad in the newspaper in hopes of finding him a wife. The plan hits some snags, for example, when Esmie, after watching The Sound of Music, begins to think that Juliette would make the ideal stepmother, and when an elaborately plotted blind date backfires. The author, a Londoner making her U.S. debut, nimbly balances the tale's ample humor with genuinely poignant elements, including Esmie's imaginary conversations with a photograph of the mother she never knew and Matty's struggle to assert his independence from their father. The tale's ending is satisfying if a tad overly tidy, but the dialogue and the family dynamics are entirely convincing and affecting. Ages 10-up.
