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Friday 19 June 2015

What Milo Saw by Virginia Macgregor

Milo's dad has run off with his secretary to Abu Dhabi, leaving Milo's distraught and heartbroken mum, Sandy, to cope with looking after Milo, Milo's pet pig Hamlet, and Milo's great grandma Lou. Milo has a sight problem - he suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, which means he has only pinhole vision, a condition which only gets worse and results in blindness. Lou is starting to suffer from dementia, and creates an incident at home which results in her being put into a nursing home. However, even though Milo is the one with the vision problem, he seems to see clearer than the adults around him when it comes to things happening right in front of their eyes. The nursing home is not as nice a place as the manager portrays, and Milo sets out to prove she is mistreating the residents. But no-one wants to listen to a young boy with a pig when they have problems of their own.

This is quite a sweet story, but for me it was overlong (I was skimreading large parts), and slightly confusing in places. The topics covered are rather current - dementia, the war in Syria, refugees, the lottery of choosing a nice care home, couples separated, depression, even mail order brides! I think my favourite character is Mr Overland, the man who watches everything from his bedroom window, whistling continuously. I guess that's because I'm a bit of a nosey parker myself! Milo himself is a strong boy who loves his great-gran very much, and is determined for his voice to be heard.

Contains some swearing.