Buy the book from Amazon UKJunior Fiction
Walker Books
Paperback £4.99
ISBN: 0744583535
Reviewed by Sue Neale
[Armadillo 6.1 Spring 2004]
Kamo is staying with his Parisian school friend and family in the Alps during the school holidays, as his mother is travelling in Russia, looking for information about her ancestors. An old Czech bike that survived the war, apart from a couple of bullet holes, has been fixed up for Kamo but he has a premonition about it so will not ride it. However, when he has to reach the post office quickly for a call from his mother he has to use the bike. Back in Paris the boys are allowed to ride to a late cinema showing but a black car with no headlights knocks Kamo off and he is hospitalised. His watch has stopped at 11. In his coma, watched over by friends, he starts saying Russian words and sounding odd, and his friends realise he is talking about or becoming the Kamo he was named after, his great-grandfather, but only his friends experience this. In this fantastic reality, the older Kamo escapes from young Kamoês body and crosses the Siberian wastes but this has the effect of almost killing young Kamo. All is neatly explained when Kamoês mother describes how his grandfather met his death when a black car knocked him of his bike whilst riding to meet his love. All that remains, and what is now Kamoês, is his gold watch that stopped at 11.
This is a touching story of the importance of family and understanding oneês past. Told in the first person by an unnamed friend, the story involves the reader in the desperate fight for life that goes on in the minds of Kamoês friends, believing with certainty that positive thought will achieve results. Sarah Adams has done an excellent job with Pennacês writing, allowing his style to come through in the translation. Readers who have discovered his other books will not be disappointed this time.