Sorrel Fallowfield has other names at school. Good Girl Sorrel, or sometimes Suck-up Sorrel. You see, she is the best behaved girl at her school and at home. She figured its the least she can do for her hard-working single-parent mum, while they live in Cherry Cottage, which is anything but.

When Sorrel’s clean-and-tidy-freak headmaster, Mr Grittysnits announces a competition about being good, with a beach holiday as 1st prize, Sorrel just knows she can win it. Students can collect Obedience points at school, or Bad Blots for any school infringements. Unfortunately, Sorrel and her best friend Neena don’t get off to a good start. There are other things on Sorrel’s mind, namely the strange happenings to do with the weird tree in her back yard and a packet of strange seeds.

They aren’t just any seeds. They glow and Sorrel isn’t completely sure, but thinks she’s heard a strange voice inside her head from the seeds. It tells her to sow them and she does just that, but not the usual way you sow seeds. Suddenly she is her headmaster’s worst nightmare with no hope of winning the prize.

Digging into the history of the seeds and the voice she thinks she is hearing, Sorrel uncovers something much more important than a holiday. Long ago there was a swindle and lies involving concrete. Lots and lots of concrete – where meadows, lanes and streams used to be. Sorrel knows that following instructions and rules are now the worst thing she can do if she is going to save her mum, her friends and their town from a terrible future.

The blurb for this story is ‘Wonderful things happen when you break the rules’, and wonderful this book is! Our towns and cities are being slowly swallowed by the spread of concrete, and Sorrel’s town is the worst of all.

Her terrible headmaster is very ‘Roald Dahl’, and there is a magical environmental element to the story too. Should we be pouring our love into the Earth instead of pouring concrete over it? I enjoyed this story immensely.

Author – Nicola Skinner

Age – 7+

(Plants, Revenge, School, Rich Girl, Friendship, Magic, Environment, Rules, Sowing Seeds, Responsibility)