The Noughts – Fair skinned, manual workers, housemaids, oppressed. Meet Callum, a teen determined to do better than other Noughts. His father is supporting him, his mother and older brother wondering if all Callum’s hard work, study and perseverance will make any difference to his future at all. Callum has a place at a school with less than a handful of other Noughts, but it’s a Crosses school.

The Crosses – Dark skinned, wealthy, privileged, politicians, police, judges and Sephy. Sephy is the daughter of a rising-through-the-ranks politician, father. Sephy and Callum have been friends from when they were small and Callum’s mum worked for Sephy’s family.

But that was then. Now that Sephy and Callum are older, they are told again and again that Noughts and Crosses don’t mix. Especially now that her father is more and more in the public eye and the media will grab anything to shame him.

Using secret calling and messaging techniques, Sephy and Callum continue their friendship by meeting in secret in their special place. Both are changing, growing, and wondering about their feelings toward each other. Were they still just friends? The most confusing thoughts are about the rising rifts between the Noughts and the Crosses. The Crosses make it almost unbearable for Callum at his new school. Sephy’s family is beginning to fall apart from her father’s aspirations and her mother’s drinking problems, and her feelings of injustice are growing along with Callum’s.

The Noughts are beginning to rebel in more organised ways, with a growing group of protesters hitting back with whatever it takes to bring equality to their lives. But the justice system is made up of 99.9% Crosses and the Noughts know that they are up against a society that will bite back – and it does in the most vicious ways possible.

First published in 2001, I have always wanted to read this novel. Now that I have, I wish I’d read it years ago. It was incredibly easy to get into, and I was taken by the characters quickly and wholeheartedly. Their rising confusion with their upbringing and caustic environments, all as their feelings for each other grow; captured me and kept me reading for hours – wanting to know more. The tension builds steadily to an event that pushes everything over a precipice, forcing decisions on both sides. Gripping.

The first in a series of five novels about UK society being flipped – to show white skinned people on the bottom, and dark skinned people in power. Brave and brilliant.

Author – Malorie Blackman

Age – 15+

(Prejudice, Racism, Society flipped, Friendship, Family, Loyalty, Love, Hatred, School, Multi Award Winner, Alternate UK)