Review: The Scarecrows

The psychological clearly dominates the supernatural element in this latest and most tightly integrated of Westall's highly charged and textured chillers. Even before his widowed mother's remarriage, 13-year-old Simon is possessed by murderous ""devils"" when a sadistic schoolmate teases him abour her unwitting flesh exposure during a tennis match. He is intensely, irrationally agitated when she marries paunchy Joe Moreton, a renowned caricaturist but a ""yob"" in Simon's schoolmates' language and ""not gentry"" according to a local ancient Simon meets in the field near Joe's large country house. The same old man tells Simon of a bitter love-triangle murder enacted in the 1940s in Joe's very house and in the nearby, abandoned mill which gives even Joe the creeps. The empty mill with its three hung-up coats and hats both fascinates and terrifies Simon, and after his conversation with the old man those same coats and hats turn up outdoors as scarecrows. They seem to advance on Simon and the house as his own behavior toward his mother and Joe becomes more and more outrageous. (Hamlet in his mother's chamber might be Simon's model in cunning and Oedipal outrage.) As the inner and outer tensions pass the point of no return, a friend's clear-eyed insistence helps Simon to confront the scarecrows; and this final, heart-pounding destruction of the externalized terrors purges Simon's devils with the force their hold on him requires. Powerful currents, powerfully contained within the bounds of a hard-packed juvenile fantasy.

I really enjoyed this story up until the end. It got really confusing and I thought you were being given too much information at once. I dont normally enjoy this type of book but I was suprised at how much I did like it.

Review: The Scarecrows

Robert Westall is a genius. SCARECROWS is a chilling book, brilliantly written. Simon is struggling to come to terms with himself and the changes in his family. When he goes to stay with his mother ... Read full review

Review: Scarecrows (Puffin Teenage Fiction)

The story is a third-person narrative, but the point of view is entirely that of Simon Wood - his thoughts, feelings and memories, the things he sees and experiences, conversations he has ... Read full review

Review: The Scarecrows

The Scarecrows was first published in 1981 – it's more of a recent children's classic, but rightly so, because it's one of the best contemporary children's novels I've read. I say contemporary even ... Read full review

Review: The Scarecrows

I came away uncertain whether this was fantasy or psychological drama. I thought is was the latter but the ending confused me. Read full review

Review: Scarecrows (Puffin Teenage Fiction)

My favorite of all of Robert Westall's books. Read full review

Review: The Scarecrows

Good, but hella scary, from what I recall - I usually block out scary books. Read full review

Review: The Scarecrows

Good, but hella scary, from what I recall - I usually block out scary books. Read full review

Review: Scarecrows

Powerfully blends an exceptionally chilling drama with a story of insight and compassion about unhappiness Read full review