A Little Love, a Little Learning — Nina Bawden

'Bawden has concentrated on the careful depiction of character, feelings and behaviour' GUARDIAN

'On every page there is a shock of recognition' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

'Among the most perceptive and accomplished novelists writing today' P. D. JAMES

It is the year of the Queen's Coronation and Joanna, Kate and Poll who are eighteen, twelve and six are living in a riverside suburb of London with their mother Ellen, and their stepfather Boyd. Accepting his wise, unstinting love in their apparently secure lives, they are incurious about their vanished natural father. But the past arrives to upset the present in the person of Aunt Hat, a gossipy old friend with a husband imprisoned for assaulting her, and who seems to bring news from a different world of chaos and drama. The real danger, however, comes not from Aunt Hat's indiscretions but the girls themselves . . .

Perfectly balanced between pain and laughter, A Little Love, A Little Learning combines a touching and convincing family portrait with the lively evocation of a small community.