Kitty Killin is Helly Johnston's best friend, and a natural story-teller. She's the narrator of Anne Fine's Goggle Eyes (Puffin, July 2001, 160pp, ISBN 978-0140340716) a book for 9 to 12-year-olds set in Scotland in the late 1980s.
Kitty Killin
What's interesting is that Fine starts the novel focused very firmly on Helen – for the first fifteen pages, the story is all about Kitty's friend, but this is simply a stage of the reader's journey onto Kitty's own story.
Kitty's problem is her mother's friend Gerald Faulkner, who she christens Goggle-Eyes after he gazes with too-frank-interest at her mother's legs. Goggle-Eyes is everything that Kitty and her family are not; he's a respectable businessman while she attend anti-nuclear demonstrations; he has firm views on children pulling their weight while Kitty has been allowed to take advantage of her father's absence; worst of all, he doesn't behave as a guest in their house as Kitty believes that he should, but rather as if he has a right to be there, and there's a distinct possibility that he will become Kitty's step-father if she doesn't stop him in time....
Goggle Eyes
So Kitty decides to be as horrible and as unhelpful as she can be. But the problem is that not only does Goggle Eyes not take the hint, but there comes a time when Kitty finds herself quite liking him, and when her mother is arrested even depending on him.
Goggle Eyes is much more grounded in the real world than spy and adventure novels, but is every bit as entertaining. For older readers the novel takes on a very historical feel with its then contemporary setting of anti-nuclear demonstrations; while younger ones may find the world of the Cold War in the late 1980s a little strange, Fine's skills at rendering Kitty and Goggle Eyes in all his stuffy obstinacy may well overcome such difficulties. It manages to make difficult subjects funny and understandable for its readers.
Anne Fine
Anne Fine has been writing fiction for adults and children of all ages since the early 1970s, and in 2001 to 2003 was made The Children's Laureate. Her most famous novel is perhaps Madame Doubtfire, which was filmed as Mrs Doubtfire. She won The Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children's Fiction Award in 1990 for Goggle Eyes, which was made into a BBC television series starring Honeysuckle Weeks of Foyle's War in the title role.
Goggle-eyes-Puffin-Books-Anne-Fine
Colin Harvey - Author six novels, and editor of four anthologies; professional reviewer since 2003, including six years at Strange Horizons. Member of ...
