If I'd realised a large art of this book was going to be about obsessive gaming and virtual reality, I probably wouldn't have started it but I'm glad I did. The descriptions of the fantasy world inhabited by Aidan were really beautiful and his compulsion to game and also Collin's talent for drawing were both made real for me.
I loved Nina's character - a newly qualified teacher so anxious to make a difference to her class of teenagers who really weren't interested in learning. She manages to reach them through poetry and re-enacting Shakespeare despite the high tech age in which most of them live. Her boyfriend Collin, the Chalk artist, is persuaded to use his talent to draw hellish figures for Arkadia's violent games for a while but eventually returns to the simple and easy drawing that is his true gift.
A wonderful and thought provoking book.
I loved Nina's character - a newly qualified teacher so anxious to make a difference to her class of teenagers who really weren't interested in learning. She manages to reach them through poetry and re-enacting Shakespeare despite the high tech age in which most of them live. Her boyfriend Collin, the Chalk artist, is persuaded to use his talent to draw hellish figures for Arkadia's violent games for a while but eventually returns to the simple and easy drawing that is his true gift.
A wonderful and thought provoking book.