fur was longlisted for the Manchester Book Award
and the Leicester Book Award.

GIRLS aged 11 and upwards are the likely readership of this unusual children's novel. Meg Harper is perhaps better known for her My Mum series which started with the acclaimed My Mum and Other Horror Stories. Here she breaks away to introduce us to Grace, a girl who would rather spend her time swimming in the sea than being on land. Her classmates find this a bit odd. But stranger things happen when Grace starts to grow a seal-like fur. Just at a time when she's started seeing her first boyfriend, Grace has a lot of issues to deal with. As well as working on a level of mystery and myth the novel has real-life themes which will interest girls of that age.
Shetland Times 1st September 2006
fur was chosen as a book of the month for September 2006 by the Shetland Times

Teenager Grace Hornby lives with her father Robert on the coast and spends most of her spare time swimming in the sea. The ocean is essential to her state of mind: diving into it is like "fresh water after too much Coke, an ice pack for a throbbing head, lashing rain after a stifling afternoon." Her life is good: she has two best friends, has been asked out by one of the most handsome boys in the class and is close to her artist father. But there are four mysteries in Grace's life: nobody will tell her why her mother left home; there's a strange smell of seaweed in her bedroom; little gifts of pearls and strange luminous beads appear by her bed each year on her birthday; and worst of all, nearly every inch of Grace's body is covered in a short, fine, silky hair.

Meg Harper's wonderful story of how Grace discovers the story of her ancestry entrances the reader every step of the way, with twists and turns and an unexpected ending. Harper blends fact and fantasy, ably conveying the stresses of a father/daughter relationship and the magical, mystical lure of the sea with its legends of selkies using their hypnotic charms to woo the unsuspecting locals. Grace is a likeable heroine, honest, plucky and flawed. Fur also deals with issues of alienation and abandonment and for all these reasons, makes for a truly gripping summer read.

Vanessa Curtis, The Glasgow Herald, Saturday 5th August 2006

From the blurb, I was worried that Fur would be just another worthy, but unexciting "issues" novel, but I was pleasantly surprised. The mixture of fantasy and reality makes Fur an intriguing and diverting read.

Grace feels more at home in the sea than she does on dry land. This makes her a bit of an oddity to her classmates, but when she starts to grow fur Grace feels even more strange. This clearly isn't one of the normal changes she expected with puberty. Could there be some connection to her love of the sea? Or could her mother who left when she was a baby provide the answer? This novel is targeted at teenagers, but I think it would win a better response from a slightly younger audience, perhaps 11- to 12-year-old girls.

Overall, an enchanting, well-written novel.

Sarah McNicol, School Librarian Journal, vol. 54 no. 2 Summer 2006

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