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Seriously Weird
This story, for children from the age of eight, is about Troy, a boy living in a secret locked-up world. His family thinks he is crazy, mad, nutty, barmy - all except his mother, who prefers to pretend there's nothing really wrong. Even she has to take notice when policemen start knocking on doors and Troy gets excluded from school.
128 pages, Paperback
First published December 2, 2005
About the author
Gene Kemp
53 books11 followersGene Kemp was an English author known for children's books. Her first, The Pride of Tamworth Pig, appeared in 1972. She won the British Carnegie Medal for her school novel The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler (1977).
Gene Kemp was born in Wigginton, Staffordshire in 1926. She grew up near Tamworth, Staffordshire, and went to Exeter University. She became a teacher and taught at St Sidwell's School in Exeter in the 1970s.
From 1972 she wrote stories for young readers about a pig named Tamworth, named after the town she grew up in. Kemp found inspiration for many of the characters in her books amongst the friends of her children, Chantal and Richard.
Her best known book is The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, published by Faber's Children's Books in 1977. Set in the fictional Cricklepit School, it charts the pleasures and pains of friendship and growing up. There are several Cricklepit books, including Snaggletooth's Mystery, an alternative history of the school, and Gowie Corby Plays Chicken, set one year after The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler and referencing Tyke in several chapters.
Kemp wrote ghost stories and fantasy as well as realistic fiction, like Seriously Weird, which is told from the perspective of the sister of a young man with Asperger syndrome. She also dramatised some of her work, the most successful and well-known of these being Charlie Lewis Plays for Time, another Cricklepit story.
Gene Kemp was awarded an Honorary MA from Exeter University in 1984. She lived in Exeter and had three children – a daughter, Judith, from her first marriage to Norman Pattison, which ended in divorce, and another daughter, Chantal, and a son, Richard, from her second marriage, to Allan Kemp, who died in 1990. She had three grandchildren and two great-grandsons. Kemp died at the age of 88 on 4 January 2015.
Kemp won two awards for The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler (1997): the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, for the year's best children's book by a British subject, and one from the Children's Rights Workshop.
She made the Smarties Prize shortlist four times, in (1981) for The Clock Tower Ghost, (1985) for Charlie Lewis Plays for Time, (1986) for Juniper and (1990) for Just Ferret.
Gene Kemp was born in Wigginton, Staffordshire in 1926. She grew up near Tamworth, Staffordshire, and went to Exeter University. She became a teacher and taught at St Sidwell's School in Exeter in the 1970s.
From 1972 she wrote stories for young readers about a pig named Tamworth, named after the town she grew up in. Kemp found inspiration for many of the characters in her books amongst the friends of her children, Chantal and Richard.
Her best known book is The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, published by Faber's Children's Books in 1977. Set in the fictional Cricklepit School, it charts the pleasures and pains of friendship and growing up. There are several Cricklepit books, including Snaggletooth's Mystery, an alternative history of the school, and Gowie Corby Plays Chicken, set one year after The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler and referencing Tyke in several chapters.
Kemp wrote ghost stories and fantasy as well as realistic fiction, like Seriously Weird, which is told from the perspective of the sister of a young man with Asperger syndrome. She also dramatised some of her work, the most successful and well-known of these being Charlie Lewis Plays for Time, another Cricklepit story.
Gene Kemp was awarded an Honorary MA from Exeter University in 1984. She lived in Exeter and had three children – a daughter, Judith, from her first marriage to Norman Pattison, which ended in divorce, and another daughter, Chantal, and a son, Richard, from her second marriage, to Allan Kemp, who died in 1990. She had three grandchildren and two great-grandsons. Kemp died at the age of 88 on 4 January 2015.
Kemp won two awards for The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler (1997): the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, for the year's best children's book by a British subject, and one from the Children's Rights Workshop.
She made the Smarties Prize shortlist four times, in (1981) for The Clock Tower Ghost, (1985) for Charlie Lewis Plays for Time, (1986) for Juniper and (1990) for Just Ferret.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
Want to Read
June 14, 2026Would a friendly, passing Goodreads Librarian care to link this book to author Gene Kemp, please? :) (There seems to be two: Gene Kemp -, and also this gene-kemp)
June 11, 2013
Gene Kemp has written some good children's books but this isn't one of them.
My guess would be that after the success of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' Asperger's Syndrome went onto the list of social/familial issues that writers for young people felt that they should cover. (There was a similar fashion for Holocaust fiction a few years back.)
It's an unoriginal book. The main subject of the book Troy is yet another 'savant' - and as in Mark Haddon's book, each chapter begins with a mathematical puzzle.
It could have been interesting to have a story written from the point of view of a sibling. The narrator Clare is one of Troy's sisters. There's another older sister too. However everything is hastily - almost sloppily - written. At one point it seems as if Clare is dealing with the strain of family life by developing an alter ego Clarry, which could have proved to be an interesting exploration of the pressures faced by those in a family where one person's needs take up all the attention.. However Clarry just disappears at a convenient moment, rather than causing any interesting problems for Clare.
Meanwhile Vanessa the older sister reacts to the way that family life focuses on her brother by behaving in a rather exhibitionist way and getting involved with some seriously dodgy boyfriends. But again conveniently, she settles down with the decent young man in a happy ever after sort of way. Hostile neighbours turn out to be friendly after all, employment problems suddenly turn out into work opportunities and Troy's ultra-challenging habits can be easily dealt with by a few classes at school about how to get on better with people. (Troy is actually so obviously, radically 'different' that it beggars belief that he wasn't diagnosed at nursery school.)
All in all, a disappointment - though the fast pace of the narrative meant that I could read it very quickly.
My guess would be that after the success of 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time' Asperger's Syndrome went onto the list of social/familial issues that writers for young people felt that they should cover. (There was a similar fashion for Holocaust fiction a few years back.)
It's an unoriginal book. The main subject of the book Troy is yet another 'savant' - and as in Mark Haddon's book, each chapter begins with a mathematical puzzle.
It could have been interesting to have a story written from the point of view of a sibling. The narrator Clare is one of Troy's sisters. There's another older sister too. However everything is hastily - almost sloppily - written. At one point it seems as if Clare is dealing with the strain of family life by developing an alter ego Clarry, which could have proved to be an interesting exploration of the pressures faced by those in a family where one person's needs take up all the attention.. However Clarry just disappears at a convenient moment, rather than causing any interesting problems for Clare.
Meanwhile Vanessa the older sister reacts to the way that family life focuses on her brother by behaving in a rather exhibitionist way and getting involved with some seriously dodgy boyfriends. But again conveniently, she settles down with the decent young man in a happy ever after sort of way. Hostile neighbours turn out to be friendly after all, employment problems suddenly turn out into work opportunities and Troy's ultra-challenging habits can be easily dealt with by a few classes at school about how to get on better with people. (Troy is actually so obviously, radically 'different' that it beggars belief that he wasn't diagnosed at nursery school.)
All in all, a disappointment - though the fast pace of the narrative meant that I could read it very quickly.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews