Smash!

by Robert Swindells

Steve and Ashraf are 16-year-old classmates and each fancies the other's sister. A bond forms between them but is destroyed when Steve gets involved in an extreme right-wing organisation and Ashraf is drawn into an extremist Muslim group. They become enemies and are injured when their rival groups clash. Over weeks in hospital in adjoining beds, they're visited by their sisters. The girls' friendship and the boys' fondness for the other's sister, begins to break down the barrier of intolerance. The boys become friends again.

197 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Robert Swindells was born in Bradford in 1939, the eldest of five children. He left the local Secondary Modern School at fifteen to work as a copy holder on the local newspaper. At seventeen he enlisted in the RAF and served for three years, two in Germany. On being discharged he worked as a clerk, engineer and printer until 1969 when he entered college to train as a teacher having obtained five 'O' levels at night-school. His first book 'When Darkness Comes' was written as a college thesis and published by Hodder and Stoughton in 1972. In 1980 he gave up teaching to write full time. He likes travelling and visits many schools each year, talking and reading stories to children. He is the secutatry of his local Peace Movement group. Brother in the Land is his first book for Oxford University Press. He is married with two grown-up daughters and lives in Bradford.

Author description taken from Brother in the Land.

Reviews

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good quick read. It covers a tough subject and shows how people can get caught up in bad things.