135 pieces out of the 2,500+ entries sent in for the year's competitions, with various judges. Nothing bland or minimalist - if I don't always get what's going on, it's often because there's too much going on. I couldn't read many of them at a time without needing a break.
I like "I spy a boy", though in the final sentence - "I spy him by her grave, choking back sighs of relief" - I'm not sure there should be such ambiguity about who is the subject of "choking". I most like "Treading water", "Empty your attic", "Homesick" and "The true cost of carpeting Luxembourg". I don't get "Arthur Mee's Children Encyclopaedia" or "Forty-Nine". "Dropping the keys" might be ingenious.
On p.73 there's "Hayley perfect in her skirt said a good job was there otherwise who knows what would have happened". Is "I" missing between "job" and "was"?
