Thoughtful Thursday

The Children Act by Ian McEwan

Fiona is a High Court Judge specialising in Family Law. Her work sometimes requires her to make hard decisions affecting the lives of children. She's coming up to 60 years old and some of those decisions have taken their toll. They begin to affect her otherwise long and happy marriage. The book examines how Fiona deals with her marital problems whilst at the same time making a really tough decision about the medical care of a 17 year old Jehovah's Witness. He's almost 18 and the law has particular things to say about under what conditions he can make his own decisions.

The job of the legal profession is to interpret the law. The legal profession can't do what they think is the right thing, only what the law tells them. This book will make you realise how hard that can be and how easy to get wrong. I always thought it was the Children’s Act not the Children Act but this book makes it clear that it’s not an act belonging to children, they have no say, it’s an act about children and their needs. It’s interpreted by adults

Sometimes I pick up a book and after reading the first line I know I'm going to enjoy it whatever it's about. I can never quite put my finger on why that is. Something about the way the writer deals with words? This was one of those books. Over the Summer I've done a lot of "light" reading and while this is not a heavy book by any means, despite its thought provoking content, it is literary in it's style by comparison. I don't often recommend books (except sometimes to Igor) but I would recommend this one. Writing a review is way out of my comfort zone.

This is not the actual cover of the book. If you read my journal you will know that I never read actual books, only virtual ones.