The Many Worlds of Albie Bright - Christopher Edge

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright - Christopher Edge

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright is a lovely little novel packed with lots of quantum physics and a lightheartedly warm approach to dealing with the raw grief in response to the loss of a very dearly loved parent. It’ll make you chuckle perhaps a little bit more than it will make you cry (which is probably a very good thing!).

Essentially, this is a story perfect for younger readers as a roundabout way of exploring grief (and a jolly good story, full stop). Albie’s mother has recently died from cancer. His parents were both physicists, and he thinks that he might be able to find his mum alive in a parallel universe. With a little help from CERN and a slowly blackening banana, Albie sets off to do just this.

Albie is a delightful character and he meets a castful of ‘interesting’ others (Alba was my favourite). His fantastic adventures paint a trail telling us that grieving and just getting on with it can be a difficult thing to do – whatever your age – and that everyone needs a little bit of time out too. The novel also gives a very big thumbs up to kitchen dancing (of which I'm a huge fan).

If you find yourselves enamoured by 'Back To the Future' or 'Groundhog Day', the humour in The Many Worlds of Albie Bright will definitely appeal to you.

And a little warning: if your child is reading this book, you’d best beef up on your basic quantum theory, otherwise…..well, rotten bananas!

Publication details: Nosy Crow, 2016, London, paperback

This copy: review copy from the publisher

The Many Worlds of Albie Bright has been nominated for the Carnegie Medal 2017.