Across The Barricades (Puffin Teenage Fiction)

by Joan Lingard

Paperback, 1995

Status

Available

Call number

823.914

Publication

Puffin (1995), 176 pages

Description

Kevin and Sadie just want to be together, but it's not that simple. Things are bad in Belfast. Soldiers walk the streets and the city is divided. No Catholic boy and Protestant girl can go out together - not without dangerous consequences . . . The second of Joan Lingard's ground-breaking Kevin and Sadie books

User reviews

LibraryThing member Traceygilbert

I read this book as a teenager and remember being enthralled by it. It is a coming of age story set in Northern Ireland during 'the troubles'. Kevin and Sadie come form different sides of the track - one a catholic and the other a protestant. They represent the eyes of the future when religion

won't matter and people fall in love with whom they choose. The story tells of their struggle to be together and how much they are prepared to sacrifice to share a future.

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LibraryThing member Treesa

I really liked this and it was enlightening on th violence that occurred in Ireland over religion. Kevin and Sadie are very memorable and their respective families. Kevin's so called friend who gets involved in terrorist activities is scary. A Happy ending is pormiosed and I read this without

reading the prequel The Twelfth of July though I bought a copy of that afterwards

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LibraryThing member threadnsong

"All they want to do is take walks, hold hands . . . but Sadie is Protestant and Kevin is Catholic, and in Northern Ireland those two don't mix" was the tag line to the Scholastic Book Club (or a similar one) in the late 70's. It captures the essence of this book, as it is not just the threat of

bombings and the British Army that puts barriers in their way, but their families and gossipy neighbors. "Did you see your Sadie recently?" is one conversation that begins, and involves parents, siblings, and neighbors into the lives of this young couple. Also described are the propaganda that parents learn in their Lodge or in their pubs about the other side, then throw back at their children or at one another in a fit of anger.

And the bombings and threats become very personal in this book, as do the instances of young boys running around practicing shooting one another. It's very chilling, and all not so long ago. And still relevant in so many instances. While it is considered a "young adult" novel, it is geared towards the "adult" in that phrase and presents a young reader with realities that others of their age have had to confront on a daily basis.

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