Blood family

By: Anne Fine

Kris van Gerwen

Ta2b
Fiction: the story didn’t happen in real life. Anne Fine (writer) made up the story.

Genre:
1) Mystery: the main character (Eddie), is discovering a big secret. He had no suspense
of what he discovered. The question that is asked many times in the book is: ‘will the
past ever leave you?’
2) Development: when Eddie is rescued out of the apartment, he starts to built up his
life again with help from a lot of people such as Rob Reed (social worker). He goes to
school and he makes friends, he finally has a normal life.

Theme:
1) Family: in the story, the boy is taken away from his mother because it wasn’t safe
enough. He goes to a foster family and later on to another foster family. He found out
that his family is not as he expected and that changed him a lot.
2) Growing up: the boy (Eddie) grows up in the story. When Eddie is four years old, he
and his mom get captured by his mother’s violent boyfriend. When Eddie is seven,
the police liberates him.
3) Freedom: Eddie had no freedom for three years (year 4-7.) That is because his
mother’s boyfriend locked them away and they couldn’t get away until the police
came.
4) Deception: when Eddie finds out that Harris (he locked him and his mother away for
three years) is his biological father, he is very disappointed and he is shocked. He
thinks that he might be the same as him because they are ‘blood family’ and he finds
an escape in drugs and alcohol. His behaviour gets very bad because of this.

Character description:
1) Edward (Eddie): is a seven year old boy. He was captured with his mom when he
was four years old. That’s why he can’t read and write. He doesn’t speak a lot too.
Eddie doesn’t know a lot about the world either. When Harris was gone (the violent
partner of his mom) he always watched old ‘mr. Perkins’ DVD’s. Mr. Perkins explained
different things about life, that’s how Eddie got information about the world. Later in
the story when he found out that Harris is his biological father, he gets addicted to
drugs and alcohol.
2) Linda Radlett: Linda is the first foster mother of Eddie after they were released by
the police. She is a very kind woman and she helps Eddie with reading and writing.
Linda used to be a teacher so she knows how to teach Eddie. Every night before
bedtime she reads a story to Eddie and Eddie reads easy parts too.
3) Rob Reed: Rob is the social worker that helps Eddie to get a normal life again. When
the police raid, Rob came along to comfort Eddie. At the beginning, Rob was shocked
about the state Eddie was in.
Plot:
Eddie is a seven year old boy who is locked away in an apartment with his mom. He and his
mom are locked away by the addicted boyfriend of his mother called Harris. Harris locked
Eddie and his mom Lucy away when Eddie was four years old. Harris abused them mentally
and physically. When Harris leaves the apartment, Eddie watches old mr. Perkins DVD’s. He
learned a lot from the DVD’s. Eddie has to sleep on the floor and he never comes outside.
This nightmare ended when a neighbour sees Eddie and calls the police. Eddie and his mom
are rescued from Harris. Lucy goes to the hospital because she suffered a lot from the
abuse. Eddie is checked too but he is okay enough to leave the hospital. Because his mother
can’t take care of him, he goes to a foster family. Social worker Rob Reed helps Eddie to get
a normal life again. His foster parents Linda and Alan are very kind. Linda was a teacher in
the early days and she taught him to read and write. When Eddie goes to school again, he
makes friends and has a normal life again. He is not afraid that Harris would recognise him.
Later on Eddie gets other foster parents called Nicolas and Natasha, they already adopted
another kid called Alice. Eddies mom is in mental hospital, Eddie doesn’t feel like seeing her.
His foster parents Natasha and Nicolas support him to go.
Eddie goes on trips with school a lot. When he goes to the yarn factory, a girl in his class
says that she can see how a person will look in ten years. She can see that with a camera.
No one believes her so she tries it on Eddie. She took the picture of Eddie and he was
shocked. He looked exactly like Harris! For years Eddie did not know who is father was, but it
was Harris, the man who locked him away for three years! Eddie is afraid that he will become
like Harris in the future because Harris is ‘blood family.’ Eddie is hallucinating and sees
Harris’s face everywhere. He is not paying attention to school anymore and he uses drugs
and drinks alcohol. He tells himself to quit using drugs after he got terrible nightmares. But he
doesn’t stop drinking. His parents have a suspicion that he drinks, he hides bottles with
alcohol everywhere. One day he decides to go back to see his old foster parents, Linda and
Alan. They are happy to see him but they know something is wrong. One day Eddie sneaks
out, he stays away for months and his foster parents are very concerned. Eddie goes to
Manchester and Glasgow. He meets Yasmine (Yaz) and he stays with her. Later on he ends
up in the hospital and his parents are called. They are glad to hear from him and they visit
him right away. With the help of doctors and phycologists, Eddie gets better again. The
contact with his mom gets better again too. In the end Eddie learned to accept who you are,
and use that in good way.

Subplot:
The book is written in a lot of different perspectives. The perspective changes per approx. 3
pages. There is one main character and multiple sub-characters who tell their own part form
their own perspective. Most of the story is told in the perspective of the main character
(Eddie). Eddie tells about a lot of different things such as how he feels, what he does, what
his experiences are etc. The parts that are told in the perspective of the sub-characters, are
about the main character. The sub-characters tell mainly about what they think of Eddie
(main character) and what their roll is in his life. They also tell about the things they
do/experience with him. The most important sub characters are: Rob Reed (social worker),
Linda Radlett (first foster mother), Alan Radlett (first foster father), Alice (his foster sister from
the second foster family), Nicolas and Natasha (second foster parents).
Anne Fine:
Anne is a British writer, born in 1947. She writes children’s books for all ages. She wrote over
50 books and she won a lot of prices. Such as ‘children’s author of the year” and several
Carnegie Medals.
She found out she loved writing at primary school. Her teacher told the class to write a story
instead of doing Math. He only gave the kids a tittle and they had to write a story. She didn’t
think she would become a writer later in life.
She became a writer by accident. When she couldn’t lent a book for her daughter because of
the weather, she decided to make one herself. Later on she send it to multiple publishers but
they all rejected her. Then she decided to join a writers game. She won and her first book got
published in 1978.