Stitched Up
For ages 9+
Fast-fashion, fast-friendship Year 7 high school drama that’s fascinating and fun.
By Joanne O’Connell (Macmillan, 2024)
Absolutely loved the idea of this story - I’ve been known to pick up a crochet hook, knitting needles or a have a go on a sewing machine in my time. Let’s just not talk about the pile of darning that’s overflowing on my sewing box right now though *ahem… How about you? Are you a scarf knitter or perhaps a full blown complicated complex Christmas jumper expert? Regardless of my inability for staying power with a pattern, I go through phases of being obsessed with knitting or crocheting. This, and my 12 year old daughter’s recent enjoyment of knitting at a school club, prompted me to prioritise this new middle grade over some of the more likelier and heavier hitters during the massive publishing month of March!
Having recently been on holiday with my family to Snowdownia / Yr Wyddfa area of Northern Wales / Cymru only this past February half term for the most incredible memory making week of walking in the mountains, taking in some outstanding natural beauty, breathing some seriously pure crisp air and not wanting to go back home, I was delighted to discover that this story is set in this exact location and our protagonist - Cassie’s, parents run an adventure business for explorers - mountaineering, white water rafting and more!! Plus, I’m always thrilled to read books set in countries within the UK other than England.
How hot are you on fashion these days? What about the environmental and human cost of fast fashion? Are you perhaps an up cycler, or lover of roaming the charity shops or sites like Vinted to find some vintage pieces to style in your own unique and fabulous way? I grew up with a huge passion for la Mode with Vogue being the magazine of choice together with the US hiphop periodical magazine The Source or the UK equivalent Hip-Hop connection. Me to a tee. This being said, for my teen years and my twenties, I was either buying second hand Levis from the sadly no longer around specialist store in Canterbury, or wearing any of my father/grandfather military uniform hand-me-downs, or being sponsored by HipHop clothing labels. Am I more eco now than then? Actually I think I have finally found my happy place, trying to purchase flexible pieces that I’ll wear forever, made of quality, durable textiles. I also have a lovely friend/business mentor in the anti-fast fashion industry with her brand Positive Retail, and she’s been a huge influence these last few years too. However, don’t get me started on my weakness for Japanese Flower Mountain sneakers…
To the book!!!!!!
This is a story absolutely ideal for children heading towards Year 7 in the not too distant future, or who are in their first year of Secondary School. 3 weeks ago Cassie started at Pipson High School, and as soon as her journey begins she’s a victim of that all too familiar fast-friendship (fast-besties) syndrome, where new kids latch onto each other, sometimes in quite a possessive and suffocating way. This can leave a more aware child feeling incredibly torn and in a difficult situation as they take their time to find their tribe. School days and tween friendships can be so tricky!!
Cassie’s fast-bestie is Azra, who is a 200mph, enthusiastic, blunt, possessive, obsessive, shallow (at this time in her life) victim of wanting to be seen to be ‘in’ - especially with the IT girls, Holly and Bea. Cassie on the other hand is more a friendly, empath, sensitive girl who is obsessed with fashion, and the story is dotted throughout with her knowledge whether it’s Tudor school uniforms or glamorous dresses from paintings by Auguste Toulmouche in the 1800s. Cassie loves some of her hand-me-downs from different eras, loves to spend time in her room styling her different pieces together. What fun!! The reader can really sense Cassie’s love of playing with fashion, and reinventing her looks.
Threaded through the friendship ups and downs of ’Stitched Up’ (a clever metaphor for the plot within a plot) is a new Year 7 project to design a new school uniform. Cassie is immediately taken with this new task, she’s wistful about past uniforms featuring berets and the like. On the flip side, Azra is beside herself with ambition to win and win with a people pleasing uniform where everyone is happy (and everyone likes her). Cue fellow Year 7’er, the fantastic Fern who rolls up to school in the mornings in her homemade uniform, who is anti-fast fashion and sweatshops, always the activist - cue eye-rolls from most of the kids towards her “trash is treasure” attitude. Fern’s major campaign of the moment is to raise awareness of “fashion crimes” like school jumpers made of microfibres that slip into the sea - her campaign stickers magically appear on kid’s uniform. And it is a group of three that these girls find themselves in, to work together in this heated competition!!
However, it isn’t until Cassie reluctantly goes along to her neighbour’s KnitWits community crafting group that she realises that there is a hive of sewing, knitting, crocheting and appliquéing genius going on secretly right under her nose! AND - it could be the answer to everything! There’s nothing like an empathy-boosting storyline that teaches young people about the power of differences and learning from those around us who we’d least expect to become a huge positive influence. With sewing machines, sequins and stitches (funny and textile), Cassie and an unlikely out-of-school friendship with one of the Year 11 “corridor celebrities” (who moonlights as a KnitWit unbeknownst to the hangers on at school), set about helping their community, and become secret allies (Azra would faint if she knew)!!
With dress-making competitions coming out of her ears, the stakes are high both in and out of school, with drama until the cows come home. I think it’s really interesting to write a book featuring debates between school children about the pros and cons of uniform - my kids often talk about how they hate wearing uniform, particularly my daughter in Year 8, who feels it stifles her self-expression. It’s a great and unusual theme for middle grade fiction. If you’re interested in another brilliant (but really hard hitting) middle grade story that deals with fast fashion and more importantly, sweat shops - do check out the book of the same name ‘Stitched Up’ by Steve Cole, illustrated by Oriol Vidal (Barrington Stoke, 2022)
Here are some of my takeaways from the book (leaving you plenty to discover for yourself of course)!!!!
Positives of knitting:
Distracts the brain
Major buzz
Mood shoots skywards
Repetitive and rhythmic
Relaxing yet exhilarating
Reuse wool again and again - zero-cost, low-impact on the environment
Some fashion history facts from the book include:
The iconic yellow Mac was created by the Scots in the nineteenth century
Painting: The Blue Dress, Auguste Toulmouche, 1872
Jane Austen style Regency fashion with bows-on-shoes
In the 1700s rich men wore pink to show off their power and warmth
In Tudor times pupils wore yellow socks because the colour was meant to stop rats from nibbling their toes at night
The oldest surviving knitted socks are from Egypt and are about 900 years old
There’s a piece of fabric called the Bacton Altar Cloth that still exists that belonged to Elizabeth I - this is because clothes were passed on in Court all the time
The word ‘trainer’ only started to be used instead of ‘training shoe’ in the UK in the 1960s
Very much enjoyed reading ‘Stitched Up’, really superb storyline, a well-considered set of characters, relatable for children about to or who have recently started secondary school. There are so many positives for having clubs or community groups that involve children for crafts like knitting, sewing and crocheting!! Moreover this book brings to the forefront an awareness of the downsides of fast-fashion for young people who love to spend their pocket money in shops like Primark at weekends purchasing with an attitude of ‘these are cheap throw away clothes for a couple of wears only and now I will look like my favourite YouTuber of the week’…
The typeface in this book is more dyslexia-friendly as is printed using a sans serif font.
Praise
Engaging, inspiring and enlightening, I loved it -- Jen Carney, author of The Accidental Diary of B.U.G.
A super fun, feel good story with a sustainable heart. -- Hannah Gold, author of The Last Bear
Reviewed from digital uncorrected proof.
