Last year, Sally Gardner won the Costa children's book award for "Maggot Moon" but I haven't quite decided if I agree with that. I intended to read perhaps fifty, maybe a hundred pages while I relaxed in the bath but I ended up finishing the entire book. Safe to say, the bath water was a little chilly by the end. I so wanted to put the book down and get out, telling myself that I would do so at the end of the chapter but each chapter is so short – ranging from a mere paragraph to a few pages, maybe a little more for a couple of chapters – that I kept reading another, then another, then another … until I'd read the whole thing. It definitely had me hooked but also a little confused.

I had one problem with the book – the characters' ages. I pictured Standish, Hector and his friends to be ten or eleven, maybe twelve, but then we are told that they are in fact a class of fifteen year olds. This didn't sit well with me because their actions and speech were those of much younger children. Neither did it sit well with me when Gramps was revealed to be in his fifties, when he seemed much more like he was in his seventies, or at least mid-sixties. Of course, this is a minor issue – in fact, the story was a lot better when I told myself it was an eleven year old as the main character rather than a fifteen year old, as it was more believable.

With the characters and the cover, even the title, I expected Maggot Moon to be aimed at younger teenagers, perhaps children from ages ten to thirteen but I was wrong. The book contains many adult themes and violence, with unexpected swearing scattered throughout and I definitely wouldn't recommend it for anyone under twelve. Instead, the novel is aimed at dyslexic children – Gardner herself is dyslexic – with Standish being a dyslexic teen who can't read well.

While I found the plot interesting, I was a little befuddled by it – it wasn't well explained but I grasped that Zone Seven – where Standish resides – is the place for rejects, slaves to society who have little freedom. Set in Britain in the 1950s, the authorities are desperate to land a man on the moon and will stop at nothing to be the first country to do so. All of this is touched upon, a few key themes highlighted but a lot of the storytelling is left up to the reader, which isn't always a good thing. I felt like the plot was rushed and Gardner was more focused on providing a "role model" of a character for kids, with Standish's determination and imagination.

All in all, I found this book a little misleading with it seemingly aimed at a younger audience than it is appropriate for alongside not quite enough emphasis on explaining the details of the plot; however, I enjoyed reading it, strangely enough. The short and relatively simple, though lacking, chapters combined for an easy read and I would recommend it because despite the flaws, it is a good book and most likely won the Costa award for its themes and encouragement for children and teenagers with learning disabilities – the main theme, both for the characters and the plot, is that anything is possible.

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