The kids are all right

Children's Fiction: If you've forgotten what it feels like to be a child, then pick up a copy of Second Fiddle, Siobhán Parkinson's latest novel, which is aimed at 10- to 13-year-olds but has plenty in it for grown-ups. Parkinson is one of Ireland's most popular writers for children, and while at one time she concentrated on a younger age group, her later books for teens and "in-betweens" have seen her reach a wider audience and find a new publisher in Penguin.

This, her second novel with Penguin, has 11-year-old Mags Clark telling the story. At the outset, she promises that it's a story about ordinary people and ordinary lives, "with no ghosts or dwarves or wicked counts or gothic castles or anything like that" - and we know what she means by that.

Although it's about ordinary people, not too many awful things will happen, she says - just to reassure us that it will not be one of those dreary realistic novels about "bullying and drugs . . . and anorexia and puberty . . . and all that jazz". It's real alright, with a bit about divorce and a dash of death, but not so real that readers will have to plough through unreasonable dollops of unhappiness.

Mags is precocious and lonely. Her mother worries about her social life, but then she meets Gillian, who has a porridgy face and plays the violin like an angel. They become friends in a standoffish sort of way, and with the story alternating between Mags's and Gillian's version of events, there are some nice funny moments.

Gillian is older and inclined to treat Mags like something that has got stuck to her shoe, but Mags puts her in her place, telling her that her face is too small her for body and that her clothes are ridiculously impractical. They really have nothing in common. Mags is sturdy and down-to-earth (so down-to-earth that she likes burrowing her way through undergrowth in the woods near the village where they live). Gillian is a wispy remote thing whose music floats across the forest to tempt Mags out of hiding.

They do have one thing in common: missing dads. Gillian's father has left his wife - the terrifyingly beautiful Zelda - while Mags's father is dead (and that, she tells us, is almost the saddest thing, with something even sadder coming out later).

When Gillian is invited to audition for the Yehudi Menuhin School for gifted young musicians, she has to find the money to get there. Mags has the solution. All they have to do is track down Gillian's dad, who will surely pay up. Or will he?

Gillian tries to sort the whole thing out - what else are friends for? - but there are lots of trials along the way, including having to wear her best summer dress, which is suddenly too small - you can feel the discomfort of it - and having to fend off a dodgy bus driver.

It all works out in the end, even for Mags's mother, who has been desperately lonely too, not to mention broody for a baby. Mags carries the day. She's a funny, prickly, tough little nut and Parkinson will hopefully give her another story to tell quite soon.

Orna Mulcahy is an Irish Times journalist

Second Fiddle By Siobhán Parkinson Puffin, 224pp. €7.99