Not Thomas

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Mae Tomos, sy'n bump oed, yn byw gyda'i fam a'i chariad, ond mae e'n ysu am gael dychwelyd i fan arall y mae'n ei gyfrif yn gartref iddo. Daw'r cyfnod anodd hwn yn ei fywyd i'r pen pan ddaw criw o ddynion at y tŷ, ond nid yw ei fam am agor y drws iddynt, a rhaid i Tomos guddio a chadw'n dawel.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

Tomos is five and lives with his mother, and sometimes her boyfriend. He longs to return to another place, a place he thinks of as home. Then, the difficult things come to a head - there are men outside who want to come in, and his mum has said not to answer the door. From behind his chair, Tomos waits, trying to make himself small and quiet.

Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

In-stock items will be dispatched within 3 business days, usually by Royal Mail Tracked 48. For pre-orders, we’ll dispatch within 3 business days of receiving the item from our supplier.

Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

Sara Gethin is the pen-name of Wendy White. She grew up in Llanelli and studied ‘Religion and Ethics in Western Thought’ at St. David’s University, Lampeter. She has worked as a childminder, an assistant in a children’s library and a primary school teacher. She writes for children as Wendy White, and her first book Welsh Cakes and Custard won the Tir nan-Og Award in 2014. She has two grown-up children and while home is still west Wales, she and her husband spend much of their free time across the water in Dublin.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

Not Thomas is children’s author Wendy White’s first novel for adults, written under the pen name of Sara Gethin. In it, Gethin draws on her extensive experience of working with children – as a childminder, library assistant and primary school teacher – to tell a chilling tale of violence and abuse in the voice of five-year-old Tomos. The violence is mostly suggested rather than graphically described, and the dark story is shot through with shadow and light, with the hope of redemption and a better future. Rhiannon – or Ree, as she prefers to be called – is a young single mother who isn’t coping. Initially, she and Tomos lived with her foster parents, Nanno and Dat, but Nanno has died and Ree has fallen out with Dat, so she and Tomos are alone, apart from Ree’s dodgy boyfriend Brick, and occasional visits by the sinister Fly and Psycho. There is rarely any food in the house, and Tomos lives mostly on a diet of crisps. He and his clothes are unwashed. The house is dirty. Ree drinks and has a liking for coke (not the stuff that comes in bottles). Sometimes her words are ‘all slidey’, ‘come out messy’, are ‘slippy’. And she has a constant refrain: ‘stupid kid’. It’s such a normal statement of fact that it doesn’t even merit an exclamation mark. Yet Tomos is a gorgeous child. He is gentle and kind, not yet warped by the treatment he receives and the appalling adult behaviour around him. He loves his Mammy, and he misses Nanno and Dat. He is the innocent, who sees everything but understands nothing. After all, he is only five… Meanwhile, the curtain-twitching neighbours are turning a blind eye, also seeing everything, but saying nothing. It’s not their business. They don’t want to be involved. Miss, his new schoolteacher, however, is keeping a watchful eye on Tomos. She finds clean clothes for him in lost property, and asks him to help her eat her lunchtime sandwiches, because her husband always makes too many for her. But in doing so she is effectively concealing the truth from Tomos’s social workers, who now see a child who is clean and clearly well-fed, and who therefore believe that all is well. So Miss is kind, but wrong-thinking, and an already dangerous situation spirals out of control. Not Thomas makes for a gripping read, but some readers will find it distressing, and the publishers have very sensibly provided contact details for helplines at the end.