“An astute, engaging debut” (Publishers Weekly), The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is a quirky and utterly charming tale of a community in need of reconciliation and two girls learning what it means to belong. England, 1976. Mrs. Creasy is missing and the Avenue is alive with whispers. The neighbors blame her sudden disappearance on the heat wave, but ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly aren’t … Grace and Tilly aren’t convinced, and decide to take matters into their own hands.
Spunky, spirited Grace and quiet, thoughtful Tilly go door to door in search of clues. The cul-de-sac starts to give up its secrets, and the amateur detectives uncover more than they ever imagined. A complicated history of deception begins to emerge–everyone on the Avenue has something to hide.
During that sweltering summer, the lives of all the neighbors begin to unravel. The girls come to realize that the lies told to conceal what happened one fateful day about a decade ago are the same ones Mrs. Creasy was starting to peel back just before she disappeared…
“A thoughtful tale of loyalty and friendship, family dynamics and human nature” (Kirkus Reviews), this glorious debut is part coming-of-age story, part mystery. The Trouble with Goats and Sheep radiates an unmistakable warmth and intelligence and is “rife with tiny extraordinaries” (The New York Times Book Review). “Joanna Cannon is an author to watch” (Booklist, starred review).more
A story of community, secrets, and searching. Best friends Grace and Tilly (age 10) spend the hot summer looking for God and answers to the disappearance of their neighbor. As they spend time with people on their street asking about God, past secrets and prejudices surface for all to face. One man has become the focus and scapegoat of all the wrongs from nine years before and from the current situation. Grace and Tilly try to figure out what is true and how they should feel.
This was an interesting story and it kept my interest. What made it difficult was the language barrier – British terms and colloquialisms I had to interpret or look up – slowed my reading down. However, there were many beautifully written and thoughtful passages that I enjoyed.
I was a little disappointed that the ending was left a little open ended, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusions about what happened next.
Definitely a book worth reading!
I loved this book! It’s been a while since I loved a fictional novel. The honest & simplistic view of a 10-yr old child narrator challenged my ability to stay focused in the beginning. In addition, the cast of characters had me re-reading the first few chapters to keep everyone straight. But the literal excellence of the plot & relatable problems, fears, & prejudices of the neighbors truly heightened my interest as well as served as metaphors for problems we face in our society today! This novel was amazing, refreshing, & made me feel good. I loved it & would like to read more books like this!
Btw – my favorite books include, Cutting for Stone, Elegance of a Hedgehog, The Goldfinch.
I really loved this book. A very different story but one that was very good. A woman goes missing in a neighborhood. it’s summer and school is out so two young girls decide they will find out what happened to the woman. They start out by going to church. There they learn from the priest that God is everywhere. So they think if they can find God they can find the woman. They also learn that people are either sheep or goats. The good people are sheep because they have a Shepherd and the bad people are goats. They learn from interviewing people in their neighborhood that is hard to tell the difference between sheep and goats. They they think they find Jesus and the woman comes home. Lots more going on in this neighborhood but this is just a synopsis of what the story was about. Like I said. Loved this book.
This is a great book about people’s feelings and motivations
Joanna Cannon’s writing is so good that I would often stop reading, re-read a sentence or a paragraph, and then read it out loud to my husband. This book was wise and witty and wonderful and sad. I will be reading more books by this author.
The premise of this story is simple but brilliant: Mrs Creasy has gone missing; Grace and Tilly, a pair of ten-year-old sleuths embark on a search, but instead of looking for Mrs Creasy they are searching for God. After all, He knows everything, including where Mrs Creasy is hiding. Once God if found so will be Mrs Creasy. I found great affinity with the girls – similar notions bumbled about in my head when I was their age.
Joanna Cannon puts the whole Avenue under a magnifying glass. The reader has insight into the lives and personalities of all residents. Secrets seep to the surface, skeletons fall out of the closet. The author handles difficult themes aptly and without sentimentality. Bigotry. Prejudice. Sense of community. Social ostracism.
I revelled in Cannon’s prose, which is refreshing, elegant and lyrical. She is the queen of anthropomorphism. An example: “Before she disappeared, he never said I love you. Unsure of themselves, the words had become trapped and awkward, and reluctant to leave. Instead of saying I love you, he said Take care of yourself, and When will you be back? Instead of saying I love you, he placed her umbrella at the bottom of the stairs, so it wouldn’t be forgotten, and in the winter he put her gloves on the chair by the door, so she would remember to pull them on to her hands before she left. Until she disappeared, this was the only way he knew how, but since she had gone, he found that the words had become untethered. They fell from his mouth in the silence, certain and unashamed. The rattled under the bridge at the canal and tripped across the towpath. They waltzed around the bandstand and chased along the pavements as he walked.”
This a charming, heart-warming story about our inherent obstinacy and our equally inherent goodness of the heart.
Not too thrilled
Sorry, but I couldn’t get into this book/
Beautiful writing
Loved it.
I enjoyed this book but had a hard time following the time changes in the beginning. This is a story of bullying and how rumors can get started without realizing their consequences.
Sad but true picture of a community of people.
Great use of words to build pictures.
The ending felt rushed and unfinished
Ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly are on a mission to find God in their cul-de-sac. Maybe by finding God, they will be able to find Mrs. Creasy, a well-liked resident who disappeared days ago. All they have to go on are the points that Grace understood from a Sunday sermon – sheep are the follows of the rules, and goats go to Hell. More, or less, anyway. They are having very little luck locating God, but little secrets keep coming to light, and we clearly see the strengths and weaknesses of the additional members of the neighborhood even if the girls don’t recognize it. The unifying strength of the neighborhood sheep and goats -all are afraid and suspicious of neighbor Walter Bishop who lives at Number Eleven, The Avenue. This goes back to a vague incident ten years ago that involved a missing baby and the death of Walter’s mother in a house fire.
The summer of 1976 in Nottingham was extraordinarily hot and humid, and that is a vital part of the unease, animosity, distrust, and discontent uniformly felt by most residents of this small location, a street and cul-de-sac isolated by location, rumors, and tree groves from the balance of the subdivision. The personalities of the protagonists are quickly drawn, all with that little flaw that makes them memorable. The mystery is vague through sections of this work, but it falls to a satisfactory last-minute conclusion. The story is very compelling you have to adore Grace and Tilly and the dependable Mrs. Morton. This is a novel I am pleased to recommend to friends and family. A debut novel, I am looking forward to more from Joanna Cannon. She writes with heart.
Deals with the complexity of the lives of people and their choices from the point of view of little girls. The goats and sheep theme appealed to me.
I loved the main character but the story never went anywhere.
Interesting lil’ mystery from a child’s perspective (always unexpected). Very well done!
I wasn’t into the writng style of this book. It was written in a poetic way that seemed forced.
Not one. Would recommend