Turbulence is a children's

Children's literature

Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...

 novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Jan Mark

Jan Mark

Jan Mark was a British author, best known as a writer for children. She was christened Janet Marjorie Brisland in Welwyn Garden City in 1943 and was raised and educated in Kent. She was a secondary school teacher between 1965 and 1971, and became a full-time writer in 1974. She wrote over fifty...

, published in 2005. It was shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal

Carnegie Medal

The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...

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Plot summary

Turbulence relates the story of Clay, a sixteen year old girl on the verge of taking her GCSEs. She has a brother, called Jamze, who grunts rather than talks, a little sister who always has to be the centre of attention, a dad who she watches Westerns with, a gran who likes horror films, and a mum who invites The Stranger To Dinner. The stranger's name is Sandor, and he is suave, sophisticated, and ingratiating. One by one, Clay's family and friends find themselves sucked into his life and its many dramas, and it is this situation that makes for much of the turbulence that the title refers to.