He tells it how it is, without footnotes or gloss, and it's up to the reader to decide how much they want to take from his books. Marcus Sedgwick doesn't speak down to his teen readers. There's another uncompromising aspect to this superb book.

What's important is the hunt for her father, not some saccharine look-how-brave-she's-being nonsense. And she's quick to dispel all those myths about blind people's other senses being enhanced: load of rubbish! She has her skills, and her little brother has his, and they complement each other, that's all. After all, she says, she can't miss what she's never experienced. Laureth feels no pity for herself, and she doesn't ask for it. This book is an excellent example of how to do that. And not just as sad little victims of bullying, either: all children should be able to find people like themselves in fiction, as active, cheeky, clever or naughty individuals who also happen to be disabled or from a different background. Much has been said in recent years about the importance of including everyone in books, whatever their colour, creed or ability. In fact, she can't do it without him, because Laureth is blind. It's no small undertaking: not only does she have to cross the Atlantic (challenge enough for any sixteen-year-old) to talk to the person who found the notebook, she also has to take her seven-year-old brother with her. So Laureth sets off to find her father herself. He's just being his usual irritating self. She alerts her mother but gets nowhere: the marriage is under strain and her mother refuses to believe Jack has had some sort of breakdown, or is somehow in danger. Laureth is certain her dad would never willingly be separated from all the notes for his next book: like most writers he'd rather lose a limb, so something has to be seriously wrong. Jack Peak is supposed to be in Switzerland, so why has an email arrived suggesting he's in New York? Or at least, his Black Book is – and photographic proof soon follows, just so she knows it's not some crazy scam. And, like it or not, there's nothing she can do about the barely suppressed hostility that has grown in recent years between her parents. He even pays her to answer the fan mail on his website for him. She's accepted the fact that he will hare off across the world in search of some obscure information for a story, and the fact that he rarely asks her about herself and her life at school, preferring to lecture her instead about his latest theory. Laureth is used to her father's writerly obsessions and enthusiasms. Her mother doesn't seem to care, so it's up to Laureth to find him. But this time things have gone too far, and her dad has disappeared. Summary: Laureth is the daughter of a writer, and she knows how hard it is for them to tell fact from fiction.

She is not invisible by marcus sedgwick