Handles (novel)

Handles is a realistic children's novel by Jan Mark, first published in 1983 by Kestrel Books of Harmondsworth, London, with illustrations by David Parkins.

Nicholas Tucker calls it "a happy, optimistic work"; Erica escapes "mean-minded relatives" for the "anarchic motorbike-repair outfit in a nearby town".

[2] Mark and Handles won the annual Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject.

"[5] From the New York Times review: "Jan Mark stretches the range of children's books ... she provides for young people the combination of fine prose and strong realism generally reserved for adults.

"[6] In Tucker's obituary view more than twenty years later, Handles was a "happy, optimistic work" in which the heroine found in the motorbike-repair shop "the company and interests she had always longed for".