Alison Whitelock dreamed of shooting her father with a sawn-off shotgun. Her brother planned to use the longest knife in the cutlery drawer, and her mother tried to poison him with out-of-date tranquilisers. And he deserved it. This wee book is a bittersweet account of growing up in Scotland in the strange and brutal kingdom we call home. But "Poking Seaweed with a Stick" is anything but a tale of childhood suffering. With a whimsical disregard for all that's proper, Alison Whitelock tells her story not as an adult remembering her past, but as the child who experienced 'all that shite' first hand. Like the day her ponies Rusty and Silver got carted off to the glue factory; the day her school pal Fiona caught a brain tumour and died; and, not to mention the terrible shame of the blue-tit collage and the porridge bowl at Brownie camp. "Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell" is Alison's first book. Her Da hopes it will be her last.