Category: Blog

Stick Boy by Paul Coomey

The main character, Stick, is exactly what the title says. Drawn with a round white head and a stick body which can fall apart and be put back together! He’s moved to a new town and a new school because of bullying, his third school in three years, and given how he looks it’s hard to fit it and not be noticed. It seems as if the same thing is happening again when Gretchen and Sam pick on him from the very first day. However, gradually, Stick makes some real friends and together they get involved in a plot involving an evil ICT teacher, hacking computers and the opening event of The New Mega Mall. The race is on to prove to unsuspecting families that their new HOMEBOT (…think Alexa plus) is part of a sinister plot plan to rule their lives.

The Twisted Threads of Polly Freeman by Pippa Goodhart

A moving tale of hard times in the 1830s. Polly and her Great Aunt Jem scratch a living by their sewing and mending but when their landlady throws them out on the street they end up in a workhouse in St Pancras.

Visions of Oliver Twist ensue with grey, sloppy gruel and hard, unpaid work until Polly befriends Min and together they are sold as apprentices to a Manchester cotton mill.

The story paints a vivid picture of the heat, noise and unrelenting grind of children’s labour in Victorian mills but Polly has a fiery spirit so keeps a sense of optimism and is determined to be reunited with her Great Aunt.

In her quest she hears tales of the Scottish Mother and African Father whom she never knew. She finds resonance with her own lot as an unpaid apprentice, no different from a slave, and her Father’s enslavement in Jamaica.

This book is highly recommended and gives an absorbing insight into poor children’s lives in that era. It would enhance any historical curriculum topic on Victorian England by giving a child’s perspective of those hard times.

Windrush Child by Benjamin Zephaniah

A very personal story following the life of Leonard from 1947, when he was born in Maroon Town Jamaica, until 2018 at the height of the Windrush scandal in Britain.

Leonard’s Dad arrived in England on the iconic ship, just seven months after Leonard was born, in search of a better life for his family in the ‘land of opportunity’. On docking in Britain, he sends Leonard a postcard of the HMS Windrush which his son keeps all his life.

He sends for his wife and child when Leonard is ten years old and so Leonard is torn from his idyllic childhood home and beloved Grandmother to start a new life in Manchester. Then, as we know, the streets are not paved with the promised gold and there are many struggles for a black boy growing up in a racist environment.

However, maybe the worst shock comes in the final chapter, set in 2018, which really makes us wonder what kind of society we are living in…

The book has an afterword endorsed by Amnesty International, which gives some facts about the Windrush Scandal and suggests what young people can do to make their voices heard.

My Brother’s Name is Jessica by John Boyne

Jason is Sam’s beloved older brother. He’s looked out for him from the moment of his premature birth, through his struggles with dyslexia and has always been his hero. Their bond is especially important because their parents are ambitious politicians, totally focussed on their work and with little time for their teenage boys.

When Jason sits the family down to tell them his ‘secret’ everything goes into freefall for Sam.

This book is an engrossing family story of how Jason’s need to live as Jessica has an impact on all of them. It deals sensitively with transgender issues and gives a good sense of what Jessica is going through as he tries to explain his feelings to Sam.  It maybe deals with the issues with too light a touch? I’m not sure we really get a full sense of the pain of a family’s rejection and effect the lack of empathy can have  on a transgender child, but it is certainly a place to start understanding this important issue.

The Night Bus Hero by Onjali Q Rauf

An interesting twist here – Hector, the main character, isn’t being bullied he IS THE BULLY! An adventure story unfolds with some lovely suspense moments thrown in to keep you reading to the next chapter.

Hector is always in detention; his family are in despair and Hector just keeps getting nastier each day. Until he goes too far and picks on a homeless man. That starts a chain of events involving thefts from famous London landmarks (all along the N15 night bus route) and a daring finale at St Paul’s Cathedral.

Onjali Q Rauf usually opens her readers’ eyes to some aspect of equality in our world and the ‘Night Bus Hero’ is no exception. She gently explores the pressures and causes of homelessness within an exciting and engaging story.

There’s some good information at the end about homelessness to inform readers, teachers, and librarians and Onjali is donating a portion of her royalties to homelessness charities.

When Stars are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohammed

Omar and his younger brother, Hassan, have spent most of their young lives in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. Life is hard there: never enough food, achingly dull, and without access to the medical care that Omar’s non-verbal brother needs.  But it’s better than their life in Somalia where their father was murdered and they feared for their lives. When Omar has the opportunity to attend school he knows it might be a chance to change their future. However it means leaving Hassan for many hours every day and Omar’s not sure he can do that – all they have is each other.

Heartbreak, hope, and the joy of friendship come together in this graphic novel about day-to-day life in the biggest refugee camp in the world, always waiting for a better life.  It’s an important story, beautifully illustrated, with a strong message about the lives of girls and young women. The story was told to New York Times Bestselling author/artist Victoria Jamieson by Omar Mohamed, the Somali man who lived the story and who writes an endpiece about his life now.

A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby

This book is an unusual mix of fantasy intertwined with real life family drama.  Safiya who loves playing video games, finds herself transported in and out of one when her mother becomes seriously ill.

Mixed race Safiya, has a strained relationship with her Kuwaiti mother and decides to live with her father when her parents separate. She feels herself different from her mother and rarely sees eye to eye with her. When her mother becomes seriously ill, Safiya’s life turns on its head. In her trauma, Safiya finds herself transported back to her mother’s childhood in Kuwait. The rich description paints a mysterious and attractive image of Kuwait. Safiya decides that this is a magical game and that working through it will help her save her mother’s life.

Shy Safiya is also dealing with adolescent angst of changing friendships; while Safiya is still enjoying the fun of being a child, her best friend Elle has discovered boys and a rift develops between them as they outgrow each other.

We see in Safiya a strong girl who learns how to be resilient and realises the value of learning about the person her mother is and where she came from. She realises she has a lot more in common with her mother than she first thought. This story subtly deals with the pressures of divorce, illness and growing up with the most unusual backdrop of a fantasy world of a magic game. It is essentially a coming of age story.

Talking to the Moon by S.E. Durrant

This is another subtle dramatization of family life by S.E.Durrant, who seems to always discuss the little talked about aspects of family life in a warm and moving yet ‘normal way’.

Set against the seaside backdrop of Brighton with its piers and pebble beach, this is the story of 10 year old Iris and the endearing relationship she has with her grandmother.  Mimi, Iris’ grandmother is becoming more and more muddled and confused whilst Iris is temporarily living with her so Iris has to try and cope with the effects of this on everyday life and the anxiety that comes with it: jam on the scrambled eggs, clean washing in the cat’s bed and fish hanging on the washing line.  The story tackles the subjects of dementia and generally getting old with a soft focus without being too sad.

Iris struggles to cope with and hide her eccentric grandmother’s odd behaviour and enjoy spending time with herat the same time, cue Iris’ annoying but generally kind new friend next door, Mason who is a helpful distraction. Mason and Iris try to solve the mystery of the child in the photo- Mimi’s cousin Coral who disappeared as a child, this simple yet satisfying storyline adds another needed dimension to the story and gives the reader a clear resolution.

This is a slow-paced story but beautifully told with enough events, interesting characters and inference to suit individual or class reading with discussion. The way S.E. Durrant highlights the close bond between a child and their grandparent and shines a light on uncomfortable matters of family life is worthy of discussion.

To Night Owl from Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer

Avery and Bett are both daughters of single gay dads who find out that their said dads have just embarked on a jumping in at the deep end full on relationship and who are about to go off to China on a holiday of a lifetime and are sending their respective daughters to the same summer camp with the intention of their becoming close and loving sisters. Of course the girls have other ideas. That’s the nub of it!

It gets a lot more complicated, lots more characters, lots more events.  I loved the book and thought the whole set up really worked well and was cleverly expressed entirely throughout by emails sent mainly by the girls.  The girls are very different from each other, thus Avery is Night Owl, thoughtful and sometimes overanxious about situations and worries herself by looking up every risky issue on the internet, Bett is a high risk taker who doesn’t mind interfering in other peoples’ lives and likes to emphasise by PUTTING IMPORTANT THINGS IN CAPITALS.  Which isn’t as annoying as it sounds.  There is actually a lot of subtlety in the book, despite the capitals, and the feelings and relationships are often nicely understated with a lot of inferences drawn by the email style of writing which doesn’t overexplain things (unlike what I am doing now).

The narrative races along, it’s readable and funny. Being in a family with a gay parent is never presented as an ‘issue’ and discrimation is touched upon by the comments of one of the other campers in one situation, but events show that people can be more complex than at first sight, and also friendships can develop, and have their ups and downs.  There’s a neat twist near the end so the ending is not quite as predictable as you might think.

I’m intrigued by the double authorship – did one writer write all Avery’s emails and the other all of Bett’s?