Monthly Archives: December 2018

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

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The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Book of the Week: 16 December 2018

Cover image not credited

We learn from chapter one that Frankie has been responsible for some outrageous pranks at her exclusive private school, Alabaster Preparatory Academy, but how and why they happened is the subject of the rest of the book.

Soon after Frankie starts her sophomore year (our Year 11) she starts dating Matthew who is a senior (our Year 13). He introduces her to his best friend Alessandro, known as Alpha, who is ‘top dog’ in a secret society called the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds. Only boys can be members and they dedicate their time to playing pranks on campus. Frankie feels that Matthew is hiding something from her and treating her rather like her family do – as harmless and adorable. She sets out to discover his secret and infiltrate the secret society.

You might give this a try if you enjoy books by John Green or Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Warwickshire Secondary School Book Award 2019

Last week we heard that the winner of the Warwickshire Year 9 Book Award was Fiona Shaw with her book Outwalkers and we started on the Warwickshire Book Award for 2019 with a team of Year 7 readers.

If you like the sound of some of the 2019 shortlisted books, why not try something with a similar theme? There are some suggestions below:

‘Shell’ and ‘Stranger’

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Shell by Paula Rawsthorne and Stranger by Keren David

Books of the Week: 9 December 2018

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Design by Ellen Rockell

Monday 10 December sees the announcement of the winner of the Warwickshire Year 9 Book Award. Teams of Year 9 students throughout Warwickshire have been shortlisting, reading and voting on books chosen initially by school library staff and are now waiting to find out which book has won. We started in September with a longest of nine books, narrowed it down to four, and have been reading and discussing them for the last couple of months. It has been a hard choice as there were so many wonderful reads.

Two of the four shortlisted books have already been Books of the Week: Orphan Monster Spy in May  and Outwalkers in April, so now it is the turn of Shell and Stranger to be joint Books of the Week.

Shell raises all sorts of questions about the ethics of body transplants and what makes you the person you are. Lucy is terminally ill, but a revolutionary and risky new medical procedure allows her brain to be transplanted into the body of a donor. Although she is happy to have escaped death, she finds adjusting to a new body an alienating experience. She is now pretty and popular which alters her relationships and forces her to keep secrets from everyone around her. She needs to find out more about her donor and, in doing so, uncovers things that others wish to remain hidden. This is a grippingly told story with plenty of dramatic highlights.

Stranger is a novel where the action takes place in two different eras: Astor, Ontario in 1904 and the same location in 1994. It is about outsiders and people who feel they don’t belong and how events have lasting repercussions over time. It begins in 1904 when Emmy and Sadie are out walking and encounter a naked, bloodied young man who emerges from the forest distressed and unable to talk. Sadie runs away, but Emmy tries to help. Ninety years later, Megan arrives in the same small town for Emmy’s 105th birthday. She is Emmy’s great-granddaughter with her own secrets and unhappiness. How the lives of the two women intertwine is something we discover as we read the dual narratives of this compassionately told story.

Whichever book is voted the winner on Monday, I’m sure Year 9 judges will tell you that they are all worth reading and are books that will stay in your mind long after you have put them down.

 

The Private Blog of Joe Cowley

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The Private Blog of Joe Cowley by Ben Davis

Book of the Week: 2nd December 2018

Illustrated by Mike Lowery

This isn’t an unjustly neglected classic, or a new book, so why is it Book of the Week? I have just finished updating a funny books reading list and this is one I hadn’t read. I’m glad to say that it definitely deserves its place on the list. I know many of you will agree as I have recently had to buy new copies to replace the worn-out ones.

Joe neatly sums up the plot on page 1:

“In the past year this catalogue of misery happened:

  • Mum and Dad got divorced.
  • Dad shacked up with Svetlana, who is like a million years younger than him and is Russian.
  • Mum started seeing Jim the plasterer, and yet the crack in my bedroom ceiling grows bigger with each passing day.
  • I nearly got to snog Louise Bentley at the fair, but ended up throwing up all over her after the walzer made me nauseous.
  • I gained the nickname ‘Puke Skywalker’ at school for the above reason.
  • That idiot Gav James ramped up his campaign of torment against me, once even dunking me in a bin upside down and making me stay there for the entire lunch break”.

Joe’s story of avoiding bullies and trying to get a date with the girl of his dreams is endearingly told, peopled with oddball characters and scattered with embarrassing incidents.

The series is aimed at older readers than Diary of a Wimpy Kid due to ‘colourful’ language and the previously mentioned ’embarrassing incidents’.