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The Twelve by Liz Hyder Book of the Week: 19 January 2025 It’s nearly midnight on the shortest day of the year. Kit, her younger sister Libby, and their Mum are staying in a friend’s caravan on the Pembrokeshire coast … Continue reading
Cover illustration by Amy Blackwell
Amelia should be enjoying her time at school. She has just started Year 9 and is good at schoolwork, loves reading and plays cello in the orchestra. Despite her achievements, she is not only unpopular but is being bullied. She and her best friend Nisha have been rated as being in ‘the extreme fug zone’ [fug means ugly] by classmates on social media. She suspects that a particularly annoying boy in her class, called DJ, might be responsible because he was the person who started calling her ‘Maggot’ in Year 7 – a nickname that has stuck. It doesn’t help that her older sister, Hannah, is beautiful and on track to be Head Girl and that her baseball-obsessed father believes that coming second in anything is being ‘first loser’.
It takes a couple of chapters to find out about Amelia’s life, however, because the book opens with her being in trouble at school thanks to a photograph that has been shared on social media. What the photo shows, who shared it and what led to it being taken is revealed in the rest of this cleverly-constructed plot. This sympathetic and readable story would be a great book club choice as it would provoke plenty of discussion about the pressures of fitting in, the perils of social media and its effect on real-life relationships; plus it is all told in a lively, relatable and witty style that avoids being over-earnest.
Try this is you have enjoyed Tamsin Winter’s other books , or books by writers such as Jenny McLachlan , Susin Nielsen or Lisa Williamson
PS: The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ross won the Yoto Carnegie Medal for Writing in June this year.
Illustration by Holly Ovenden
The Wolf Road is a powerful and painful exploration of a boy’s grief after his parents are killed in a car crash and he has to live with his prickly-natured grandmother in the wilds of the Lake District.
Lucas is convinced a wolf caused the car crash by stepping into the path of his parents’ car. Once he is in his grandmother’s cottage he believes the wolf is shadowing him as well as killing the neighbouring farmer’s sheep. Lucas cannot concentrate at school and is too angry to respond to those people who try to help him or form a relationship with him. Nothing in this book is cosy or easily resolved. Just like the short, vivid depictions of the natural world that surrounds Lucas, everything is raw and messy and wild. The bullies in the story are believable and chilling.
Some books that share similar themes include:
Illustration by Julia Christians
We first meet thirteen-year-old Jordan when he is up a tree trying to rescue a cat. Despite not being keen on cats or heights and frightening his over-protective mum, he gives it a try; and Jordan is definitely a trier. His family have moved to the quiet town of Pondstead to give him a healthier life after being ill in hospital. He’s missing his friends, particularly the one he met when he was in hospital, and is finding it hard to fit in. His dad is being overly-hearty, his mum overly-protective and his sister Abi overly-everything. He is doing his best to settle down and ward of memories of his past life, but just as he thinks he has made a few friends, he antagonises a boy called Will in his class and, by offering some soup to a homeless man in the park, starts a whole new chain of events that angers as many people as it helps. Will his life ever get back on an even keel?
There is lots to enjoy in this warm-hearted story that deals with some serious and emotional issues whilst always keeping its sense of humour.
Ben Davis is the author of the Private Blog of Joe Cowley series and you can find out more about him here.
Other great fiction that deals with homelessness includes No Fixed Address by Susin Nielsen and Sofa Surfer by Malcolm Duffy.
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Gloves Off by Louisa Reid Book of the Week: 17 November 2019 Sixteen year old Lily tells her powerful and emotional story of being bullied and shamed for her weight. She does not want to bother her parents as her … Continue reading
Cover designer/illustrator not credited
‘One thing that you should probably know about me early on is that I’m autistic. I have autism.’ says Tally in her diary at the beginning of the book. She is about to start secondary school and is worried about getting lost, making friends and having her head flushed down the toilet. Her sister Nell assures her that this only happens to ‘mouthy kids that don’t know when to shut up’, but Tally continues to worry about germs, making eye contact and her urge to wear a tiger mask in public.
Once she gets to school, her literal interpretation of events and total honesty lead to all kinds of complications, some of them funny and others distressing.
The author Rebecca Westcott tells most of the story, with Libby Scott (who is autistic herself) writing Tally’s diary entries. Between them, they create a cast of rounded characters who engage our empathy and make us feel their frustrations and triumphs.
If you liked Wonder by R.J. Palacio, or books such as The Light Jar by Lisa Thompson, this is definitely one to try.
Illustration by Nina Duckworth
India Smythe should be introduced to Sam from The Gifted, the Talented and Me by William Sutcliffe – I’m sure they’d have a lot to talk about. Sam’s family became rich, forcing him to mix with ‘the gifted and talented’ and India sounds posh thanks to her Grandad changing the family name from Smith to Smythe. Thankfully, they are both ordinary teenagers coping with things that plague most young people – cool, good-looking kids who make everyone feel inadequate, teachers who they class as either supportive or pitiful (India thinks their deputy head is ‘massively old and deaf’ which is probably code for ‘over 40’) and parents who are embarrassing in the way that only parents know how.
India has been invited by the cool crowd to join them at ‘the Fence’, one of those romantic chain-link kind, that separates the girls’ school from St Joseph’s, the neighbouring boys’ school. Here she meets Ennis, who is prone to dim comments and winking, but who is considered so hot that she feels she must date him. Can she resist the forces of geekery, represented by her practical friend Anna who dresses as if she is going hiking and is consumed by ‘the political intrigue of orchestra practice’, or will she join the cool crowd?
Although we may well guess the answer to that question, it doesn’t stop us identifying and having sympathy with India and enjoying the laughs along the way.
This addition to the recent crop of great funny books is rendering my reading list out of date. Check out How to Rob a Bank by Tom Mitchell and Pay Attention Carter Jones by Gary D. Schmidt.
Illustrations by Sue Cheung
The illustrated diary of Jo Kwan whose family move to a cramped flat above their Chinese takeaway in Coventry in 1984. Jo and her younger sister, Bonny, live with their mum who speaks very little English and their father, who is bad-tempered and erratic. Simon, their older brother, lives with grandparents a few streets away. Despite not enjoying school, except for art lessons, Jo finds friendship with fellow outsider, Tina, who is a goth. She is unwilling to introduce Tina to her family in case she discovers how chaotic her home life is – her dad likes to give their pet goats piggybacks around the garden for instance. Most of Jo’s story is packed with quirky characters and some funny and relatable incidents, but there is a dark side to her family life that only comes to the fore in the final third of the book. Despite the funny, down-to-earth style and the Wimpy Kid type drawings, this is an honest and upsetting story that the youngest readers may find a bit disturbing.
It has some themes in commons with The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4 by Sue Townsend, Anita and Me by Meera Syal and The Boy with the Topknot by Sathnam Sanghera.
Images from Shutterstock
Joe has taken the unauthorised loan of a motorbike from the garage where he works to take his girlfriend Laura to the river, but his plan to be alone with her is ruined when three menacing boys appear, take the bike from Joe and threaten Laura.
The scene then shifts to eight weeks later by which time Laura is in a coma and her family are preparing for their daily visit. Joe is missing and is number one on the list of people the police would like to interview. Laura’s brother Jake and younger sister Tessie have just returned to school after the trauma of Laura’s attack, but school is not a happy place for Tessie. She is selectively mute and is being bullied by two girls about her inability to talk. Tessie can talk at home, or at her friend Max’s house, when the doors are ‘proper shut’, but not in school or other places or when there are strangers about. She cannot even talk to the unconscious Laura in hospital, much as she wants to.
The tension of the first chapter does not let up as we follow Tessie’s attempts to uncover what happened to her sister and navigate complicated family relationships as well as a developing romance with the mysterious Billy.
Cover design by crushed.co.uk
‘Call me Ishmael’ is the famous opening line of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Ishmael Leseur’s parents met at university where they studied the novel and, because Mrs Leseur thought she was the size of a whale when she was expecting her first child, they called him Ishmael. Although he thinks of himself as the Mayor of Loserville he didn’t have any problems with his name until he started at St Daniel’s Boys College, his secondary school, and Barry Bagsley started picking on him and calling him Fishtail Le Sewer.
His troubles get worse when a small, neat boy called James Scobie starts school and his teacher appoints him as James’ ‘official buddy’. James dresses as if his grandfather is his fashion guru and arranges his belongings on his desk in perfect alignment. He is an obvious target for Barry Bagsley. But James is not the pushover he seems to be. He claims not to be afraid of anything and has a range of insults that render Barry Bagsley speechless. For Barry, this means war and Ishmael is not only stuck in the middle but has to confront his own fears when he is persuaded to join the school debating team.
The author used to be a teacher and this shows in the way he writes about students, teachers and life in school. If you enjoy a fun story and characters with ‘all the bantz’ (can’t believe I just typed that phrase) then you definitely need to read this.