Tag Archives: School stories

Bad Influence

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Bad Influence by Tamsin Winter

Book of the Week: 2 July 2023

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.

Three Hours

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Three Hours by Rosamund Lupton

Book of the Week: 8 November 2020

Photography by Getty Images

Prepare to be gripped!

A gunman’s bullet hits Mr Marr, the Headmaster, and, as he falls, two sixth formers drag him into the library, perform first aid and barricade the door with books. They listen in fear as the click of the shooter’s footsteps stops outside the entrance to the room. In another part of the school, students are hiding under seats in the theatre and a teacher in the pottery studio is attempting to stay calm. Mr Forbright, the Deputy Head, is alone in the Head’s office struggling to take charge and warn the staff.

From page one we are catapulted into an identifiable, credible and terrifying situation which plays out from multiple viewpoints, including those of anxious parents, and students who are sadly familiar with snipers and bombs. Fourteen-year-old Rafi has protected his brother on the perilous journey from Syria to Britain where he thought they had found sanctuary in a rural school in Somerset. No one knows the identity of the killer, but in the outside world a police psychiatrist is doing her best to discover who he is.

Whilst this all works brilliantly as a page-turning thriller, it is so much more than that. We get a glimpse into the souls of those under siege and listen to their thoughts and feelings as they undergo an experience that should only exist in our worst nightmares.

Suitable for older readers and grown-ups.

 

Can You See Me?

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Can You See Me? by Libby Scott & Rebecca Westcott

Book of the Week: 10 November 2019

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.

India Smythe Stands Up

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India Smythe Stands Up by Sarah Govett

Book of the Week: 13 October 2019

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.

D.O.G.S.

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D.O.G.S. by M.A. Bennett

Book of the Week: 8 September 2019

Cover design by Alexandra Allden

I nearly didn’t pick this because the central character, Greer, doesn’t like the work of our most famous Old Edwardian. However, S.T.A.G.S. won the Warwickshire Book Award back in March and this sequel is just as gripping.

We are back in the priviledged environment of St Aidan the Great School just where S.T.A.G.S. left off, partly because Greer strongly disapproves of sequels that start three years later than the original. She, Nel and Shafeen are now starting their final year at school and although Greer is still brooding over the death of Henry de Warlencourt, she is looking forward to a new school year. As part of her A-level Drama course she has to stage a play written before 1660 and has already ruled out Shakespeare. One evening, a sheaf of yellowing pages is pushed under the door of her room; these appear to be the beginnings of a play called The Isle of Dogs by Ben Jonson. When she takes the papers to her Drama teacher, Abbott Ridley, he is stunned. The play, written in 1597, was performed but then suppressed, meaning all copies were burned and the theatres closed. What could it have contained to make it so dangerous? When the next set of pages appear under Greer’s door, the Abbott suggests she stage the play for her A-level course. But who is feeding her pages, are they genuine and who is sending her cryptic messages about the recent past on Instagram?

Expect plenty of mystery and tension in a plot that skilfully mixes an ancient puzzle, and fascinating details about Elizabethan theatre and politics, with the elements that made S.T.A.G.S. such an enjoyable thriller.

The Gifted, the Talented and Me

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The Gifted, the Talented and Me by William Sutcliffe

Book of the Week:12 May 2019

If you are a sucker for a funny book and have enjoyed the likes of The Private Blog of Joe Cowley, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole or Socks Are Not Enough, this is a must-read. More than the comedy-of-cringe, it speaks to all of us who have felt out of our depth and away from our comfort zone.

Sam’s inventor Dad has sold his business for enough profit to propel them from their ordinary life in a modest house in Stevenage to one of privilege in North London. His arty and aspirational Mum enrols Sam, his seventeen-year-old brother Ethan and art-mad, younger sister Freya in a school for the gifted and talented or, as Sam thinks of it, ‘the North London Academy for Exactly the Kind of People I Instinctively Hated’. It is a school where teachers may be called by their first names and where you might be asked to perform an improvised dance about conflict resolution in front of the class on your first day. Amongst all his glitzy classmates, Sam feels lonely and out-of-place, even more so once Ethan and Flora start making friends and fitting in. Then he develops a crush on the gorgeous but aloof Jennifer, makes an enemy and gets involved, against his better judgement, in the school play. The author offers insights into the power of drama to alter your perceptions, plenty of identifiable scenes of family life and manages it all by making us laugh.

I’m not sure why, but this line resonated with me:

‘Mr Duverne was shouting at us for not listening, but I didn’t really hear what he said because I wasn’t listening’.

We have a book list full of suggestions for funny books fans here.

 

Truly Devious

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Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Book of the Week: 24 March 2019

Cover art by Leo Nickolls

We start this story at an exclusive boarding school in the mountains of Vermont in the 1930s. One foggy April day, new student Dottie Epstein stumbles upon the entrance to a tunnel in the woods, follows it and finds herself in a domed building on an island in the lake. Shortly later, a stranger enters the dome and Dottie is no more. The fog also seems to have hindered the return to school of the wealthy founder’s wife and daughter. In the ensuing panic, Albert Ellingham, the wealthy philanthropist who built the school, receives a telephone call to say kidnappers are holding his wife and daughter and demanding a ransom.

In the present day, detective fan and new student, Stevie Bell, is arriving at Ellingham Academy for the first time with a vast knowledge of the murder and kidnapping and a determination to solve it all.

Whilst this has all the expected ingredients of a murder mystery: grand country house (converted into a school), isolated setting, unsettling atmosphere, a cast of idiosyncratic characters who may or may not be trustworthy and a determined investigator, it also looks at school life and the difficulties of fitting in and does not neatly tie up loose ends because the author wants to hold you in suspense for much longer than the duration of the book. It is only the first in a trilogy.

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:

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’.

 

The Chaos of Now

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The Chaos of Now by Erin Lange

Book of the Week: 18 November 2018

Cover design by Faber. Illustration @Shutterstock

A return to fiction this week, but still concerning the online world. The Chaos of Now is about coding, friendship, families and online bullying.

When a student at Haver High School resorts to suicide in a shocking way it affects the lives of everyone in the community. Much to the annoyance of keen coders Eli and Zach, surveillance and internet regulations are ramped up as a result of Jordan’s death which was partly a result of online bullying. Eli’s dad reckons he spends far too much time on his computer anyway and should be trying to build a relationship with his girlfriend Misty who has come to live with them. Eli has other ideas. He misses his mum, who died some years ago, and wants to work for a big company like Google rather than going to university.

One day, someone leaves a message in binary code on the mirror in the school toilets which leads hims to the basement of a house in a nearby neighbourhood. Seth, an older student, and Mouse, a nervy boy who he only knows slightly, want him to help enter a national coding competition and created a website that will take revenge on all those who drove their friend Jordan to take his own life in such a horribly public way. Eli is tempted but wary of breaking the rules. Can he trust Seth and Mouse or should he listen to his long-time friend Zach and get out while he still can?

Due to strong language throughout and some challenging issues, this may be more suitable for older readers.