Not My Problem

Not My Problem by Ciara Smyth

Book of the Week: 5 December 2021

Cover illustration by Spiros Halaris

Aideen and Maebh are personalities who are destined to clash. Aideen is struggling with most subjects at school and is more worried about her mum drinking and skipping work. She answers her form tutor back and forges notes from her mother to avoid lessons. In contrast, Maebh is the Principal’s daughter and ‘the intense overachiever type, with no hobbies other than winning’.

When Aideen finds Maebh sobbing in the girls’ changing room, Maebh explains she is so overwhelmed with work that she won’t succeed in the upcoming election for president of the student council, which she desperately wants to win. Her solution is to ask Aideen to push her down the stairs so she will break her ankle and can drop some of her commitments. Aideen unwillingly obliges, the ankle is sprained and a boy called Kavi Thakrar, who overheard the whole thing, scoops Maebh up to take her to the sick bay.

The following day, Aideen’s best and only friend, Holly, is disappointed to hear that Maebh, who is her only opponent in the race to be student council president, might not run for office. She dislikes Maebh with a vengeance. ‘Did she trip over her own ego?’ she asks, ‘Did she simply collapse under the weight of her own arrogance?’ Aideen doesn’t admit her part in the incident and doesn’t want to tell Holly that she and Maebh are now texting one another. The enthusiastically puppyish Kavi adds to the complications by bringing students to Aideen in secret because he believes she has the potential to be a fixer of problems. Aideen now has to keep various people’s secrets, including her relationship with Maebh and her own difficult home life, from everyone’s attention, particularly that of her sarcastic but dedicated teacher Ms Devlin, whose sharp repartee hides a willingness to go out of her way to help her students.

Some outrageous incidents and plenty of sharp banter don’t distract from the realism of Aideen’s life with her unpredictable mother and her chaotic school environment. Friendships are portrayed as complicated and, even when characters sabotage themselves and others, they are shown sympathetically. This is a funny, engaging read and a reassuring one, where events might not work out as you intended but where, if you are able to ask for help, there is always hope for the future.

If you like the Channel 4 TV series ‘Derry Girls’, or ‘Sex Education’ on Netflix, you might like this book because it has elements of both.

Suitable for older readers.

Crater Lake (Book of the Week: Lockdown edition)

Crater Lake by Jennifer Killick

Book of the Week: 28 June 2020

Cover design by anneglenndesign

Lance’s year group are looking forward to their trip to the new and innovative activity centre, Crater Lake. If it wasn’t for bullying Head Boy, Trent, and Assistant Head, Miss Hoche, who Lance thinks has it in for him, everything would be perfect. He has the company of his best friend, Chets, along with the angelic-looking Katja, and week of activities to look forward to.

Things start to go pear-shaped when the coach they are travelling on lurches to avoid an injured man with red, swollen eyes and clothes ‘that look like they’ve been lawn-mowered’. The driver waits for medical attention to arrive whilst everyone walks the rest of the way to the activity centre. When they get there they see a black lake set in an enormous crater, a building that looks like a prison and find everywhere strangely under-staffed. Lance thinks it looks like ‘the perfect location for a Goosebumps book’. Once they have been served only soup for dinner and watched a film about the life cycle of the wasp, Crater Lake doesn’t feel so inviting.

If you like your horror with plenty of humour, and enjoyed Undead by Kirsty McKay, then try Crater Lake.

Jemima Small Versus the Universe

Jemima Small Versus the Universe by Tamsin Winter

Book of the Week: 23 February 2020

Cover illustration by Usborne Publishing

Do you have a brilliant memory and love a fascinating fact? If so, you will enjoy the company of Jemima.

Jemima is clever, has a best friend called Miki, a slightly annoying dad and an extremely annoying older brother and is keen to represent her school on the popular tv quiz programme Brainiacs. She knows something is wrong when Mr Shaw, their Year 8 science teacher, says everyone is going to be weighed and measured. In public. There is no way that Jemima wants her weight displayed on the whiteboard for everyone to see, so she knocks over a tray of glass beakers as a diversion. Apart from her dad having to pay for the beakers, she thinks she has protected her privacy. However, she is called to a special meeting next morning with a few other students. A letter home says that she is ‘in the very overweight range’ and is going to be part of a healthy lifestyle programme. As some people in school already call her ‘Jemima Big’ and make snide remarks about her weight, Jemima thinks this is the final straw in destroying her self-esteem. Luckily for us, Jemima is not only clever but has a sense of humour and is prepared to fight back against being completely crushed by the insensitivity of other people.

If you enjoyed Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan or any books by Kim Slater or Susin Nielsen, then there is an excellent chance you will love this.

That Asian Kid

That Asian Kid by Savita Kalhan

Book of the Week: 12 January 2020

Images by iStock and Shutterstock. Cover design by Emma Rogers

Your teacher keeps giving you poor marks, but you think your essays are just as good as those of your friend Tom who is in the same class. You even suspect that the reason for her antagonism may be the colour of your skin, but your friends and family tell you that you are a bit of a ‘smart-alex’ and may have too high an opinion of your own work. Then, one day as you take a shortcut home through the woods, you discover this same teacher has a secret that could end her career. Should you reveal it?

This tense story of Jeevan’s moral dilemma gives the reader plenty to think about – just as you think he has made a choice, the situation changes or new information comes to light and he is thrown into further state of anxiety. Jeevan is surrounded by some likeable and well-drawn characters in the shape of family and friends. Even if you would choose a totally different course of action, you can’t help but empathise with him and find so much of the story warm-hearted and believable.

Everything All At Once

Everything All At Once by Steven Camden

Book of the Week: 8 December 2019

‘What’s it about then?

Well,

It’s about the tapestry of moments, woven of a thousand threads.

Different versions of the world swirling inside a thousand heads.

We go from the biggest to the smallest, dropped off, left to fend,

in the secondary school jungle jumbled enemies, new friends.’

This is Steven Camden’s prologue to his poetry book that looks inside the heads of unnamed students and teachers and their experiences in school, from starting out to the day of leaving. Its mix of funny, anxious and regretful is always insightful and identifiable.

 

 

A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius

A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius by Stacey Matson

Book of the Week: 28 February 2016

Year in the Life

 

This story, told in the form of diary entries, assignments, letters and notes from teachers, features the ‘genius’ Arthur Bean. Arthur fancies himself as a great writer of the future but can’t seem to get started, let alone finish, an original piece of writing. He also has a huge crush on Kennedy who is popular and pretty and can’t stop writing ‘LOL’ in every single email she sends. He is meant to be helping a struggling student called Robbie Zack, who finds spelling a problem, but Arthur complains about him constantly. Arthur’s real sadness is the recent death of his mother and dealing with his grieving father. Fortunately, he has the support of some extremely understanding teachers and discovers that friendship can be found in unexpected places.

Arthur is nerdy and overly-confident in the tradition of Adrian Mole and Michael Swarbrick but often veers from being amusingly self-deluded to being plain annoying. There are lots of jokes and funny scenes to balance this out and, if you enjoy creative-writing, there is masses of useful advice from the teacher-characters.

Stacey Matson joins other good Canadian authors who have come to the fore recently. Susan Neilsen’s We Are All Made of Molecules was popular in the Year 9 Book Award last year, as was The Dogs by Allan Stratton. There is also Graham McNamee who writes pacey thrillers such as Acceleration and Bonechiller.

Here is the first page of A Year in the Life of a Total and Complete Genius if you would like to sample the style.

A Year - first page

Monster

Monster by C.J. Skuse

Book of the Week: 6 December 2015

Monster

The setting for ‘Monster’ is a remote boarding school that was once a stately home. Bathory is suitably gothic and creepy, rather like an un-magical Hogwarts. Nash, who is campaigning to become Head Girl, believes she has glimpsed the fabled Beast of Bathory stalking across the playing fields as the story begins. The existence, and possible whereabouts of this creature, become a huge source of tension as the story progresses. Nash and a small group of girls are forced to stay in Bathory over the Christmas holidays due to snowstorms bringing the country to a halt. Nash is also frantically worried about her family. Her brother, Seb, has gone missing in South America and her parents have flown out to look for him. As the weather worsens, the girls argue and get more anxious, as there are rumours of an escaped criminal in the grounds. Will it all end in tragedy or will the resourceful Nash survive everything life throws at her and save her fellow students from whatever is lurking in the woods?

This book as been called “Malory Towers meets I Know What You Did Last Summer” and contains some scenes of gory violence and strong language. Suitable for older readers.