The Bubble Wrap Boy, by Phil Earle

The Bubble Wrap Boy is the story of vertically challenged Charlie Han, painfully uncool, thoroughly clumsy and resigned to the fact that he has close to a Full House on the “Racial Stereotypes” Bingo sheet. Living with a desperately overprotective mum and a silent chef father, Charlie struggles with gangs, bullies, ritual humiliation, constant disappointment and scorn on a daily basis and has nobody to talk to about it. Apart from his companion in lonely weirdness Linus, AKA Sinus due to his immense nose. Thrown together by their mutual friendlessness, Charlie is unfortunately quite dismissive of Linus, believing he deserves a higher calibre of friend. When Charlie discovers his passion, his one talent in life is Skateboarding, he neglects Linus in favour of his new hobby. His new hobby that would send his mother through the roof if she ever found out about it.

Charlie is just such a brilliant character; hopelessly uncool, unduly optimistic about suddenly becoming cool, resolute, caring and hugely stubborn. I really felt like I understood Charlie- his mixture of anger and guilt and love is on the one hand quite typical of teens, but it also singles Charlie out as being quite unique in the way that he deals with these emotions. He has been lied to by people that he trusts, he’s angry, but he has his own secrets too so it’s not as if he can legitimately claim the moral high ground. He has the ammunition to cause his mother a world of emotional pain and chooses not to. He keeps both of their secrets to save his family from getting hurt.

I really liked too how Charlie begrudgingly learned his lessons as he went along, even though they were painful or inconvenient. He learns when to get mad and when to stay quiet. The value of true friendship versus the fickle promise of popularity. The fact that you have to work hard to reap the rewards of anything. That sometimes you don’t have to be the best. That it’s not until you’ve won approval that you realise it’s of very little value. That adults do strange and inexplicable things for reasons only understood by themselves.

This book does a brilliant job of rationalising adult behaviour that seems to baffle teens. It gives reasons, however unsatisfying or misguided, for the things that grownups do. Sometimes it’s the wrong thing done for the right reasons but it shows too that adults might not always be able to explain their behaviour. It shows that these mysterious creatures are people too.

It’s emotional and heart wrenching at the same time as being hilariously funny. Charlie’s brush with death during his brief foray into amateur dramatics had me in stitches, and his brilliant internal monologue is so full of personality. Sometimes he’s seething, sometimes he’s

overflowing with empathy. It’s a joy to read because in many ways it is such an ordinary story- families, secrets and unfulfilment and guilt are all very ordinary themes. It’s just told in such a way that the reader can’t help but become caught up in Charlie’s complicated family and his clashing emotions.

My only gripe with the book is the Penguin cover. It’s ok for the cover to show Charlie as being Oriental in appearance! I can’t remember the last time I read any book where the protagonist was British Chinese. In fact I don’t think I have read another one at all. That should be celebrated and evident, rather than limited to the text. Charlie just happens to be born to Chinese parents. It’s not particularly integral to the plot, it’s just who he is! This is exactly kind of circumstantial diversity that needs to become the norm. Even if one day there are fictional armies of diverse and representative characters, what's the point if we’re just going to illustrate them as all looking the same?

The 2014 Re-read of Harry Potter

A few pictures of Myself (brown) and my lil Sister (blonde) at Harry
Potter Studios. Excuse my deathly pallour- worst cold ever...

Following a visit to Harry Potter Studio Tours over May half term, I decided that it was time to re-read the Harry Potter series. This is kind of a big deal for me. I've gone about 8 years without a whiff of Potter. I've thought about picking them up again, but was always scared that it wouldn't be as good. I didn't want to break the spell that Hogwarts has had over me for the majority of my life. I can't live in a world where Harry Potter was disappointing.

From the age of about 12 to about 18, I read nothing else. Apart from stuff they made you read at school Mrs Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, Abomination and Of Mice and Men, for the record). I remember Prisoner of Azkaban coming out, thinking "GOD another of those stupid Harry Potter books?? What is it, the millionth one?" Yes I was that cool, way too cool for Wizard books. But then I read Philospher's Stone in an afternoon and never looked back.

I read them over and over. I remember my English teacher pleading with me at parents' evening to read something else. Not having any of it. Then  Goblet of Fire came out (after an agonizing wait and many rotations of books 1-3) and that got added to the cycle, then  Order of the Phoenix and so on, round and round until Deathly Hallows in 2007. And then it stopped. It was done. After waiting years for the circle to be complete, it was. I read other things.

Until three weeks ago when I burst the cellophane on my new hardback boxed set and read them again. The only way I can describe it is coming home after a really long holiday. As daft as it sounds, Harry Ron and Hermione are my friends too, even though it's been a while. I earned them with the hours and hours I spent with the books, the held breaths and the tears and the out-loud laughs. The end of Order of the Phoenix still chokes me up and I dawdle towards the end of Half Blood Prince try and delay the inevitable...You feel the rage, grief, pride and struggle as much as anybody in the book, and I'd forgotten how brave and brilliant Neville and Luna are- they're unsung heroes that will die for their friends and their cause. It might not be the most sophisticated prose in the world, but it's so ridiculously powerful and it's storytelling at its finest. It is simply the perfect series.

My sister is currently re-reading now too, as is my Aunty. It's catching #PotterForLife

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison

A young adult classic, product of the 90s and prototype for so many sassy teens coping with the hormonal obstacle course of adolescence. Young Bridget Jones or female Adrian Mole, child of hilariously inept parents and attempting to enter the state of graceful womanhood as unscathed as possible.

Georgia Nicholson is going back to school (snore) in a week. But she's just shaved off her eyebrows by accident and her cousin is hitting on her, which is both unexpected and disgusting. Plus her baby sister keeps pooing in her room and her pet cat Angus is spitting at her and trying to murder the poodle next door. Really inconvenient time to discover the Sex God in the greengorcer's that she's got to subtly and alluringly convince that she is the girl of his dreams.

We might not be the target audience any more, but any female human that went to school in the late 90s or early 00s will relate to this book, probably more than it would be appropriate to admit. The hair mascara, the Feng Shui, Zoe Ball, Big Breakfast, crop tops and PVC. All the things that you thought were forgotten for good. Getting through school with no phones and no Facebook, managing to survive anyway.

There are elements of this book that are universal to the secondary school: the constant running analysis and speculations about what goes on in the heads of the opposite sex- guessing and then second guessing; feeling crap about how you look when everyone around you looks so blonde or so thin, or so confident; being inseparable for your school best mate and falling out with them anyway; getting through boring assemblies and horrific lessons are all common to school-goers of any era. Worrying about the first big party, first proper boyfriend, first kiss...parents standing in the way of any of the above. Reading as an adult it reminds you how impatient teens are to grow up, and it's a bit sad to be able to see (from the learned perspective of 'the other side') just how daft that it. It makes you despair for your younger self, really and all the younger selves of everyone.

It's brilliantly funny, warm and easy to relate to in a real-life but crazy sort of way. The narrator is likable and her heart is in the right place, even if her brain has some catching up to do. Rennison really captures the agonising uncertainty of growing up- the drama, the conviction that you're the only person that such bad things have ever happened to in the history of the world and the quandaries of life when everything is happening for the first time for everyone, and so it really is the blind leading the blind. Her style has been copied often and never really beaten. Can you really recommend a book that is as popular as this one? People already know it's good! It certainly had me laughing throughout, would very much be enjoyed by readers of Georgia's age (14) and for anyone else that has ever been that age in the past. I'd love to see how she ended up in 2014. What became of Georgia Nicholson?

The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness

The Knife of Never Letting Go is the first book in nominated-for-just-about-everything-ever-between-them Chaos Walking trilogy. It starts in the ''New World" town of Prentisstown where Todd Hewitt is the last boy in town. Since the war, Prentisstown has no women left and when a boy turns 13 something happens to him which means he becomes a man. It must also be mentioned that in Prentisstown, everyone can hear the thoughts and memories of everybody else- the 'Noise' that spills out of every man in inescapable waves. Even animals have noise, from the most private to the most inane, there's no getting away from it.

Out collecting apples with his intellectually challenged dog Manchee, life changes dramatically for Todd a month before he becomes a man. Todd discovers an impossible silence, a gap in the noise, in the swamp outside Prentisstown. Returning home that afternoon, he finds that his guardians, Ben and Cillian have his bags pre-packed, no proper answers and a lot of meaningful looks and hurried goodbyes for him. Running from sudden gunshots towards the swamp, Todd is about to find out for himself that though the life he has led has been hard and miserable, it is not the truth. He and Manchee are forced from home for reasons unknown, with only a rucksack and a book he can't read to begin a journey across a world that until that morning, Todd had thought was absolutely empty of any other settlement. Blindly making his way to where he's guessing he's supposed to go, Todd meets a lot of people- one that stays through thick and thin, some that help, some that heal and some that hurt. He faces prejudice, impossible decisions, tests of strength and faith, but his resilience, bravery and constant need to do the right thing keep Todd and his companions running from their enemies.

Like all the best Young and not so Young Adult novels, The Knife of Never Letting Go touches on some of the most universal elements of humanity. Themes of love and loss, family, loyalty, doing the right thing, sacrifice, death, bravery and most things in between. It's fast paced, engaging and has some brilliant characterisation. Ness knows exactly what balance of made-up dialect, phonetic speech, grumpiness and personality idiosyncrasies to use to create a believable character that comes across as both ordinary and remarkable at the same time. I loved the handwritten fonts that revealed who's noise was being heard at the time- the mixed up jumble of fonts in loads of different sizes reveals to the reader how angry up upset a Prentisstown resident is and shows how oppressive and overwhelming it must be to hear that all the time.

I had to read a book club title straight after TKONLG, but all the way through I was desperate to put it down and start on the sequel, The Ask and the Answer. The first book ends on such a cliffhanger that it's impossible to wait. Todd is not the only person with questions that he needs answers to.

Throughout A Monster Calls, also by Partick Ness, I was constantly impressed by the emotion and the warmth in Ness' prose. This book is the same- it's the idea of hope dragging a person through the worst experiences in the world, even when it looks like there isn't any end to the misery. He's soooo good at creating characters that the reader empathises with- despite being inexperienced, beaten up, ruthlessly pursued and emotionally ruined, Todd still shows so much strength of character, and I think that is, in part, what makes the pages of this book turn so quickly.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney

Chances are, if you have any contact with kids who read, they have read Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  Any school librarian in the English speaking world will handle this bad-boy a lot, but shelve it very rarely.  It doesn't even touch the shelf at my school.  I actually got the chance to sneakily read it during the Easter holidays to see what all the fuss is about.

Firstly, I can see why it's appealing to the 11-15 age group.  Greg, wimpy diarist extrordinnaire, is incredibly funny and perfectly captures what it's like to be a put-upon kid in the modern age.  Despite being set in America, his plight is pretty universal.  Middle child, middle grades, middling friends.  His older brother bullies him, his little brother is the apple of his parents' eyes.  Greg just wants to get through school in one piece so that he can go on to adult life and become famous.  So far we don't know what for, but Greg assures us that that's the reason that he's writing this diary, for historical posterity.

It's the averageness of Greg that makes him so universally appealing- he aimlessly drifts through school being a nobody.  He doesn't ask to be top of the class, athletically remarkable or to be popular (well, not super popular anyway, he's still top 100).  What he is is funny.  I'm willing to bet I'm at least twice the target age of this book, but it still made me laugh like a lunatic.  I went to school too.  The 'cheese touch' lurgy was something that was particularly well written and had the hallmarks of a proper school experience.  There's a lurgy, of some form or another, in every school in the world.  I'm pretty sure of that.  His reference to weekend his lay-ins also made me snort- Greg doesn't want to get up on a Saturday, it's merely the foul taste of his own breath that makes him get out of bed.

The cartoons that feature on every page are funny, accurate and tell much of the story.  They also flesh out characters in a way that is not reliant on text.  It's not a comic, it's not a graphic novel, but it's a heavily illustrated book, which partially explains why even the struggling readers can get on fine with DOAWK.  Girls and boys both love this series, so Greg's universal appeal goes beyond gender too.  It really is written for anyone who is/was/knows a kid. 

Very much recommended to the old and the young, provided you can ever get you hands on a copy.