When Rosalind starts her new secondary school, she quickly realises that she hates it. She’s the strange new girl that doesn’t talk, and the label upsets her. In order to express herself, and make a stand against the school bullies, she sets up a blog. She gives herself a voice. But that voice soon starts to take on a bullying tone, and that’s when the problems start.
Feather has lived all her life in the same small village, with the same few friends and the same routine, the only child of a quiet hard working dad and a morbidly obese mother who hasn’t left the house for thirteen years. This isn’t strange to Feather – she knows it isn’t usual, but it’s all she’s ever known. Then one New Year’s Eve everything changes. Her mother is rushed to hospital and she realises that drastic measures are urgently needed.
Award-winning, bestselling author Pippa Goodhart explores the idea of personal space and sharing in My Very Own Space. We are introduced to a little bunny that just can’t seem to find a quiet corner to read his book. This idea of having a space of our own is something that most people, if certainly not most children, can relate to.
It’s New Year’s Eve and Beth has had enough: she decides to be a recluse. She builds a controlled world within her house of routine, books and silence. For months she is alone with her thoughts, until a dog appears, and then its beautiful owner, Alice. Beth’s space and plans for solitude change.
Vanessa can’t understand why her sister Virginia is suddenly acting ‘wolfish’. Huddled in bed, Virginia huffs and growls, scaring everyone away. Vanessa tries her best to lift her spirits but nothing seems to work – not the cat, not her violin, not even pulling funny faces. Then one day, inspiration strikes. Armed with a paintbrush and her imagination, Vanessa paints the ‘perfect place’ of Virginia’s dreams on her bedroom walls. Intrigued by her sister’s magnificent display of flowers, trees, birds and cakes, Virginia soon makes her own transformations …
‘I had lost my compass and without it any map was forfeit.’ Debi Gliori, best known for ‘lovely’ picturebooks for younger readers, reminds us here that illustrated texts are not just for kids. The heroine of Night Shift is deeply depressed, through the condition is never named as such. Instead, a combination of pencil drawings and slivers of text hint at it: ‘I felt tired. / All day long’ the narrator recounts.
Following in a similar vein to All the Bright Places and Everything, Everything, Highly Illogical Behaviour, seeks to highlight the people in society who have been made invisible as a result of their struggle with mental illness.
Jack loves to play the trumpet and he is really looking forward to his first big concert. Then, on the morning of the performance, an uninvited guest arrives: WORRY! Despite Jack’s best efforts to hide from it, the worry won’t leave Jack alone. In fact it grows even larger. Finally, Jack is totally overwhelmed and tells his mother:
I’m worried I’ll make a mistake and you won’t love me anymore.
The Icarus Show deals with a mystery, and a friendship that creeps up slowly from one boy’s determination to solve another student’s cryptic messages. Feathers and notes are being left in people’s bags and other places. No-one knows who has put them there, but Alex is determined to find out. Alex keeps his head down and tries to avoid being bullied. He has seen what happens to free spirits at his school. It is not a safe place to be yourself.
