Birdy by N West Moss

I need to try and be happier—but I don’t know how

When they told her that her mother had finally died, Birdy lay on the floor of the McGraths’ apartment (they had been next-door neighbors for Birdy’s whole life), sirens wailing outside, and thought the world would stop, but it hadn’t. After a while, she heard noise on the street below: people shouting, taxis honking. The world kept spinning. When the McGraths brought home chocolate ice cream that night, it tasted good, which was surprising. Life moved forward.

Birdy (her real name is May) and her brother Mouse (his real name is Michael) are sent to live with distant, elderly relatives named Mitzie and Shadow. Birdy is told this is temporary until a foster family can be found. She is told she will be able to stay with her precious brother - they won't be separated. But are these things true. What if Birdy and Mouse are separated? What if these strangers don't like her? 

The urgent thing was to stay together. The only thing they carried with them of any value now was one another.

She thought of saying a lot of things, like thank you for taking us and thanks for keeping us together and thank you for coming all the way to New York City even with your husband in the hospital, and for not asking a lot of questions, but Birdy hated saying thank you all the time. It made her feel needy, which she guessed she was. “Okay,” she said again, to fill the quiet of her missing thank-yous.

Birdy wondered why Mitzie and Shadow wanted them. She had thought maybe they were broke and wanted kids there to do chores. Why else would two old people take kids into their house? It didn’t seem like that, though—they didn’t seem broke.

Birdy is on high alert. She has been ever since her mum became ill. Taking care of Mouse is her responsibility. In a way Birdie has never had the chance to be a child - to play, to laugh, to make friends or to have fun. 

She tried not to think about her mom dying all alone in the hospital without the two of them there, coughing a lot probably, no one to hold her hand. The painful thoughts spooled out from Birdy like she was a ball of misery twine. She didn’t want to think about how much she missed her mother, or how mad she was at her for dying, or for being so sad, or for leaving Birdy in charge all the time. She was mad at her mother for having to work so much, and for being impatient.

As is often the way with stories like this there are so many heart-wrenching misunderstandings. These of course give this story so much tension that you will just keep turning pages desperate for that all important, happy ending.

One of the most beautiful (and teary moments) in this story comes when Birdy visits the charity shop. She is looking for new clothes but we know she also loves to read. One of the staff offers her The Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt but Birdy says no (inside my heart I was telling Birdie to say yes). 

“We just got a whole set of the Tillerman Cycle books.” When Birdy didn’t say anything, he said, “They’re old I guess, but my sister loved them. With this kid named Dicey who runs away from home with her brothers and sisters.” That sounded interesting, but Birdy tried to act like she wasn’t listening. ... “I can give you a deal if you want the set.” Birdy waved her hand and hunched over and walked as fast as she could to the register, carrying her clothes in her arms. She didn’t have seven dollars to buy all those books. Forget it. Go away, she thought. GO AWAY. ... “Hey,” he said to Birdy. “We have to make room for new books just coming in, and if you want these you can have the whole set for a dollar.” His voice trailed off. “If you want.” He waited. “I checked with my boss and she said it was fine. A dollar for all seven.” 

I guarantee you will fall in love with the characters in this story and with the kindness offered by Mitzie, Shadow and most of all by the new uncle the kids meet - a guy named Clay. Then there is teenage camp counsellor named Bruce - I just wanted to hug him for his kindness, sensitivity and emotional intelligence.

He was really looking at them, like they were the only people in the world and he was seriously interested in them. He looked at them like he had all the time in the world, like there was nothing better on earth to do than to spend time right there with them in the driveway. So, this was her mother’s brother.

I added this book to my Kindle because Colby Sharp highly recommended it and BOY oh boy he was right. N West Moss is actually Nanette West Moss and this is not her first book but it is her first Middle Grade book.

There's something oddly comforting about this story. Maybe I just want to hang out with Mitzi while she bakes in the kitchen. Ms Yingling

Bookseller blurb: Eleven-year-old Birdy and her younger brother, Mouse, have always looked out for each other. They make the perfect team: Birdy is realistic and practical, while Mouse is affable and trusting. After their mother dies of cancer, Birdy and Mouse are forced to move out of the city to the country with relatives they've never met. Aunt Mitzie and Uncle Shadow's house is full of organized chaos, and it takes Birdy time to adjust to having adults around. But the kitchen is always stocked, and both kids are allowed to play outside as often as they want. There's only one problem: it's all temporary. Their social worker has promised to find them a permanent home by the next school year, whether they want to leave or not. As the summer unfolds, Mouse starts to feel attached to their new life. But Birdy knows better-adults have never been reliable. When Birdy's fears get the best of her, she makes a big mistake that could jeopardize their future.

Here are two more beautiful quotes:

It was peaceful, like they were healing up after a long illness or something. A thought was forming in the back of Birdy’s mind (one she wouldn’t understand completely until later) that maybe sitting with your brother, or whoever loves you most in the world, is how a person grieves. Piling little rocks and leaves and feathers on top of one another can make you start to feel like your chest isn’t collapsing. While she was looking for stuff to pile on top of other stuff, she had a sense of what “better” might feel like and how to steer toward it.

It was a sudden feeling that inflated something in her, like drinking too much soda in one gulp. She didn’t want to like him. She knew that hope was a dangerous thing that could make you feel especially good and then when the truth of things came out, however high up your hope had taken you was how far down you would fall.

Companion books:

Missing May

Same Stuff as Stars

The Tenth Mistake of Hank Hooperman

One for the Murphys

The Higher Power of Lucky

Something like Home

Pictures of Hollis Woods

The Making of Martha Mayfield by Jo Dabrowski

"I make sets. At least that's what I call them. My sets aren't life-sized, of course. I make them in boxes. ... I've made loads of sets. One of nearly every room in our house. ... I've also made a set for every shop on Charlotte Street ... (and) I've made every classroom I've ever had up to Year Five. ... Oh yes, I made paper people too. ... I use my sets to practice first days of school, excursions and sports days. I've practiced tricky conversations and playdates too. When something is coming up that makes me nervous I do a 'dress rehearsal' with my sets."

Grade five is a time of change for Martha. Mum loses her job. Iris, her sister gets yet another boyfriend, it is the time at school with elections for School Captain, and all of Grade five have to prepare things to sell at a Market Day. Martha is so shy she cannot talk at school, at all. At home she wants to tell her mum about school but she holds back because mum seems so distracted and sad. 

Could Martha run for School Captain? She makes a list from the application form and then she puts the words into two origami boxes - green and red. She has these covered - cares, listens, organised. She needs to find a way to achieve these - contributes, voices ideas, good at teamwork, and confident public speaker. 

About halfway through The Making of Martha Mayfield I stopped to think about the title. Martha does indeed do some making but then a couple of hours after I finished this book, which is a 2026 CBCA Younger Readers Notable title, I realised of course this book is about the 'making' of Martha herself. Martha moves from a very shy and quiet girl who rarely if ever speaks to a girl who finds her voice and a way to express all those terrific ideas she has had bubbling away in her brain and even a way to try out for School Captain.

This book was published in August last year but I overlooked it in many bookshops. The cover didn't really appeal to me but you can see I should not have let this guide me as I have given this book four stars.

The Making of Martha Mayfield is a long book with close to 300 pages of fairly small print so keen readers aged 10+ will need some reading stamina but I did read the final half of this book in one sitting because I become quite invested in Martha hoping she would be able to overcome her shyness and succeed with both the Grade 5 Market Day Project and the bigger challenge of the School Captain elections. In fact as a shy kid with a shy mother some parts of this story really did touch my heart. 

Jo Dabrowski creates four distinct characters:

Martha - "I know why Mum says being quiet is a good thing, and why she goes on about me noticing stuff. She does it to make me feel better about myself. So I feel quiet and interesting, not quiet and boring, which is what the kids in my class think I am. If they think of me at all, that is. I might be good at noticing but I'm even better at going unnoticed."

Iris her sister has no emotional intelligence. The new boyfriend is awful but Iris is so set on having a boy friend she will do anything to please him including taking on a whole new 'goth' style and of course ignoring or dismissing her little sister. There is an awful scene in this book in the chapter entitled 'Sticky Notes' that broke my heart - it is so cruel.

Mum is shy and still grieving the loss of her husband. She finds social situations especially difficult. I imagine she was herself, badly bullied at school. "I picture Mum staying behind, sitting at her machine, too shy to join in." Mum is also a bit overwhelmed by Stella, her husband's mother, who is never short on advice. 

Stella, the grandmother - the girls have to call her Stella not grandma. She's obsessed with Michelle Obama and with looking young and stylish. Stella's character is so well described to the point where I actually did not like her at all. This is so different from most books where the grandmother character is usually compassionate and wise. Stella is so egotistical that she turns every conversation back into a boast about herself. Here is a quote from Stella:

"Stella talks about Dad all the time, without anyone asking. She doesn't tell stories so much as facts. They start out being about Dad but end up being about her. Like, she'll say he was a wonderful son ('He absolutely adored me.'); he could turn the most ordinary event into a funny story ('He got his sense of humour from me, you know.'); people were drawn to him ('He got that from me too,') ... "

I did love creativity of Martha. As you read in the quote at the beginning of this post, she makes models of her home, classroom, and even the shops in her street. These projects are given detailed descriptions in the story - you can almost see her work. And her idea for the market day is brilliant.

Publisher blurb: Martha Mayfield has always been the quiet kid. Martha is, after all, her mother's daughter. The shy child of an even shyer mum. And she likes it this way. That is, until Martha's mum loses her job. And Martha's teacher overlooks her at school. And soon, Martha realises something has to give. Can she really go through life being so quiet that nobody takes her seriously? Should she really keep all her good ideas to herself forever? Putting yourself out there is every quiet kid's worst nightmare, but Martha is determined to make the most of it. And perhaps to make something of herself along the way ...

Click these review comments for more plot details:

The pace is perfect, leading to a dramatic climax that is surprising and very satisfying to read. Kids' Book Review

Whether you’re an anxious fifth grader or not, The Making of Martha Mayfield is an endearing and highly relatable read, with multifaceted characters that you’ll fall in love with. Story Links

Here are the CBCA Judges comments from the Notables booklet:

Jo Dabrowski is the author of two other Notables - Dear Broccoli a 2026 CBCA Notable (Picture Book) and The Thing about Christmas (Early Childhood).

Dear Broccoli

Castle Crashing by Andrea Rowe illustrated by Hannah Sommerville

"They're building separate castles, neighbouring sand-forts on the shore. 

But Bonnie wants a clubhouse, a grand sandcastle for all."

When you spend a day with friends, I guess it is natural to have an expectation about how the day will 'pan out'. Young Bonnie expected all the friends to work together to create the fabulous sandcastle of her imagination. Instead, each child makes their own elaborate creation, and Bonnie feels totally left out and alone. Bonnie does know some 'calming down' techniques such as counting to ten but these do not work. Her friends seem to have left her, and in her anger and frustration Bonnie stomps on her sandcastle. At this point I think I would ask the students in my library group what could happen next? In the story it is Bonnie who apologises but I wonder if the other kids might need to say sorry too? It would be good to talk about the emotions encountered in this story - words like flustered, fusses, fed up.

With a group of younger children I would pair Castle Crashing with a Bluey episode - Stick Bird Season 3, episode 41. 

Bluey Stickbird: Bluey and Bingo are at Currimundi lake having a stick throwing contest. The kids are not very good at throwing, so Mum steps in and teaches them how to do it the right way. While Bluey keeps practising, Bingo snaps Dad out of his melancholic mood and they go to look for more sticks. Bingo finds a stick shaped like a bird’s head and she and Dad use it to create a beautiful sand sculpture. But while their backs are turned, Bingo’s handiwork is destroyed by some older kids! Bingo is upset and angry, until Bluey arrives and teaches Bingo how to throw her troubles away – something Dad learns too.

There are some lyrical words and phrases in this book: tilting. sagging shacks; a twisty shack spills onto the sand; Bonnie skitters seaward; sticky sunscreen smeared; as the tide tiptoes out to sea; pointed sandy spires; and the sun winks at the friends.

It’s a nicely executed lesson in self-regulation, and as many schools are incorporating strategies for this into daily classroom activities, this will be a welcome addition to any collection. Just so Stories

I went to a book launch at Gleebooks Kids for this new book Castle Crashing which was released on 28th October. I expect this book might be a 2026 CBCA Notable Early Childhood selection. 

Here are the things I discovered about Andrea Rowe - as a young writer she won a competition judged by the famous Australian writer Colin Thiele - his advice 'keep practicing'; each of the books in this series focuses on a different child; Andrea loves thinking about her characters - trying to get right inside their heads; and she will have four books published (I don't think they are from this series) in 2026.

Here are the questions I would have asked if (a) I was brave enough and (b) there was an opportunity to do this:

• This is your fifth book - How did you two discover each other? Was this through your publisher?
• Andrea - as you write do you read your work aloud to yourself as a way to maintain rhythm and cadence?
• Your first three books from this series have alliterative titles - will you continue this pattern?
• The idea of focusing on one child in each book is reminiscent of Clive eats Alligators by Alison Lester - are you familiar with this book?
• I read that you work part time in a bookshop - can you talk about the importance of wide reading in your field of children's fiction and especially wide reading of picture books.
• Hannah - was Anisa's Alphabet your first book? Can you talk about how you approached this book which has very serious themes and is very different from books like Castle Crashing.
• Hannah - can you talk about some other authors you have worked with - especially our famous author Margaret Wild?
• Jetty Jumping won the CBCA Early Childhood picture book award in 2022. Can you talk about this and also perhaps explore any comments you might have received about the possible safety issues of younger children (this award is for readers aged 0-6) of jumping from a wharf or jetty.

Here are the other two books from series - Jetty Jumping, Sunday Skating and now we have Castle Crashing.

The have also created two board books (which I think you could call spin offs from the original title):

Look for these other books about sandcastles (and my friend at Kinderbookswitheverything has even more for you to enjoy):

Here is a publisher bio for Hannah Sommerville:

Hannah Sommerville is a best-selling picture book illustrator who creates enchanting watercolour, gouache and digital illustrations in her studio on the South Coast of NSW. Hannah earned a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Visual Arts and Graphic Design) at the University of Wollongong in 2006 and began illustrating in 2010 after the arrival of her young children. Hannah is a storyteller who enjoys creating picture books that capture the imagination, tenderness and playfulness that surround children and family life. Her picture book Digby & Claude, written by Emma Allen, was selected for the CBCA 2019 Notables list.

Hannah Sommerville is an illustrator to watch. Rachel (bookseller at Gleebooks) shared that Hannah has a new book due out in 2026 which she has written and illustrated - I won't give away the story line but it does sound terrific. In March 2026 her book The Night Tiger by Sherryl Clark will be published. I did invite Hannah to participate in our 2025 IBBY Australia Mini Masterpiece online art auction. If we run this event again in 2027 I do hope she will consider participating. I would love to own a piece of her beautiful art. Hannah Sommerville has illustrated some wonderful books:

Anisa's Alphabet

Finding You (try to find this one it is truly special)

Market Day

The Light in Everything by Katya Balen

Two kids. Two kids with different life circumstances. Two kids with different emotional responses to change and trauma. Two kids who do not yet know each other. Two kids who are so different and seems impossible that they could ever even tolerate one another let alone become friends.

Now for the problem - their parents. Tom lives with his mum. Dad is in jail and this is a good thing because he was a dangerous man - he was severely physically and emotionally abusive towards Tom and his mum. Zofia lives with her dad. Her mum died when she was a baby. Dad is great but he is not always 'tuned in' because his work as a doctor is so intense. 

Have you guessed what happens here - yes this is just like the Brady Bunch except with less kids and less harmony. Tom's mum meets Zofia's dad; they all move into Zofia's house and then the kids hear that a new baby is coming.

Zofia lives her life in a storm of rage or a storm of activity. She is loud and opinionated. Zofia also loves to swim, and she has set herself a long-distance swimming challenge as a way to make her father proud. Tom is small for his age. He is terrified of the dark at night and so fills his room with lights and always carries a torch. Tom is also afraid of small spaces and of upsetting his mum. He knows his dad will not return but the possibility of this is also constantly on his mind. He also has difficulty with trust - especially trust of male adults. 

How will these two kids cope with living in the same house and going to the same, very small, school. Zofia has been at this school since Kindy. Tom is the new kid and yet everyone seems to like him straight away. It warmed my heart to see him make a friend almost from the first day. 

Two of the really appealing aspects of this book are the alternating voices and the very short chapters - you just keep turning the pages racing to that all important happy ending. Well yes there is a happy ending (spoiler I know), but Katya Kalen keeps up the tension for her readers because the baby is born too early, and she is very poorly. The other part of this book that works really well is the way the two main characters are so very different from one another. I kept wishing they would just talk to each other - that they could feel brave enough or open enough to share their fears and hopes and doubts.

This is Katya Balen’s third book, and, like her previous works, tackles emotionally charged issues with sensitivity, told in beautiful and poetic prose. She explores the complexities and challenges of adjusting to a new and blended family. Balen has a keen awareness of the reader, drawing us into the story and creating characters we care about: pages turn with ease as their stories unfold. Just Imagine

Here are the teachers notes for The Light in Everything and some book group discussion questions. I highly recommend The Light in Everything for mature readers aged 10+. 

Why did I select this book from the library? First of all, the cover is beautiful and now I discover this illustration is by HCAA Winner Sydney Smith. Now onto the author - I previously enjoyed several other books by Katya Balen. Her new book due in 2026 is Letters from the upside.

October October

I gave this book four stars and it won the Carnegie Medal in 2022

Foxlight

I gave this book five stars

Ghostlines

I am really keen to read Katya Balen's new book which comes out early in 2026:

The In-Between by Katie Van Heidrich

when you’re in between where you want to be and where you are, when you’re in between what you previously had and what you so desperately want to have back, when you’re in between thoughts and feelings and wonderings of what’s even okay to think and feel, when you’re in between your parents, always of the mind that you should be on one side or the other, always of the mind that you should be in one place or another, but having to straddle multiple places at once, always in the messy middle of something, perhaps currently in the messy middle of the notoriously messiest years of adolescence, trying to figure out if you want to unload your mess on your friends whose lives aren’t as messy as yours—

Katie, her mother and two siblings are forced to move from their rented apartment. They find themselves in a 'long stay' motel. There are so many issues - it is one room, one bed, one tiny bathroom and this place means Katie now lives outside her school district. It is the second semester of seventh grade for Katie and the second semester of six grade for her brother. Their little sister is in her final semester at her elementary school. 

Until now Katie has had one best friend to rely on - Mia but that has now ended. We "traded elaborate notes, mutually overjoyed that we have each other, that we aren’t alone, especially considering we are the only two Black girls in this class."

Katie and her siblings spend every second weekend with their father. Life in his home is so different but there is no way they can spend longer there because mum will never give up custody. Oddly though, even though their father does have plenty of room, the kids share a pull-out couch in the guest room and two other bedrooms remain empty upstairs. Dad has a new wife and the house is kept spotless and the cupboards are full of supplies as though they are preparing for a future crisis. (Note there is a hint that his wife was a victim of modern slavery which is why I suggest this book is for readers aged 12+).

This book is a true story - a memoir - "In the early 2000s, thirteen-year-old Katie Van Heidrich has moved more times that she can count, for as long as she can remember. There were the slow moves where you see the whole thing coming. There were the fast ones where you grab what you can in seconds. When Katie and her family come back from an out-of-town funeral, they discover their landlord has unceremoniously evicted them, forcing them to pack lightly and move quickly. They make their way to an Extended Stay America Motel, with Katie's mother promising it's temporary. Within the four walls of their new home, Katie and her siblings, Josh and Haley, try to live a normal life--all while wondering if things would be easier living with their father. Lyrical and forthcoming, Katie navigates the complexities that come with living in-between: in between homes, parents, and childhood and young adulthood, all while remaining hopeful for the future."

Which cover above do you like? There is a great lesson here you could use with your students around their preference for one cover over the other. The publisher list this book for grades 5-8 but I think it will better suit a Young Adult reader aged 12+.

The In-Between is a verse novel so these lines are set out in free verse but when I copied them from my Kindle I was unable to retain that formatting:

As we tumbled out of the Mountaineer, which seems to be on its last leg, to stretch our arms and legs, to gather fast-food wrappers and empty soda cups in gas station plastic bags, to grab our bags from the trunk and make our way upstairs and to our door, an unexplainable pit appeared in my stomach and continued to grow as we climbed the stairs. And though I couldn’t have possibly known it then, I somehow felt that we were walking into a much bigger disaster than anything we’d already managed to survive.

It’s not so much that being here is the end of the world, but somehow the thought of going to school from here, the thought of carrying out the very normal routine that is going back to school from this rather abnormal place, feels apocalyptic.

It’s a notice reminding families that it is against the law to have your child enrolled at a school they are not districted for and that proof of residence can be requested at any point during the school year.

In my opinion, there are three kinds of teachers in this world: The ones who fly by the seat of their pants, whose classrooms always smell like last-minute, frantically made copies, the ones with meticulous plans who use every last second of class as if their very lives depended on it, and the ones who are clearly recycling material they “perfected” twenty years ago, who make minimal efforts to make class interesting or fresh.

But I know better than to think their relationship is all good. After all, they’re so, so different— even beyond the obvious, with Mom being Black and Dad being white ...

I pause and consider the weight of what I’m holding. A bundle of bananas. A gallon of milk. A loaf of bread. Sandwich meat. There’s more, and these are good things, I know, but somehow this just doesn’t feel right. After all, we’re still at this hotel and Dad is still going back to his house, the one that still has the two empty, unfurnished bedrooms upstairs. Perhaps there is more to this than I can possibly understand right now. Perhaps I’m missing the bigger picture or simply wouldn’t get it.

Her mother is Black; her father is White, and her stepmother, whose English is limited, is from Thailand. As her mother bounced between jobs and states in search of new opportunities, Katie strived to support her, suppressing her own emotions. But her mother’s avoidance of the reality that she cannot provide for her children makes it increasingly difficult for Katie to remain silent about her feelings. Complex character development will engage readers, and vivid descriptions of the physical landscape bring the text to life. Van Heidrich masterfully describes her childhood emotions as well her mother’s confusing choices and mental health struggles with compassion and nuance. Stellar writing, perfect pacing, and a sophisticated treatment of universal themes make this a must-read. Kirkus Star review

There are some discussion and extension questions on the publisher webpage. 

Companion books:

Shelter

Hold Fast

Paper Things

Earlier this year our Sydney Morning Herald had a feature story in their Saturday magazine about the people who use storage facilities and their reasons for leaving their possessions in these places - sometimes for many many years. Reading this broke my heart and then when I read Katie lost all her things when no payment was made for their storage my heart broke all over again. I would love to share some quotes from this, but I do not have subscriber access.

The Worlds we Leave Behind by AF Harrold illustrated by Levi Pinfold

"They hadn't invited her, hadn't forced her, hadn't encouraged her, hadn't wanted her to come, but there she was, a little kid suddenly in their care. 

And now they were in the woods and it had all gone wrong."

Imagine you have hurt another child - you are a child yourself - and you most certainly did not mean for this to happen. Now think about the reaction of the older sibling of this child. Their anger spills over. You already feel so much guilt. But what if you meet someone who offers to remove one of the people from this event? To wipe out all trace of them. 

The little girl is Sascha. The boys are Hex and Thommo. Sascha follows the boys down to the river. The boys are there to ride on a rope swing. Sascha begs them for a turn but she is stuck and accidentally knocks into Hex. He is an impulsive boy who never thinks about consequences. He picks up a lump of mud and hurls it at the little girl. She falls and there is a snap as we hear her arm break. Thommo and Hex (Hector) have been friends forever. When Sacha falls Thommo runs away. Hex thinks he has deserted him but actually he has gone for help. When the older brother and sister of Sacha arrive, Hex leaves quietly knowing an ambulance is coming. That night, though, he feels terrible. On Monday he visits his old friend Thommo but he is turned away. He decides to revisit the rope swing but when he arrives Sacha's sister Maria arrives and in her anger she lashes out at Hex. 

He runs away and finds himself in a strange part of the woods outside a small cottage. He meets an old woman and her dog. She offers him comfort and more:

"How many were there? ... 'Two' he said. 'Yes. And look, you are just one.' ... 'Don't you wish you could do something? ... I can help. I can even the score. I can make it so they never hurt you again."

Revenge. Retribution. The woman offers to make the world forget the kids who caused him harm. 

"Only you would know they'd ever existed at all. And your world will heal, reshape itself around the hole ... No one will miss them or remember them. No one will be hurt by their loss ... "

The woman gives him an acorn. He is told to crush it if he wants these kids removed. What he doesn't know is that Maria, Sascha's sister, has also visited the old woman and she also has an acorn.

And what about Thommo - it seems he has totally forgotten Hex ever existed and yet every now and then he gets a niggling feeling that something is wrong. 

This is one of the strangest, most disturbing, and yet intriguing books I have ever read. And I need to say there is no neat resolution. Older readers might link this story with a fairy tale such as Hansel and Gretel but this tale is way more sinister and it has no happily ever after. 

Blub from publisher page: Hex never meant for the girl to follow him and his friend Tommo into the woods. He never meant for her to fall off the rope swing and break her arm. When the finger of blame is pointed at him, Hex runs deep into the woods and his fierce sense of injustice leads him to a strange clearing in the woods – a clearing that has never been there before – where an old lady in a cottage offers him a deal. She'll rid the world of those who wronged him and Hex can carry on his life with them all forgotten and as if nothing ever happened. But what Hex doesn't know is someone else has been offered the same deal. When Hex's best friend Tommo wakes up the next day, he is in a completely different world but he only has murmurs of memories of the world before. Moments of deja vu that feel like Tommo's lived this day before. Can Tommo put the world right again? Back to how it was? Or can he find a way to make a new world that could be better for them all?

Compact and disquieting: a horror story with plenty of food for thought. Kirkus

... this isn’t a blood-and-guts-type horror story. Instead, it’s a nuanced story of friendship, social nuances, betrayal and eventually vindication. There’s magic, mystery and things that lurk in the dark. Cracking the Cover

Harrold’s solutions to the alternative worlds that might be produced by the children’s absences are thought provoking, and the explanation he provides for the witch’s intervention in the children’s lives owes as much to a vintage American tv series as to the brothers Grimm. It’s a handsomely produced tale about the darkness that can come to any of us on any day, the decisions that we take or avoid, and the possibilities, for good or ill, that stem from those choices. A perceptive and disturbing book. Books for Keeps

The book is illustrated throughout by Levi Pinfold’s beautiful black and white drawings which create a haunting atmosphere, reinforcing the author’s narrative and sometimes reaching even further into a world of horror and the supernatural. Just Imagine

I have a bit of a 'love hate' relationship with books by AF Harrold. I found The Song from Somewhere else difficult to read because of the violent bullying and I shudder whenever I see The Imaginary in a bookstore. That book disturbed me SO much. On the other hand, is earlier books about Fizzlebert Stump were all terrific. 

Here are two other books illustrated by Levi Pinfold who now lives in Queensland. His book Paradise Sands is truly spectacular.

Paradise Sands

The Secret Horse of Briar Hill

Not Nothing Gayle Forman

Before I start, I want to make it clear. He did something bad. Truly bad. I don’t want you to think I’m sidestepping that, or excusing it, or even forgiving it; it’s not for me to forgive, anyhow. But I’m telling you the story so you understand how he got where he did and how I got where I did and how both of us learned to rise to the occasion of our lives.

Alex, aged 12, has done something truly awful. The judge is giving him one more chance or one more opportunity. Alex hates that word and it's one the adults seem to use way too often. Now he finds himself at the Shady Glen retirement home: The Shady Glen residents were the living waiting to die. Places like Shady Glen are antechambers of death, the last stop where you wait for the Last Stop.

Because, honestly, no one had asked him if he wanted to be here. No one had asked him if he wanted another stupid opportunity. But, remembering what the judge had said about him throwing away chances ...

Alex is assigned work in the care home. He finds the residents weird and scary but even worse there is a young girl named Maya Jade also aged 12 who is working there - not as a community service order but as a volunteer - and she is bossy and opinionated and very annoying. The facility goes into lock down and Alex is sent to deliver meals to the residents. He meets Joseph “Josey” Kravitz aged 107 AND we meet him too because this book uses that appealing plot style of alternating voices so we can hear what Alex thinks and hear Josey. This is lucky in two ways because Josey is nonverbal (at least at the beginning of the book) and Josey is able to share the things he really 'sees' about Alex. Josey also opens up to Alex and over the following months he shares his own story - a harrowing story of love, loss and the holocaust.

Alex is suffering at home. He has been sent to live with his aunt and uncle. They are cold, disinterested and show Alex no love or affection. So 'home' is a misery. 

He lived on a lumpy couch with an aunt and uncle who did not want him. He had a judge who had warned him of last chances. He might go to juvie. And his mom… He hadn’t seen her in almost a year. He didn’t know if or when he would ever see her again. How could it get more permanently bad than this?

And the new school is also terrible. 'They' decide Alex is failing and so he is given special tutoring in maths. Alex is good at maths but he has totally switched off because everything in his life is so broken. He is so angry about the tutoring and the tutor. 

This book was published in 2024 and so here in Australia the hardcover edition is priced way beyond a school library budget. I read my copy on a Kindle but hopefully a paperback will arrive eventually. Not Nothing has won a Banks Street Award - Josette Frank Award 2025.  The Josette Frank Award for a work of fiction of outstanding literary merit for young readers in which children or young people deal in a positive and realistic way with difficulties in their world and grow emotionally and morally.

There is a raw honesty in this story - both in the story from Josey and from Alex. I cannot tell you exactly what Alex did but even though it is dreadful Gayle Forman has crafted a story that builds our empathy. I highly recommend Not Nothing for readers aged 12+.

Best-selling award winner Forman interweaves the tales carefully, with striking language and depth of feeling, allowing readers to understand the characters’ changing perspectives as they learn more about themselves and open up to people around them, many of whom become advocates and friends. Powerful, heartbreaking, and hopeful. Kirkus Star review

Book seller blurb: Alex is twelve, and he did something very, very bad. A judge sentences him to spend his summer volunteering at a retirement home where he's bossed around by an annoying and self-important do-gooder named Maya-Jade. He hasn't seen his mom in a year, his aunt and uncle don't want him, and Shady Glen's geriatric residents seem like zombies to him. Josey is 107 and ready for his life to be over. He has evaded death many times, having survived ghettos, dragnets, and a concentration camp--all thanks to the heroism of a woman named Olka and his own ability to sew. But now he spends his days in room 206 at Shady Glen, refusing to speak and waiting (and waiting and waiting) to die. Until Alex knocks on Josey's door...and Josey begins to tell Alex his story. As Alex comes back again and again to hear more, an unlikely bond grows between them. Soon a new possibility opens up for Alex: Can he rise to the occasion of his life, even if it means confronting the worst thing that he's ever done?

Here are a few text quotes:

For three days the boy cleaned banisters, safety rails, doorknobs, coffee tables, more doorknobs, Rummikub sets, book spines, outdoor tables, indoor tables, outdoor chairs, indoor chairs. The bleach stung his eyes, scraped his throat, and stole his appetite. The baloney sandwich his aunt packed him went uneaten. He would’ve thrown it away except he couldn’t bring himself to throw away food.

But then, as the months dragged on, his mom started to go to one of her bad places. He could recognize the signs as easily as the freckles across the bridge of her nose. He’d wake up in the morning and find her in the same chair she’d been in when he’d gone to bed, the TV on the same channel, the dinner he’d left out for her cold on the table. She didn’t cook any meals or eat the ones he put together.

“You shouldn’t separate them, because they love each other,” he continued in a halting voice. ...  So many people in Shady Glen had lost the people they loved, because their spouses had died or their children had moved away. When the people you loved left, that love remained, floating around, desperate for a place to go. And if it didn’t find a place to go… bad things happened. Love turned into anger, fear, hate. This was something the boy at twelve knew all too well. How did the grown-ups not see this?

“I’ll tell you why!” The words felt like a rocket countdown. Ten, nine, eight… “Because everyone who has promised me an opportunity has just made things worse. When I told the people at my old school about me and my mom, they all congratulated me on doing the right thing. Because now they had an opportunity to get us some help. I thought they meant food.” His voice began to crack, but the rocket was lifting off now, and there was no turning back. “But you know what they did? They made me go live with strangers and dragged my mom to a hospital and told her she’d have to get better if she wanted to be my mom. But if you know my mom like I do, you know she can’t stand to be stuck in one place. It’s why she moved so much. It’s why during the lockdown she got so much worse.”

I have also read this story where an elderly character also shares their holocaust experience. This one is for a slightly young audience - 10+.