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Monday 29 June 2015

Quelling her Anxiety: Finding Audrey Review

 For a long while I've been think about the lack of books which talk about young people suffering from anxiety. We could look to John Green's Looking For Alaska where the romantic lead suffers from panic attacks but I always felt that her difficulties only existed to add to her flighty and mysterious nature. You can't have a line like 'If I was a drizzle then she was a hurricane' and expect her to be like everyone else. I think that is so damaging because you place an illness in the position of a personality trait and portray it as fetish. Is seems harsh but that is what I've been finding quite a bit in YA fiction. That is until now. 

Finding Audrey is written by Sophie Kinsella who up to this point has been known for her amazingly entertaining Shopaholics series for adults which I read a number of years ago and to say I was curious about this new book is an understatement. It follows the story of Audrey who suffers from a number of mental health issues after an incident involving some girls from her school which has left her unable to leave the house or look anyone in the eye and needs to wear sunglasses everywhere. We have a lovely romantic interest in Linus, a online game playing friend of her brothers who tries to bring Audrey out her shell.

This book is lighthearted and accessible enough that it makes a very good read, even for teens who wouldn't be into a book which delves so deeply into a sensitive topic. We hear about Audrey's treatment in therapy and her medications all while she navigates crushes and trying to survive her over the top parents.
Kinsella is true to form and has toned down her writing to make a truly interesting book for teens, something that not all authors can do. If your young person is a very avid reader, the style and linguistic level of this book may not appeal to them; it is a simple book which focuses on delivering its content without being inhibited by over-complicating things. I really enjoyed this book and although it may be a bit of a hard sale, no more than any other books on mental health we sell these days, it's so important that these conversations are had and we see the girls going through them as characters in their own right, not fetishes! 

Monday 22 June 2015

Absent Father's Day: How do kids deal?

Sometimes I forget how tough kids are. As someone who only looks on from the outside, not having any kids myself, I do wonder how parents get their little ones through things that even full-grown and adjusted people would find destroying. I know I wrote a blog post about books that you can give children to help them deal with bad situations but how much can that actually do in the long run.
                                                         

Yesterday was Father's Day; a lovely day when people go on Facebook to say how much they love their dads who are not even on the social networking site (my dad hates the idea of anyone knowing his business). Needless to say, it being a Sunday, our Story-time revolved around books about Dads with a bit of discussion about what the little ones did for them. The mothers looked at me as if to say "getting the kids out of the house for an hour was my gift to him" and there was talk of home-made cards and breakfast in beds and all the good stuff that comes with a Hallmark holiday.

All except one little boy. He's one of my regulars and so I know him well. Very outspoken, he is always trying to make everyone laugh. He comes with his mum every week and yesterday when I was asking around, he mentioned that he had given his granddad a card and I left it at that. Dad didn't seem to be in the picture but he was totally fine laughing with all of the others and giving it socks whenever I asked questions.

After the hour was up the same little fella came up to me to thank me as he always did (a sweetheart I'm telling ya) and I told him his t-shirt was cool. I noticed he has rosary beads on around his neck and I wondered if he was wearing them as some sort of statement as young kids like to do. He informed me that he was wearing them because he had been to the grave yard that morning and with a wave he ran to his mum who was beckoning him towards the door.

The boy was 8 years old and yet had managed to come from visiting, what I assume was his dad's resting place and then gone to story-time and listened to a load of other kids talk about their dads and how great they were and he still contributed. I had no idea up until that point, he was acting the same as he always did and the amount of respect I have for his mother was huge.

Like I said, I don't have children myself and I don't have nearly enough life experience to know how I would deal with that kind of situation but I see now how it is possible, even for just an hour, to keep going and carry on. It just makes you think is all.I don't think we give kids enough credit and you can never really know what people are going though at the end of the day. Kinda makes you want to give people a little more slack.

Thursday 18 June 2015

From the Notebooks of a Middle-School Princess by Meg Cabot: Review

Olivia Grace Clarisse Mignonette Harrison is a completely average twelve-year-old: average height, average weight, average brown hair of average length, average brown skin and average hazel eyes. The only things about her that aren't average are her name (too long and princess themed), her ability to draw animals (useful for her future career as a wildlife illustrator), and the fact that she is a half-orphan who has never met her father and is forced to live with her aunt and uncle (who treat her almost like their own kids, so she doesn't want to complain).
Then one completely average day, everything goes wrong: the most popular girl in school, Annabelle Jenkins, threatens to beat her up, the principal gives her a demerit, and she's knocked down at the bus stop . . .
Until a limo containing Princess Mia Thermopolis of Genovia pulls up to invite her to New York to finally meet her father, who promptly invites her to come live with him, Mia, Grandmère and her two fabulous poodles . . . .
Maybe Olivia Grace Clarisse Mignonette Harrison isn't so average after all!



Recommended age: 8-11

To be honest, I wasn't going to read this book. I LOVED The Princess Diaries and they were really the only "girly" (God I hate myself for using that term) series of books that I read when I was a pre-teen. I found Jacqueline Wilson much too serious and knew if I was going to read books with no magic and dragons then a Princess would just have to do.

Of course, being 21 now means that Meg Cabot's original Princess series has become a bit dated (who emails their friends anymore? How 2005) and so we don't really stock it much at work anymore; no matter how many hints I drop about how great they are.

So why was I reluctant to read this new book? I was afraid that I wouldn't like this new incarnation as much as I love the other ones in my childhood and so I left it. This is, until I realized that Meg Cabot was releasing a new book Royal Wedding in which Mia gets married and this new series was going to be linked into it..and so here we are.



It's 2015, we've had the obligatory movie adaption and the obligatory we–made–money–out–of–this–so–let's–make–another–one sequel and now we have this; Notebooks of a Middle-School Princess, the story of Olivia Grace Clarisse Mignonette Harrison, Mia's half sister who doesn't know she's a princess.  

Here goes

I kinda loved it

Sure, I wanted to love it but I was also skeptical; I knew I needed to look at it as just another book I had to sell and so I tried to put the past out of my mind and I still found it great. Meg Cabot still manages to create a fun story and interesting characters but has brought her ideas into a new generation. The email boxes from Mia's books have been replaced with text bubbles and Olivia's disdain at not being able to have a phone or laptop will speak to many I'm sure.

This book does what it's supposed to, it is very much an introductory novel to the series and so most of it is taken up with Olivia finding out about about her heritage and it alludes to other big events that will happen down the line. Because of this, besides the big reveal that happens very early in the book, it may be difficult to hook your kid onto the series straight away. The characters are great and the story is awesomely written but if you're looking for a huge amount of action straight off, this is a series for the long haul. I'm sure it will pay off though and I'm looking forward to the next installment.

On another level, it's great to see that we have a bit more representation in the book as The Princess Diaries was very much white orientated. Our protagonist is half African–American and her best friend is of Indian decent and so from the offset we have a more diverse character set and while they don't draw a huge amount of attention to it, there's a moment where some of the press wonder if she was hidden for so long because her father was ashamed that she was half–black but that is about 2 lines of the book and so is easy to miss. This could lead to some interesting story-lines as the series progresses but seems a bit serious to put in so early.

So overall, this is a great start to a new series of Princess books and I'm so happy to see a new one appealing to a younger group and I'll be throwing it at whoever even glances that way.

4/5 Stars