Kathryn Apel

Representation: Side Asian character
Trigger warnings: Hospitalisation, physical injury, death of a mother in the past from an illness
Score: Seven points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

I found out that one of the two libraries I go to still had verse novels up their sleeve like this one and after reading some I thought sometimes they were a hit and other times they were a miss. Not long after I picked it up and read it, and when I finished it swiftly I felt it had a great execution making it stand out from other novels like this I've read. It starts with the main character Lucy (This is the fourth character with that name I saw this year. Coincidence? Probably.) whose last name I don't know who recently moved to a new place (presumably somewhere in Australia) with her father. Lucy transfers to a new school (who knows how many schools she went to before leaving since her father moves a lot?) but this time she wants to stay because of all the new characters. I noticed a few titbits about the narrative which I didn't mind (I only found them intriguing.)

The story said Lucy is in Year Two (the Australian equivalent of second grade because school works differently here) which means that she'd be seven or eight. With that out of the way Lucy tries to convince her father to stay here and initially he wants to move again to someplace else but I don't know why until much later on. The other integral part revolves around a snail called Snail (Out of all the names in the world the snail is called Snail. Really?) Snail is a side character which I enjoyed reading but wasn't significant but some references to snails are in the writing style and even some poems are in the shapes of snails and hearts which I don't see that often but good for me I suppose. There's also a plot point about cane toads and killing them with 'kindness' as they are an invasive species (which is true.) There is a revelation where the father says Lucy's mother died from an illness and he could never fully move on from that but in the end he decides to stay ending the narrative on a high note.… (més)

Leroy is the victim of bullying by an older girl on his school bus. Every day she taunts him until it gets to be too much. He doesn’t want to tell on her. He is afraid of what she might do, but what else can he do?
This book is recommended for grades 2-4. The flowing verse tells the story beautifully. I would recommend this book to any child who has been bullied or knows someone who has been bullied. It would also use it as a read aloud with elementary students to discuss bullying and being kind.… (més)