A Song Only I Can Hear by Barry Jonsberg

A Song Only I Can Hear by Barry Jonsberg
Published June 2018 Allen & Unwin

Blurb:

Good evening, Rob. Your first challenge follows. These challenges have nothing to do with impressing Destry Camberwick. They are all to do with Rob Fitzgerald impressing Rob Fitzgerald. Bear that in mind at all times. Challenge 1. You will enter the Milltown's Got Talent competition. This gives you over a fortnight to polish your act and work out strategies to overcome panic attacks. I would wish you luck but the point of this challenge is that you don't need it. 
Introducing Rob Fitzgerald: thirteen years old and determined to impress the new girl at school, but it's a difficult task for a super-shy kid who is prone to panic attacks that include vomiting, difficulty breathing and genuine terror that can last all day. An anonymous texter is sending Rob challenges and they might just help. Or not. Beautifully moving and full of heart and humour, A Song Only I Can Hear is a delightful novel about dreaming big, being brave and marching to the beat of your own drum.

This is, hands down one of my favourites from 2018...and it's another book that I can't actually tell you to much about.  I read a lot, so it's not often that I don't 'see something coming' in books, especially where I know something is coming...but this one got me.

Great characters:

Rob... brave, willing to try anything.  Maybe that's what we all need at times...anonymous messages, challenging us to get out of our comfort zone.

Grandad...who loves a bit of swearing, but it's OK because Rob has edited Grandad's words in the book, so there's a lot of Blankety this and Blankety that.

Andrew... best friend. I love the goalkeeper coaching session. Andrew's advice is this...imagine Destry is standing behind you and they are trying to kick the ball into her face...Rob's job is to protect her face...shouting I WILL NOT LET HER FACE SUFFER.


So while I can't tell you much, all you have to know is this...Rob is a character that you will love, and this book will make you laugh and cry...and both are good things...

I have labelled this as YA, but read it as an adult, and then decide which young people in your life need this book in their lives...I think it's great for age 11/12+...

See You At Harry's by Jo Knowles

See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles
Published October 2013 Candlewick Press

Blurb:

Starting middle school brings all the usual challenges -- until the unthinkable happens, and Fern and her family must find a way to heal. Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible. It seems as though everyone in her family has better things to do than pay attention to her: Mom (when she's not meditating) helps Dad run the family restaurant; Sarah is taking a gap year after high school; and Holden pretends that Mom and Dad and everyone else doesn't know he's gay, even as he fends off bullies at school. Then there's Charlie: three years old, a "surprise" baby, the center of everyone's world. He's devoted to Fern, but he's annoying, too, always getting his way, always dirty, always commanding attention. If it wasn't for Ran, Fern's calm and positive best friend, there'd be nowhere to turn. Ran's mantra, "All will be well," is soothing in a way that nothing else seems to be. And when Ran says it, Fern can almost believe it's true. But then tragedy strikes- and Fern feels not only more alone than ever, but also responsible for the accident that has wrenched her family apart. All will not be well. Or at least all will never be the same.

I picked up this book for a talk I was doing on LGBTQIA, and it came up in a list, the main character, Fern, has a gay older brother.  I knew it wasn't the whole story...but I had no idea that the book would be the story that it was.

Here's the thing though...the really big thing that happens in this book...the real story of this book...is not mentioned in the blurb at all.  What happens in this book hit me like a tonne of bricks...I am not kidding, I literally had to put the book down and stop reading it for a while...

This is what I have been telling students at schools about this book...I can't tell them what it's about...I get that the whole point of the book is exactly what I experienced...something completely unexpected...so all I can say that it's a book about family, forgiveness, acceptance...and that it's sad...really sad...be warned.