Drawing a Veil
Lari Don
London, Bloomsbury, 2012, 61p
Amina and Ellie are best friends. But when Amina turns up at school wearing a head scarf, Ellie is confused. Is Amina different now? Does this change their friendship?
Drawing a Veil is a brilliant short read - appropriate in content for teenage readers, but adequately accessible for students with limited vocabulary. It does not patronise, but discusses serious issues faced by teenagers every day.
Amina is a confident, self-assured protagonist; but her friend Ellie questions her motives for choosing to wear a hajib. Amina breaks down her reasoning, offering the reader a simplified understanding of the choices available to young Mulsim women.
This is the sort of story that would appeal to students at my school due to the diversity of our intake. And as well as being a great story, it is educational and moral.
Breaking the Rules
Maxine Linnell
London, Bloomsbury, 2012, 79p
Mo moves house and starts a new school, faced with all the usual challenges of being a teenager and more. She feels like she doesn't fit in. All her attempts to make friends seem to end in embarrassment, nothing she does is 'right'. She creates some rules by which to live, pushing herself to meet new people and forcing herself to say yes to any opportunity that arises.
Until a boy adds her on a social networking site, claiming to also be new to the area. They support each other - he helps her feel more comfortable in this small new town. When he suggests they meet up, Mo knows she has to live by her new rules, so plans a trip to the city. But in doing so, she is placing herself in unknown danger.
Breaking the Rules is part of the short read collection in the Book Trust School Library Pack. This particular book is a great example of a high interest level with less complex language. It is targeted at lower ability teenagers, who want to read about kids they can relate to and worlds they recognise. As well as being a gripping and dramatic book, it contains a lesson about talking to strangers.
Jessica Ennis-Hill
Roy App
London, Franklin Watts, 2013, 47p
My Book Trust school library pack arrived in the post this week, and I have been plotting great things to do with the sets of six books after half term.
As well as the book club packs, this year's box included a selection of short read titles and several short story collections. Amongst them was this - the biography of Jessica Ennis-Hill.
Written in the style of a piece of fiction, this book outlines Ennis' rise to success from her first introduction to competitive athletics as a young teenager in Sheffield to her victory at the London 2013 Olympic Games.
Because of the nature of Ennis' story, some of the language in this text is a little complicated for less able readers, including the athletics related terminology. The book could have benefited from a glossary, though it does contain pictures to illustrate some of the content.
This biography is part of the Dream to Win series - tales of success from comtemporary heroes ti inspire young readers. In terms of style, Franklin Watts have hit the nail on the head. The font is adequately large and the sentences are short and well spread out. It is a formula you see in every one of their short reads, which make them ideal for our reluctant readers.
