Angels Like Me

Karen McCombie's Angels Like Me is a warm, funny friendship story for 9 year olds about a shy girl whose next-door neighbours happen to be real angels.

What happens

Riley Roberts has a secret she's bursting to tell. Sunshine, Kitt and Pearl, the three girls who moved in next door, are trainee angels. Hidden wings and all!

They're learning nine special skills to help people who've "lost their shine". Reading minds. Talking without making a sound. Even rewinding time by a minute or so. Riley gets to peek into their world, and she still can't quite believe they like ordinary, un-amazing her.

This is the third book about Riley and the angels, so your reader will get the most out of it if they've met everyone already.

It's a new year and a new term. School is putting on a Frost Fair and there are auditions, which queen of mean Lauren Mayhew is sure she'll win. Then a lump of chewing gum ends up tangled in Lauren's hair in assembly. Was that a bit of naughty magic? And whose?

Meanwhile Riley keeps hearing a sweet old-fashioned tune that nobody else can hear.

At home there's plenty going on too. Her little sort-of-stepsister Dot has been pinching her nail varnish (and pinging her knickers across the bedroom with a friend). Dot's mum Hazel takes Dot's side, and even Dad thinks it's funny. It's written so well that you completely feel Riley's outrage, while probably giggling at the same time!

Underneath the fun there's something more tender. Riley's mum died in an accident when Riley was a baby, and Dad has always found it too hard to talk about her. So when he flicks through her photo album and laughs about what a rotten cook Mum was, it's a HUGE moment for Riley. Her New Year wish is simply to feel closer to her mum.

Riley tells the story herself, in lots of short chatty lines, lists and little asides. It's a bit like chatting with a friend who has a lot of feelings and not quite enough courage to say them all out loud.

If you've got a reader who loves magic tucked inside ordinary school life, this series is lovely. The mean girls are properly mean, and the magic stays just mysterious enough.

What to read next

If they want to go back and see more of Riley's life with the girls next door, Angels in Training is the second book in the series. It's set a few weeks earlier, on a frosty November weekend.