Better With Butter

Victoria Piontek's Better With Butter is a funny, tender story for 10 year olds about a girl who's scared of almost everything and the fainting goat who makes her brave.

What happens

Marvel keeps a running list of disasters in her head. Food poisoning, earthquakes, rising seas, being picked on in class. Mum, Dad and the therapist at school have a name for it, an anxiety disorder. She calls it armour (and tells you to Google Murphy's Law, because it's terrifying).

Then comes her Famous Californian speech. Thirty seconds on stage in a grey wig, in front of the whole school. Marvel freezes. She can't speak and she can't move, and in the end the principal and the PE teacher carry her off like a rolled-up rug while the whole hall laughs.

Walking home that same afternoon, she comes across a gang of older kids standing round a baby goat. Every time one of them shouts, the goat goes stiff and topples over. They think it's hilarious. Marvel understands that feeling completely. So for once she doesn't stop to think. She runs straight in and throws her arms round it.

The goat's tatty collar says Butter. She turns out to be a fainting goat, and she'll chew anything, including Marvel's brand-new maths book.

It's such a kind book about anxiety. Marvel is very funny about her own worries, and very honest about how much they hurt. There's a line about wishing she had a broken arm, so people could at least see what was wrong, that might stop a parent in their tracks. Does your child keep a list like hers?

The stage scene is hard to read, as it's meant to be, and there's some unkind teasing from boys filming the goat for laughs. Marvel's dad is away at sea with the navy and she worries he won't come home. None of it is heavy, though, and her big brother Reef (and his fuzzy moustache) keeps things light.

If you've got a worrier at home, or a child who'd give anything for a pet goat, this is a lovely one to share.

What to read next

For another girl whose brain won't stop running through what-ifs, try Karma Moon. Her dad lands a job filming a haunted hotel in the mountains, and she has to go along whether she likes it or not.