Check Mates

Stewart Foster's Check Mates is a funny, moving story for 11 year olds about a boy who can't keep still in class and the granddad who has stopped opening his curtains.

What happens

Felix has ADHD. He's just started secondary school and he's already a regular in the Isolation Room, which he and the other kids call the Staring at the Wall Club. This week it was for asking his geography teacher if he wore a wig. Then whether he liked crumpets.

He doesn't mean to. The words just jump into his head and straight out of his mouth.

Home isn't much easier. Dad's plumbing business has gone bust and Mum is doing double shifts, so every day after school Felix goes to Granddad's for tea.

Granddad picks him up in a bright pink car. It was Grandma's, and he couldn't bring himself to sell it after she died. His house is full of pink things and ticking clocks, the sitting-room curtains stay shut, and he watches the German news while Felix sneaks the tinned sausages to the cat.

Then Mum and Dad go away for a weekend, and Felix is stuck there. All Granddad does is read an enormous chess book. What could be more boring?

Being inside Felix's head is the best (and funniest) part. In the middle of a reading lesson, Transformers start smashing into each other behind his eyes. He and his best mate Jake fight imaginary wars from the tree in the middle of their square, with cannons and snipers and all. It shows you why sitting still is so hard for him far better than any explanation could.

It's sad too, in a gentle way. Felix misses Grandma loads, and so does Granddad, even if neither of them will say the word. There's one lovely, quiet moment when Felix creeps past the sitting room and hears Granddad telling Grandma's photo about his day.

Granddad isn't always easy company. He raps his knuckles on Felix's head, which hurts more than he realises, and he tells Felix he has "problems". But you can feel how much they need each other, and it's a very kind book about a child who is tired of being told to just try harder.

What to read next

If this one lands, Stewart Foster's All the Way Down is well worth a look. It opens after Milo and two other kids have been trapped underground, with Milo still too shaken to answer a single reporter's question.