Everyday Angel 1 – New Beginnings

Victoria Schwab's New Beginnings is the first Everyday Angel book, a gentle story for 8 year olds about a girl who feels invisible and the angel who notices her.

What happens

Gabby Torres is twelve and about to start seventh grade at a new school in a new city. Her family moved so her big brother Marco could have an operation. Marco is fifteen and has cancer in the bones of his leg.

Gabby spends her evenings at the hospital and her nights in an empty apartment that doesn't feel like home. Her mum is at Marco's side every spare minute. Gabby understands why. It still hurts when her mum almost forgets her first day.

Then, in the hospital car park, a girl rises up out of a shadow. Her name is Aria (she reads it off her own bracelet). She's an angel who hasn't earned her wings yet. She can change the colour of her shoelaces just by thinking about it, and she really can't fly, which she finds out the hard way.

Aria sees coloured smoke around people who need help. Gabby's is blue. So Aria turns up at Grand Heights Middle School, determined to help Gabby be seen.

It's a very tender read. You're inside Gabby's worries one moment and Aria's delight at ordinary things the next. (A revolving door is a whole adventure for her.)

This is a book about serious illness, and it doesn't look away. Marco coughs, gets tired and keeps having his surgery put off. There's also a hospital friend, Henry, who is very poorly and whose smoke is almost black. It's all written kindly, but it could be a lot for a child with a sick brother or sister, or one who has lost someone close. For a child who has been through something like it, though, Gabby's feelings might ring very true.

Gabby and Marco are older than most readers on this shelf and the school is American, so it suits a thoughtful reader who's happy with bigger feelings.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, The Wild Way Home is another story about an older child whose new baby brother is born with a heart that isn't right, and who runs off into the forest when it all gets too much.