How to Be Me

Cath Howe's How to Be Me is a gentle, funny story for 10 year olds about a very shy boy whose dad signs him up for drama club.

What happens

Lucas lives in Gladstone House. It has a fountain, carved animals on the stairs and an actual ballroom with three chandeliers. He has a grand piano, two cats called Mowgli and Tiger, and a dad who's always busy.

What he doesn't have is anyone to talk to. His mum died three years ago. His lovely au pair Eva has left. And Dad has just got engaged to Vanessa, who Lucas is sure thinks he's about three.

Then Lucas refuses to play the piano at the engagement party. Dad decides he's far too much of a mouse and books him into a summer drama club. Four weeks. In a boiling-hot hut. Horrific!

(For a boy who hides behind curtains at parties, that's about the worst thing anyone could do.)

And then there's Keely. She's loud, she never seems to blink and she's decided she HAS to see this ballroom for herself. She turns up at his door with her toddler brother and a very sticky blackcurrant lolly.

You're inside Lucas's head the whole time, and it's such a tender place to be. He drums on things when he's nervous. He makes up music that nobody else ever hears. He tries to play a butcher in a drama game and the others think he's chopped his own hand off.

It's very funny, and it aches a bit too. When Lucas overhears his dad calling him odd, you'll want to scoop him up.

It's worth knowing that grief sits under all of it. His mum's death is backstory, not something that happens in the book, but he misses her badly and remembers finding his dad crying. He was also bullied at school by a boy who shut him in a basement.

If your reader has lost someone close, it may stir up some feelings. If they're a quiet one who hates being put on the spot, they'll probably feel very understood.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, try Ella on the Outside, also by Cath Howe, about a new girl who feels like a grey fish swimming round the edge of the playground.