Into the Sideways World

Ross Welford's Into the Sideways World is a funny, moving adventure for 11 year olds that starts with a strange animal on the beach at Whitley Bay.

What happens

Willa is twelve and a bit of a loner. Her parents run a tired old holiday park and argue all the time. Her big sister lives in her headphones. And every night the news is full of a war that seems to be getting closer.

Then Manny Weaver walks into her class in striped trousers and rainbow socks. He announces that they're going to be friends and tells her his whole life story on the walk home. He lives in a children's home. His mam went missing when he was four. He's sure she isn't dead.

Manny is obsessed with cryptids (the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, that sort of thing). Willa, who won the history prize, keeps asking for evidence. So when people start spotting a huge dog-cat creature around town, Manny is off like a shot.

Their stake-out is hilarious. The bait is a tin of fermented Swedish herring "borrowed" from Manny's social worker, and it bursts all over them both. Then, under an enormous supermoon, something with big ears and a fin swims across the lake.

Following that creature is what takes Willa and Manny sideways, into a world a lot like home, only better.

Willa tells it all herself. She's warm, honest and a little bit prim (she can't quite believe Manny cycles right past the NO CYCLING signs). Old Maudie, the park's handywoman, steals every scene she's in. She makes hot chocolate the hard way and swears she once sat in the back of a car with President Kennedy.

Some heavier things to be aware of. The war is on every screen, and Willa learns that her dad might be called back to the air force. Manny's missing mam is a sad thread through all of it, and there's talk of a baby brother who died long ago. A child who worries about the news may want to talk some of it through.

For most readers, though, it's the friendship and the jokes that stay with them. Has your reader ever wished the world could just be a bit kinder?

What to read next

If they love Ross Welford, Time Travelling with a Hamster is the one to try next. Al's dad died four years ago, and he's left his son a time machine and a letter telling him exactly what to do with it.