Just Call Me Spaghetti-Hoop Boy

Lara Williamson's Just Call Me Spaghetti-Hoop Boy is a funny, big-hearted story for 10 year olds about an adopted boy who decides the best way to cheer everyone up is to become a superhero.

What happens

Adam Butters is eleven. He lives at the top of a tower block with his mum and dad, his big sister Minnie and six-year-old Velvet (who owns an invisible dog called Sausage Roll). He wears a bobble hat all the time because it makes him feel safe.

Then his teacher sets a family tree project over half-term. It reminds Adam that he's adopted, and that he knows almost nothing about where he came from.

So during a thunderstorm he creeps into his parents' bedroom and opens the envelope he isn't meant to touch until he's sixteen. Inside is his birth certificate, with a different name on it. Ace.

Could there be a better superhero name? Adam doesn't think so.

Mum has been weepy lately, and his parents keep whispering about some secret. Adam is certain that if he's excellent enough, everyone will be happy again. So he writes a list called HOW TO BE A SUPERHERO IN FIVE EASY STEPS. Save a cat from a tree. Help an old person. Help an enemy. Save a life. Save the world.

It goes about as well as you'd expect! Being nice to Minnie just convinces her he's up to something. Flying off the bed nearly breaks his ankle. At a lifesaving class he jumps in with cramp and has to be rescued himself (while the teenager who pulls him out does a lap of honour).

Reading it is like being inside Adam's head. He's funny without trying to be, and his comparisons are brilliant (his mouth goes as dry as a cracker on Mars). But the jokes sit right beside a real ache. Every birthday, he says, it feels like a little bit of him is missing.

Adoption is right at the centre of this one, which is good to know before you hand it over. For an adopted child it could feel very close to home, so it might be a lovely one to share. For everyone else it's a gentle way into what it might feel like to wonder where you started. His best mate Tiny Eric draws his own dad as a monster too, which Adam doesn't know what to make of.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, Lara Williamson also wrote A Boy Called Hope. Dan Hope is eleven too and keeps a list in his head of things he wants, with the biggest wish right at the bottom. His dad walked out years ago and has just turned up on the telly.