Raymie Nightingale

Kate DiCamillo's Raymie Nightingale is a funny, sad and very kind story for 8 year olds about three girls who meet at baton lessons one hot Florida summer.

What happens

It's June 1975. Two days ago, Raymie Clarke's father ran away from home with a dental hygienist. Raymie is ten, and she's got a plan.

If she wins the Little Miss Central Florida Tire contest, her picture will be in the paper. Her father will see it, wherever he is, and come straight home. First, though, she needs to master the baton. And she needs some good deeds for the application form.

At her very first lesson she meets Louisiana Elefante, who faints dramatically in her pink dress, and Beverly Tapinski, whose dad is a cop and who carries a pocketknife. Louisiana wants to win the contest too. Beverly wants to wreck it.

Reading it feels a bit like standing in that hot backyard with Raymie. The sentences are short and simple, and the feelings inside them are big. Raymie's soul keeps changing shape. It's a tent, then a pebble, then it vanishes altogether! Your reader will know exactly what she means.

There are lots of laughs too. Louisiana's granny drives a battered station wagon so low in her seat that it looks like nobody's driving. Old Mrs Borkowski says "Phhhhtttt" about almost everything. And Raymie's attempt at a good deed at the nursing home goes wrong in every way it possibly could.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

There's a lot of sadness underneath. Raymie's mum spends most of her time sitting on the sofa since the dad left. Louisiana is terrified of being sent to "the county home". The nursing home visit has a patient screaming in pain and reaching for Raymie in a dark room, which is genuinely scary. There's also a passing mention of a woman who drowned herself in the local lake a hundred years ago.

For a child whose parent has left, some of this may land close to home. But it's written so gently, and the three girls are such good company. If your reader likes a story that makes them laugh and think at the same time, this is a lovely one.

What to read next

If this one goes down well, try Because of Winn-Dixie next. It's another DiCamillo summer in small-town Florida, told by Opal, who doesn't know where her mama is and comes home from the supermarket with a stray dog.