Sorry About Me

Laura Dockrill's Sorry About Me is a loud, funny family story for 9 year olds, told by a girl with a furious lion trapped in her bones.

What happens

Darcy Burdock is having one of those weeks. She's announced she's a vegetarian (halfway through a plate of chicken wings). She's decided she needs glasses, mainly so she can own a pair of glittery rainbow heart-shaped frames. And now there are mice in the house.

Darcy loves animals, so Dad's plan to poison them is a disaster as far as she's concerned. He makes a little cardboard cage instead, and Darcy, Poppy and Hector go mouse hunting in camouflage face paint. The mice lead to a cat called Pork before long, which the family's pet lamb, Lamb-Beth, is not at all keen on. (Yes, the family has a pet lamb who sleeps in the kitchen.)

Reading it is like being stuck inside Darcy's very noisy head. She invents words (mermalade, imaginarianism, crosserer). She shouts in CAPITALS. She talks straight to your reader and even gives them a roaring exercise to try in the mirror. It's cheeky and very silly, and some bits are properly laugh-out-loud.

But it's not all jokes. One morning her best friend Will's dad turns up at the school gates without warning. Will's mum died when he was very small, and he hardly ever talks about his dad. Darcy doesn't know whether to help or leave him alone, and that part is handled with real care.

A heads-up for squeamish readers. Dad finds a dead mouse under a kitchen cabinet and pretends to throw it at the children, there's mouse poison in the cellar, and Darcy has a lot to say about bogeys and "cow boobie juice". It's all played for laughs, but it's worth knowing if your reader is sensitive about animals.

If you've got a reader who always has a LOT to say, and a LOT of feelings about it, Darcy will feel like a kindred spirit. She's messy and loud and mean to her little sister sometimes, and then kind when it really counts.

What to read next

For more of Darcy's big mouth getting her into trouble, try Hi So Much. That one starts with Darcy and Poppy teasing a neighbour until he falls over and breaks his arm, and Darcy having to make him a get-well card.