Stuck

Jennifer Swender's Stuck is a quiet, tender school story for 10 year olds about a new boy who's become an expert at not being noticed.

What happens

Austin is big for his age and new again. He's changed schools so often that he has rules for it. Don't bring anything on the first day. Pick a desk at the back if you can. If you don't talk to the other kids much, they'll soon stop talking to you.

He even has speeches ready for when a teacher makes him introduce himself. His hobby is snorkelling (it isn't). They moved because his aunt is quite ill (she isn't).

This time the teacher, Ms G., doesn't make him do it. She's tall, kind and keeps spare pencils stuck in her ponytail. And then there's Bertie, who talks nonstop, knows everyone's birthday and decides on the spot that she's going to look after him.

Austin tells the story himself, and bit by bit you realise what he's hiding. Numbers talk to him loud and clear. Letters don't. At reading time he says his own name in his head fifteen times a page, so nobody notices he isn't really reading. It's heartbreaking and very clever at the same time.

There's so much warmth in it too. Bertie's chatter, Ms G.'s gentle way of noticing things without making a fuss, and Austin describing colours by their crayon names (pacific blue braces, laser lemon safety vests).

Home is harder. His mum is often very tired, and Austin always tells her school went "good" so she won't worry. Nothing dramatic happens in these pages, but a sensitive reader will feel it.

If you've got a reader who finds reading hard, or who has ever wanted to disappear at the back of the class, they'll see themselves here. And they'll be rooting for Austin from the very first lunch queue.

What to read next

Austin borrows an old gold-sticker book from Ms G.'s shelf and listens to it chapter by chapter on his mum's cracked phone. If this one goes down well, they could read that one too. It's Bridge to Terabithia, and it's in the library.