The Beautiful Something Else

Ash Van Otterloo's The Beautiful Something Else is a big-hearted story for 10 year olds about Sparrow, who has spent years holding everything together for a mum who can't.

What happens

Sparrow is twelve and very good at fitting in. New school? Easy. Watch the teacher, work out what she likes, then give her exactly that. It's how Sparrow and Mum get through all the moving around.

Because Mum isn't OK. She's anxious, she's struggled with drinking, and there's a bag of pills in her handbag she isn't supposed to have. Sparrow notices everything and says nothing. That's one of the unspoken rules at home.

Then it all falls apart. Mum has a car accident, and it turns out she's taken too much medicine. Sparrow ends up staying with an aunt nobody ever mentioned.

Aunt Mags is nothing like Mum's stories. She lives at Windy Hall, a huge old house painted every colour of the rainbow and full of gardeners and students. There's a bonfire on the lawn and a pug called Bela Pugosi. Mags is trans, and she's Mum's sister, not the brother Mum always grumbled about.

At its heart this is Sparrow working out who they are. They can't stand dresses. They dream of cutting off their long hair. Their reflection keeps feeling strange. It becomes a story about realising that neither girl nor boy fits.

It's told in Sparrow's own voice, and it's funny as well as sad. Sparrow narrates their own life like a nature documentary to stay calm, and it's very hard not to love a kid who does that.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Mum's addiction is right at the centre of the story, with drinking, pills, a spell in hospital and then rehab. It's told honestly and with care, always from Sparrow's side. Sparrow is twelve, and the book is written for readers who can sit with that.

For a child with a parent who's struggling, it might be one to read together. For a thoughtful reader who's ever felt they had to keep the peace at home, it could mean a lot.

What to read next

If this one lands, try The Mighty Heart of Sunny St James. Sunny is twelve too, recovering from a heart transplant and living with her mum's best friend. Then the mum who couldn't look after her walks back into her life.