The Bubble Boy

Stewart Foster's The Bubble Boy is a moving hospital story for 10 year olds about a boy who has never once been outside.

What happens

Joe is eleven, and he's spent almost all of it in one room of a London hospital. He was born without the immune system the rest of us rely on. A single germ from the street could make him seriously ill, so every visitor wears overalls and his food comes through a hatch in silver foil.

His window is his whole view of the world. An office block opposite. The planes coming in to Heathrow. A man on the roof who checks the pigeon traps.

His big sister Beth visits when university lets her. His nurse Greg calls him "mate" and sits with him after the bad nights. And then a new nurse arrives. Amir hardly says a word for days, spends hours staring at the planes, and when he finally does talk it's to ask Joe whether he believes in aliens! (Joe hides in the bathroom.)

What makes this book is Joe's voice. He's cheeky with the doctors, he dreams he's Spider-Man, Thor and Iron Man all at once, and he Skypes his best friend Henry, who lives in a hospital in Philadelphia with a life a lot like his. "Stuck in a bubble," they tell each other, every single time. Who wouldn't want a friend like that?

It's funny far more often than you'd expect. It's also very sad in places, and you feel both at once, the way Joe does.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Joe is properly poorly, and the book doesn't hide it. There are nosebleeds with quite a lot of blood, needles and blood tests, and talk of other children on the ward who don't get better. Joe also mentions, quite plainly, that his mum and dad have died (that's backstory, not something that happens in the story). A child who finds hospitals or illness frightening might find it heavy going.

For a reader who likes a book that makes them think about how other people live, it's a really special one. Joe watching people run from the rain, and wishing he could stand still in it and get soaked, is the kind of moment that stays with you.

What to read next

If they'd like another boy making the best of a life he didn't choose, try The Perfect Parent Project, also by Stewart Foster. Sam has lived in nine foster homes in five years, and he has a secret den in a skip behind the shops.