Read The Day I Was Erased free in the Little Reads app.
Lisa Thompson's The Day I Was Erased is a funny and moving story for 10 year olds about a boy who's always in trouble and gets to see what the world would be like without him.
Maxwell Beckett has had twenty-nine negative points this month. He's rude to teachers. He knocked the head clean off his neighbour's plastic flamingo with half a brick. He once dumped a whole class's maths books in the cafeteria bin to hide the fact he hadn't done his homework.
At home, his mum and dad argue all the time. They even stick labels on their own food in the fridge. Maxwell's escape is Monster, the chubby beagle he rescued from the road, and old Reg next door, who doesn't always remember who Maxwell is.
Then a PE lesson goes badly wrong. Charlie, his best mate, ends up with a bloody nose, everyone says Maxwell headbutted him, and he's banned from the school's big centenary ball.
The big twist is that Maxwell gets erased. Nobody knows who he is any more. Nobody's shouting at him any more, which sounds brilliant at first. But if he was never born, who saved Monster?
Maxwell tells it himself, and he's very funny. He's also not always nice! You'll wince at how he treats Charlie (a lovely, geeky boy who listens to recordings of the sound of the sun). But you can see how much of it comes from the rows at home, and the book lets you feel that without making excuses for him.
Worth knowing, the arguing at home is a big part of the story and it's quite raw. His parents barely say a kind word to each other, and there's some name-calling. If your reader lives with a lot of arguing, parts of it may feel close to home. Some children will find that comforting, though.
It's one of those books that makes you laugh and then quietly makes you think. If your reader is ready for a hero who has to work out that he matters, this is a really good one.
If they like the way Lisa Thompson gets inside a boy's head, The Goldfish Boy is in the library too. Matthew watches his whole street from an upstairs window, and he notices everything his neighbours do.
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