There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom

There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar is a school story for 9 year olds, and its hero is the boy nobody in the class will sit next to.

What happens

Bradley Chalkers has the last seat in the last row. The desk beside him is empty. So is the one in front.

He reckons he'd be better off shut in the cupboard with the door closed, and that everyone else would prefer that too.

Then Jeff arrives from another school and gets put next to Bradley, because there's nowhere else. Jeff says he honestly doesn't mind.

Bradley tells him to hand over a dollar or get spat on.

That sounds awful. It is awful. But a few pages later you find out why, and it's one of the saddest lines in the book. Bradley has to hate Jeff first, before Jeff gets the chance to hate him.

The part that will really get your reader is what Bradley is like once his bedroom door shuts.

He has about twenty little ornaments. A brass lion he found in a bin. A glass unicorn with a broken horn. Two owls that used to be salt and pepper pots. He talks to them all, in their voices, and they think he's brilliant.

He feeds them his language test. He got the only F in the class, held it up for everyone to see, then cut it into tiny squares with his scissors.

And he lies. Not small lies either. There's a magnificent row at dinner about a trip to the zoo that was never promised, and the lions that are definitely fed at eleven o'clock. Call the zoo if you don't believe him!

Then the school takes on a counsellor. Carla Davis turns up in a rock and roll T-shirt with a hundred crayons spilled across her floor. Every teacher in the building has already been in to warn her about Bradley. She says she can't wait to meet him.

One thing worth flagging. Home is hard reading in places. Bradley's dad tells him he'll end up a criminal like the people he sees at work, then sends him from the table, and Bradley lies on his bed and cries while a toy rabbit tells him everything will be fine.

If your child finds family rows or a properly lonely main character upsetting, that's the bit to know about. If they've ever felt like the odd one out at school, they will understand Bradley from the first page, and the whole point of the book is that somebody finally decides to like him.

What to read next

Fancy another boy everyone has written off? Try Holes, also by Louis Sachar. Stanley Yelnats gets sent to a camp in the desert to dig one hole a day, and he used to play with toy animals too.