War of the Wind

Victoria Williamson's War of the Wind is a thriller for 11 year olds about a boy on a small Scottish island who lost his hearing two years ago.

What happens

Max is fourteen. When he was twelve, a snapped winch cable dragged him off his dad's fishing boat and into the path of the propellers. The very last thing he heard was his dad screaming his name.

Now he's stuck in the island school's support class instead of with his old gang. He's FURIOUS about it. He has a cruel name for his classmates, he won't wear his hearing aid on the walk to school, and he's decided his parents had a new baby to replace him.

Meanwhile, three giant wind turbines are about to be towed into the bay right below his house. They'll bring the island its first mobile phone signal, and Max can't wait. The protesters waving placards on the beach are just a bunch of grumpy pensioners as far as he's concerned.

But the chapter headings count down the weeks to the turbines, and they're labelled like an experiment. So you know something's coming before Max does. When it does, he ends up working it out with three kids from the very class he's so desperate to escape.

Being inside Max's head is uncomfortable, and that's rather the point. He's rude, angry and very lonely. You see him look the other way while Beanie, a girl with Down's syndrome, gets her hat snatched by bullies. Then later he drops his crisps in her lap because he feels bad about it. His dad still won't write things down for him, and that hurts more than anything.

A heads-up on the language. Max uses some cruel words about his classmates, including one slur, and his teacher pulls him up on it. There's mild swearing, and the accident is described vividly, right down to his skull breaking. The book is clearly on the side of the kids he's being unkind about, but a reader might want to talk some of it through.

If you've got a reader who likes a narrator with a temper and a mystery that creeps up slowly, this is a gripping one. It's also a thoughtful look at what it's like when everyone suddenly treats you differently.

What to read next

Victoria Williamson also wrote The Boy with the Butterfly Mind, about Jamie, whose mind won't sit still for a spelling test, and Elin, who's trying so hard to be perfect that her dad might come home.