Max and the Millions by Ross Montgomery is a big, inventive adventure for 11 year olds about a boy who builds tiny worlds and then finds one that is alive.<\/p>\n
Max is the only deaf child at St Goliath’s boarding school and he is very tired of it. At every assembly they park him at the front in a chair with SPECIAL SEAT written on the back in big red letters, so that nobody can possibly miss it.<\/p>\n
People talk to him IN A BIG LOUD VOICE, which makes lip-reading harder rather than easier. Noisy classrooms set his hearing aids squealing. After a while he is so worn out he has to go somewhere quiet and recover.<\/p>\n
So he hides in a cupboard with a torch strapped to his head and works on a castle the size of a jam jar. Over a hundred rooms inside it. Turrets, spiral staircases, doors that actually lock. He made every bit of it himself.<\/p>\n
The one grown-up who understands any of this is the caretaker at St Goliath’s, Mr Darrow, who makes models himself. Then Mr Darrow disappears, and the new headmaster is delighted about it.<\/p>\n
What Max finds in Mr Darrow’s room is a tray of sand. Inside it there are people. Millions of them, alive and getting on with their day.<\/p>\n
Max is very good company because he is so honest about school. He is not brave about being left out. He is just fed up, and he would like everyone to stop making a fuss.<\/p>\n
The friendship in this one is beautifully done. His roommate Sasha is confident and popular and always trying to chat, and that is exactly the trouble. Sasha looks up the sign for “friend” and proudly shows him. Max has never learned to sign. There is an awkward pause and they both move on, the way all their conversations seem to go.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you hand it over. The way Max gets treated is uncomfortable in places. He is singled out, talked over and generally managed. It is not dressed up as kindness, because it is not meant to be.<\/p>\n
If your reader has ever been the one everybody is being helpful AT, a few pages might sting a bit. That is probably also the reason they will be firmly on his side.<\/p>\n
This is an ordinary boy landed with something completely impossible. He goes from king of his own little castle to responsible for an entire civilisation, and nobody has told him the rules.<\/p>\n
For another child looking after something small and very much alive, Perijee and Me is in the library as well. Same author. Caitlin finds a strange little creature washed up on her island and starts teaching it about the world, and the trouble starts when it doesn’t stay small.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Max and the Millions by Ross Montgomery is a big, inventive adventure for 11 year olds about a boy who builds tiny worlds and then finds one that is alive. Max is the only deaf child at St Goliath’s boarding school and he is very tired of it. At every assembly they park him at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11761,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":8396,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Perijee and Me","lr_seo_hook":"A boy who builds tiny castles finds a tray of sand full of living people."},"book_tag":[1050],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[859],"class_list":["post-8042","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-action-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-ross-montgomery"],"yoast_title":"Max and the Millions by Ross Montgomery | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A boy who builds tiny castles finds a tray of sand full of living people. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n