Victoria Williamson’s The Boy with the Butterfly Mind is a funny, moving story for 11 year olds about two kids who couldn’t be more different, told by both of them in turn.<\/p>\n
Elin lives near Glasgow and she has to be perfect. Gold stars, spotless white socks, a bedroom carpet nobody’s allowed to walk on in shoes. Her dad left for a new family in Edinburgh, and she’s secretly sure that if she’s good enough he’ll come home.<\/p>\n
Jamie lives in Southampton and his mind flits about like a butterfly. Trouble follows him everywhere. In one lunchtime he boots a football into the traffic, then throws a handful of stones at a lamppost and ends up smashing the windows of his teacher’s car.<\/p>\n
Jamie and his mum are about to move to America with her boyfriend, Chris. Elin is doing her best to get rid of her mum’s boyfriend, Paul. Then both sets of grown-ups sit them down for a talk, and it turns out Paul is Jamie’s dad. Their two families are about to crash together.<\/p>\n
The chapters swap between them and they’re completely different to read. Elin’s are neat and careful. She writes a secret fairy tale where she’s the Perfect Princess and everyone who upsets her becomes a Troll or a Slug. Jamie’s race along, wandering off in the middle of a sentence to Tiger tanks or a nosebleed he once had. You really feel his “why do I never see these things coming?”<\/p>\n
What will probably catch you is that they both believe it’s their fault their parents split up. Elin thinks she should have washed more dishes. Jamie thinks the rows were all about his behaviour. It’s quietly heartbreaking (and very real).<\/p>\n
Worth knowing, there’s some everyday language, a “damn”, a couple of “what the hell”s and a “for God’s sake”. There’s name-calling too, and Elin can be pretty unkind herself. None of it is gratuitous, but it’s there.<\/p>\n
If you’ve got a reader who’s living with a new step-family, or who has ever felt like the only one getting things wrong, this is well worth a try.<\/p>\n
For another Glasgow story with a lot of heart, try The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle, also by Victoria Williamson. Caylin is nearly twelve, lonely and pushing everyone away on the Drumhill estate, and she tells her side with the same honest bite as Elin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Victoria Williamson’s The Boy with the Butterfly Mind is a funny, moving story for 11 year olds about two kids who couldn’t be more different, told by both of them in turn. Elin lives near Glasgow and she has to be perfect. Gold stars, spotless white socks, a bedroom carpet nobody’s allowed to walk on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13320,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9053,"lr_next_read_anchor":"The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle","lr_seo_hook":"A girl who has to be perfect, a boy who can't sit still, and one new family."},"book_tag":[20],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[1014],"class_list":["post-8895","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-real-life-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-victoria-williamson"],"yoast_title":"The Boy with the Butterfly Mind by Victoria Williamson | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A girl who has to be perfect, a boy who can't sit still, and one new family. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n