The Final Year: Book-Chat ideas

The Final Year by Matt Goodfellow (Otter-Barry, 2023)

Published last month, Matt Goodfellow's new verse novel, The Final Year, is being justly celebrated. It offers us a snapshot of  Nate's life as he negotiates his 'final year' at primary school and lays out, with clear-eyed empathy, the pressures and problems that exist in the pre-teen's world today. Illustrated throughout by the inimitable Joe Todd-Stanton, the pictures interact beautifully with the words to tell Nate's very moving story. 

With compulsive plotting, The Final Year is at once an empathy-builder, a guide to navigating those tricky years, and a green light to the power of the imagination. Most important of all, Nate's story is destined to capture the hearts of everyone fortunate to encounter a copy. 

And just as unique as those hearts are, each reader is sure encounter their own connections and pose their own questions. As starting points, I've put together a few prompts below that I hope will help young readers to explore the depths of this extraordinary book together. 

Names

• Look up what the three brothers' names mean: Nate, Jaxon, Dylan. What connections can you find? Do you think the choice of names was deliberate? 
• Nate's primary school is called 'Poppy Field'. Is this significant? Where have you heard about Poppy Fields before? 
• Is 'The Beast' a character in the story or simply a name? 

People

Major characters in the novel include: 

Nate, Jax, Dylan, Mum, Auntie San, Mr Joshua, Caleb, PS, Turner. 

• Give one word that first comes to mind when you think of some of these characters. 
• Put the names of these characters on cards. Pair up the characters/cards choosing your own reasons for the pairings. 
• There will be one character left out of your pairings each time you do this - does this tell you anything about that character? 
• How do you feel about PS? 
• Make a list of all the things Mr Joshua teaches the children in his class. When you've done this, read it through. What does the list tell you about Mr Joshua? 
• Why is Turner in the story? 

Voice

• Which words are used that combine to create Nate's voice? Make a list of these. 
• Try reading some of the poems out loud. Can you hear Nate's voice speaking the poems? Which parts in particular could you strongly hear his voice?
• Do any of the other characters have a 'voice' of their own in the novel - Auntie San? Mr Joshua? Dylan...? What makes them so recognisable? 

The Poems

• How does the shape of certain poems tell us 'a deeper meaning' that is going on? As an example to think about, look at "I only hear two names" and the poem on the previous page to that. 
• Look at the use of 'white space' throughout the book. Does it have any particular importance to certain poems? 
• Are the titles of the poems just 'titles'? 

The Pictures

• What do you think of Joe Todd-Stanton's depiction of 'The Beast'? Find all the pictures of 'The Beast' and read them from the earliest one to the last. What is the illustrator telling us? 
• Why has a whole double page been filled with a picture of Windermere? 
• There are no words on that page, either. Why not? 
• Which characters appear in the illustrations the most? Make a tally - are there any surprises for you?
• What is special about the cover? What stories are being told?  What messages are hidden there? 

David Almond

• Nate discovers a bond with David Almond and his work: "He writes about people like me" (page 65). Find out about David Almond's life and the sorts of stories he writes. 
• Joe Todd-Stanton's cover for The Final Year echoes that of Skellig. Why has the illustrator decided to make that connection from the moment you see the book? 
• If you know Skellig, does it matter if you read The Final Year but haven't read Almond's novel? 

The Final Year is published by Otter-Barry and is available from all good bookshops. Huge thanks to the publishers for sending me an advance copy of the book in preparation of this blog. 

Kicked Out

Kicked Out by A.M. Dassu (Old Barn Books, 2023)

Kicked Out finds Ali and Sami living their dream, playing football for the school team and hanging out in their friend Mark's new luxury pool. But money goes missing and racism rears its ugly head when their friend Aadam is accused of the theft. Can the boys prove Aadam's innocence, keep their friendship – and help fight Aadam’s threatened deportation? Can Ali navigate his emotions and stay focused now his dad is back on the scene and his half-brother has joined his school?

Following the triumphant success of Boy Everywhere - the first of Dassu's books to feature Sami, a refugee from Syria - and the short novella, Boot It!, published for World Book Day 2022, the whole gang of brilliantly drawn characters is back in Kicked Out, published on October 19th 2023. 

While her books deal with the very real experiences of refugee children (the research that went into Boy Everywhere was extensive!), Dassu's genius is to create characters that immediately connect with children today. While many of her readers will not be refugees themselves, there are a lot of elements to each character's life which will be very familar: football, gaming, fast food pangs! Why is this so important? The answer is clear, especially in these days when the refugee crisis, racism and extremist views loom large on our screens, in media and in our daily lives. Whilst propaganda seeks to draw divisions between us, never before has children's literature been so important to show young people that humanity should not work like that. 

Dassu's writing is vivid, engaging and ultimately very, very readable, exactly the sort of thing that middle-grade readers particularly enjoy. But beyond the fast-paced plotting and hugely likeable characters (though there are a very few not at all likeable!), there is also tremendous skill and care - just what young readers deserve!  

The title for instance will, on a surface level, simply describe what has happened to Aadam, and also to Ali and Sami. But there are wider echoes of 'kicking out' refugees, away from British shores, that young people might hear bandied about in casual conversation. Again, Dassu's love for her readers and fierce passion for her subject work in tandem: having created her characters, to an empathetic reader, they feel more like friends and the same upset, anger, unfairness is felt by them as it is by Ali and Sami.  

What her readers will keep in their hearts long, long after they have turned the last page is the warmth and love that Dassu demonstrates in her writing. In this way, her books remind me of the way Kelly Yang's Front Desk series makes me feel. As the saying attributed to Maya Angelou goes: 

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

In this way, I couldn't rate Dassu's writing any higher. As a teacher, I want the young people I work with every day to have the very best literature to read, so they learn that - other that for the sheer pleasure of it! - reading makes you feel: feel the emotional rollercoaster of life, feel the injustices meted out, and most importantly of all feel the joy too. Dassu's knack of engaging us to feel by creating stories and characters who still live alongside you once you've read the book exemplifies the genius of the most lasting books for children. That she is writing today for all of us, particularly the young, is cause for celebration indeed.

***

Kicked Out by A.M Dassu is published on 19th October 2023.
Thank you to Old Barn books and to A.M. Dassu for providing me with an advance copy of Kicked Out to read.

Generating a spark

Super Questers: The Case of the Great Energy Robbery by Lisa Moss and Dr. Thomas Bernard; illustrated Amy Willcox (QuestFriendz, 2023)

Just like a wind-turbine, I'm a big fan...

...of the SuperQuesters series, that is! 

Earlier this year, I celebrated the publication of The Case of the Missing Memory, the second in the Super Questers series and now, just a few months later, comes another title perfect for introducing younger children to the wonderfully exciting world of STEM.

The series, now well underway, is the best I have seen to give  young children  - Y2 -Y4 is the perfect audience -  the tools and confidence to think through problems based on real life STEM contexts and will have a hugely positive effect on their linguistic learning too. 

So what's the latest book about? The publisher writes: 

Leo and his two best friends, Lilli and Bea are on a quest to power a plane. Leo’s mum is an engineer and has given them a model plane explaining that some planes get energy to fly from biofuels. The team discover that renewable energy is made from organic materials even ones available in a garden! They journey to Questland in search of clues about creating biofuel energy. Upon arriving in Questland, the Queen is in urgent need of their help as Lord Grumble and his pesky Snapettes are draining all the energy out of Questland. Join the SuperQuesters in their new adventures as they learn all about how to produce energy from different natural resources; the wind, sun, plant oil, animal manure, algae and ocean waves and work together to crack this latest case, in order to defeat Lord Grumble and restore normality once again to Questland.

I really admire how the aims of the series are so positively embedded here. Quest Friendz have set out to instil a passion for STEM subjects in all children, especially girls, and this is made clear here in the brilliant role model provided by the character of Leo's engineer mum. Transferable skills, associated with STEM subjects, are all in evidence too, whether it's problem solving, finding creative solutions or - and this is a big one for me as a teacher - feeling that buzzy joy of discovery. Throughout the book, puzzles and challenges are posed in a positive, encouraging way which makes for a book that is primarily a real 'read for pleasure', as well as one that teaches key facts, knowledge and skills clearly. 

This book focuses on renewable energy - the subject of which the children I teach are very well aware. They speak of 'saving electricity' and 'not wasting water'. Reading this book will give them a much deeper understanding of the subject (seaweed power, for instance!) and offer thoughtful ways to consider their own place in solving today's problems. 

I cannot wait for the fourth book in the series to be published now - due in Spring 2023, it looks like we will be treated to a further adventure that focuses on the 'Angry Sea' - and the collection as a whole is certainly shaping up to be a major asset to homes and classrooms everywhere. Thoroughly recommended! 

Super Questers: The Case of the Great Energy Robbery is  published today (5th October 2023)! Do support your local bookshop where you can.