alt="image"/> Amazon Summer (Amy Wild) HELEN SKELTON
SEE ALSO: bored, being • family outings • summer holidays
alcohol
SEE: drugs • peer pressure
allergies
There’s nothing fun for kids about having an allergy. Not only do they have to make sure they don’t come into contact with whatever triggers a reaction – be it pollen, poodles or peanuts (see: worrying) – but they have to deal with the effects on their social life and close relationships as well. A child with severe allergies can end up feeling cut off from all the fun and more fragile than everyone else (see: different, feeling; friends, finding it hard to make). Sue Ganz-Schmitt’s delightful twist on the classic Princess and the Pea fairytale is doubly welcome, therefore, for bringing levity to the issue – and showing that allergies can actually make you rather special. When a wet and soggy waif turns up at the palace door claiming to be a ‘real princess’, the queen decides to put her to the test in the usual way. But they’re out of peas in the palace, so she plants a peanut under the mattresses instead. By the next morning, the poor princess is crying out for an EpiPen. The king and queen react impeccably, throwing out all the peanut-contaminated foods in the palace larder, and the love-struck prince swears to give up his beloved peanut-butter-and-jam sandwiches if she’ll accept his hand in marriage. Three cheers for the allergy that brought the happy pair together!
Older kids will appreciate Shadow Jumper, the story of fourteen-year-old Jack who was born with photosensitive skin – an allergy to sunlight. His condition is so severe that he can’t go outside without covering every inch of himself with creams or clothes – and, as a result, spends most of his time inside, ultra-pale and alone and feeling like a vampire. At school, he can’t join in with sports or break times, which means it’s hard to make friends. But like any other kid his age, he wants to have fun and take risks.
So it is that he goes up to the rooftops at dusk and jumps daringly from shadow to shadow. He knows he’s dicing with death – and not just because of the danger of falling. Even in the twilight, it would only take a glancing contact with the evening rays for him to come up in an angry, fizzing rash.
When, on the rooftops, he meets Beth – an angsty teenager who, with her white make-up and dark eyeliner, looks almost as freakish as him – he feels an instant connection. Together they set out by night bus to find Jack’s missing father, breaking into the lab where he works – and so begins a gradual awareness of the issues with which they both have to contend. It becomes apparent that Jack’s condition worsens under stress and improves when he’s calm and happy; and as he opens up to the important people in his life, his skin starts to heal. This is a story that encourages teens to share the challenges they face with others. After all, how can one’s needs ever be effectively met if other people don’t know what they are?
SEE ALSO: different, feeling • fussy eater, being a • worrying
alone, wanting to be left
Sometimes it helps to be alone. Away from the mêlée, a child can experience their emotions without having to pretend they’re OK. But sometimes a child would rather be rescued from their funk, if only someone would notice. Such is the case for the child with the angry charcoal scribble hovering over her head in The Cloud.
While all the other kids in the art class are filling their canvases with spaceships and giant yellow chicks, the canvas of the girl with the cloud remains resolutely blank. No one dares approach her. But then a girl with a delightfully wonky-eyed portrait on her canvas walks boldly through the charcoal scribble and talks to her. It takes her several attempts, but eventually she engages the cloud girl – and soon they’re combining their skills to make pictures together. The more they produce, the smaller the black cloud gets, until – puff! – it’s gone, and a big, sunny smile appears on the cloud girl’s face instead. Use this sensitive book with a prickly child and, ideally, their peers. Its message of patience, persistence and acceptance will help show everyone how he or she might be drawn out.
Sometimes a child wants to be alone because they’ve cottoned on to the fact that you can feel more truly alive when you’re by yourself. Kevin Henkes introduces this concept with impressive minimalism, setting the sketchy figure of a boy against semi-abstract watercolour landscapes in All Alone. ‘Sometimes I like to live alone, all by myself,’ it begins – the choice of the verb ‘to live’, rather than ‘to be’, immediately elevating us to the level of poetry. When the boy walks in the woods by himself, he can ‘hear more and see more’. He notices the way the trees sigh in the wind. He feels the heat of the sun on his skin. Many adults never learn to enjoy being alone like this. Use it to introduce solitude as a positive concept, and you’ll give a child a key to contentment in life.
For older children, wanting to be left alone takes on new, hormonal angles which are hard for the grown-up to interpret and even harder for the adolescent to explain (see: adolescence; hormones, raging). The bedroom door stays shut for hours on end and excuses are given for not joining in with family activities. Todd, the hero of The Knife of Never Letting Go – the first in Patrick Ness’s excellent Chaos Walking trilogy – feels the
