April 2017, Bloomsbury Education, 80 pages, Paperback, Review copies
Summary for Stage Fright from Bloomsbury
Alice's parents are having problems and she has the lead in the school
play. Can her friends help her to get over her stage fright?
Summary for All Too Much from Bloomsbury
Samira wants to do well, her parents want her to do well, her teachers
want her to do well, but the pressure is starting to tell. Can her
friends rescue her when it all gets too much?
Information about the High-Low series from Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury High Low books encourage and support reading practice
by providing gripping, age-appropriate stories for struggling and
reluctant readers, those with dyslexia, or those with English as an
additional language. Printed on tinted paper and with a dyslexia
friendly font.
Nayu's thoughts
Bloomsbury
have started a new imprint for those
who find reading a bit tricky and understandably want books that
include topics for their age, as well as for dyslexics, Hopefully I'm
not breaking any rules by mentioning I've read these kind of books
from Barrington Stoke for years, so was intrigued by Bloomsbury doing
their own range. I got super excited when I saw Jo's name as she is
one of my favourite authors.
While I prefer longer tales these
shorter reads are perfect for the target audience. Their off white
page colour is pleasing to the eye, as are the short sentences and
nice wide margins. The illustrations make the story even more
appealing.
It has the usual Jo Cotterill magic in, with lots of
misunderstandings between the friends at boarding school. I
absolutely love how Samira wears her headscarf most of the time but
when she's in her pjs she doesn't, which is realistic. Her storyline in All Too Much is
an important one, with incredibly realistic reactions from her
friends. I think I'd have liked a little more adult input when the
truth about Samira comes out, but it's so well written I didn't have
the heart to give it a lower grade. Being under pressure from anyone,
but especially your parents is hard to deal with for adults who know
of more coping skills that aren't harmful. Poor Samira takes the only
way she can see, but once the truth is out her friends help her gain
better coping tactics.
Samira becomes a support to Alice in Stage
Fright, who didn't understand that she needed to tell her teachers
about her homelife because of the dramatic effect it had on her key
role in the school play. Again like Samira Alice didn't have enough
coping methods to deal with the problem of her parents in a healthy
way. She needed to find out the facts, which took a while, and
speaking up sooner would have saved a whole load of chaos. I'm eager
to read more from this series!
Find out more on Jo's website.
Suggested read
Check out the books which made me fall in love with Jo's work, her Sweet Heart series including Deep Water by Jo Cotterill (Children's, 10 years +, 10E/10E)
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