The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers

John Bartle is at war: at war with himself and with the apathy of his fellow human beings, and he is at war - both physically and mentally - with Iraq. Told in alternating chapters, one in Iraq, one after Iraq, The Yellow Birds is Bartle’s story of being a soldier, of being in the middle of a small number of events, a handful of days in the desert city of Al Tafar, and then of coming home, of being haunted by his experiences and his actions, of never really being able to come home at all.

The opening quote of this book, before the first chapter begins, is a U.S. Marching Cadence:

                                   A yellow bird

                                With a yellow bill

Was perched upon

My windowsill

I lured him in 

With a piece of bread

And then I smashed

His fucking head...

I don’t think Kevin Powers could have chosen anything more apt, summing up as it does both his book and warfare in general in a few simply chosen words. Not that a single word of The Yellow Birds could be described as simply chosen; not one single word or syllable is out of place this book, each one having a point and a meaning and a beauty behind it. It is incredibly powerful and incredibly moving. It is sad and it made me cry, and it made me think and wonder, and yet, somehow, it did not make me feel lost at the end, as some books of this ilk are like to do. It is Powers' attempt to answer the question I suspect he himself, as an Iraq veteran, has been asked many times: what was it like over there?

I could try to tell the bones of the story, of Bartle’s promise to Murphy’s mother to keep him safe and all that ensues, but the real story is that of a lost man and the undoing of war. According to his bio, Powers joined the army when he was just 17, serving in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, then gaining a university degree and poetry fellowship after leaving. Although a work of fiction, while reading The Yellow Birds I had to wonder how much of Powers is in Bartle, and how much of Powers’ own experiences are in the things Bartle sees and feels.

The tension is mixed with passages of descriptive writing that offset each other all in one small instance. It is both calm and horrifying all at the same time. When he is in Iraq, Bartle sees things that bring memories of home, and when he is home, everything he sees brings memories of Iraq. There is a blurring of real and unreal, of memories and experiences and emotions that are vivid in their detail and their telling. Powers writes of war as a living thing that consumes and rages without boundaries, eating away everything in its path, and left me asking the question, not what was it like over there?, but how do you find yourself again?

And, as Bartle struggles with both the war and its aftermath, I found myself thinking about the people that are abroad now, fighting. I see their images on TV, their bravado and their bravery, their interactions with the locals and their comrades, and I take it at face value. Reading his book, Powers made me ask, what goes on underneath the picture on TV or the story in the newspaper? This is part of the power and the importance of The Yellow Birds - it brings to the forefront not questions so much, but the concept that there is more out there than what we may chose to see on any given day, more than a soldier may chose to reveal. The Yellow Birds is, undoubtedly, the war book of the year.

The Lorien Legacies series, by Pittacus Lore

The Lorien Legacies series by Pittacus Lore is an example of good teenage adventure. The series begins with I Am Number Four, continues with The Power of Six, and now with the latest instalment The Power of Nine.

The premise is fairly straight forward: The planet Lorien was destroyed by their great enemies the Mogadores. As disaster struck, in order to preserve their race, the Lorien leaders managed to send nine children, each with a guardian, to hide on Earth. Loriens are essentially human in form but about half of their race are born with innate powers - special abilities such as telekinesis and extreme speed that develop in their teenage years. The Mogadores followed these children to Earth, to hunt them down, but the Lorien leaders predicted this and so they placed a binding on the children to protect them until they grow into their powers, or ‘legacies’: each child has a number, one to nine, and they can only be killed in that order. So, number nine cannot be killed until all those that proceed him or her have been taken down. Each child, accompanied by their guardian, went a different way when they landed, splitting up the group in order to protect them and to help them hide from the Mogadores. But can they hide forever?

As book one opens the reader is introduced to the background of the story and to Number Four. The Mogadores have hunted down and killed numbers One, Two and Three, each death burning a scar into the other Loriens’ legs; Four knows he is next on the list. This book is the story of his fight to survive and to evade capture, but, as he nears his sixteenth birthday, it’s also the story of the discovery of his legacies, both the powers that he has inherited and the story of the world he left behind, the story of who he is. These ideas all bleed into the following books where they are consolidated and built upon, creating a bigger picture: the fight of a dying race to survive and the fight to protect their adopted home.

I Am Number Four was made into a film shortly after its release a couple of years. It sums up the book quite well: a series of small, daily battles that builds up into one big adventure, packed with adrenaline, coming-of-age issues and, of course, a girl. The book is good, it does what I expected it to, though it does do more than the film, as most books do. The Power of Six carries on where I Am Number Four left off, taking the adventure to another height, and The Rise of Nine mirrors this. I read book one when it first came out, but until this week hadn’t gotten around to book two - while book one is good, and is a great recommend, particularly for younger teenagers, it didn’t blow my mind. So I was pleasantly surprised on picking up The Power of Six as to how much I enjoyed it - more, I think, than I enjoyed I Am Number Four. In fact, I read it in a day, and then moved straight on to The Rise of Nine. And if I had book four in my possession (alas, it is yet to be written), I would have moved straight on to the one too.

I will reveal one secret to the story (though its not exactly a secret these days), and one small spoiler: the author, Pittacus Lore, is the Lorien’s greatest leader. From the reader’s point of view, this is a fun twist to the story especially given one item that is revealed in one of the later books (because I read them together, I can’t remember which one!): one of the nine will be stronger than all the others; they will inherit all of Pittacus Lore’s powers. But which one will it be? And, if it was One, Two, or Three, will those remaining still be able to defeat the Mogadorians? Although, I wonder, if the books are written by Pittacus Lore, then perhaps the one who inherits his legacies then takes the name Pittacus, and is thus writing his/her and his/her companions’ story of survival after the fact. With any luck, all will be revealed in the end.

All in all, The Lorien Legacies is a particularly good series for younger teenagers because its more about adrenaline, unwinding the mystery of the characters’ heritage and escaping the bad guys than it is about love or ‘issues’, but ultimately its perfect escapism for anyone looking for that movie-style reading experience. Each book has something different to add to the story, and book three reveals a lovely government-orientated twist; it’ll be great to find out where the story goes next.

Gods and Warriors, by Michelle Paver

Hylas is twelve years old, an Outsider, and on the run from the Crows. They destroyed his camp and killed his dog and he doesn’t know why. Worst of all, his little sister Issi is missing. Can he find her while evading the warriors who are hunting him?

Pirra is the daughter of a high priestess, rich and privileged, but her life feels like a prison. Kept inside the House of the Goddess all of her life and now being transported across the ocean to be married into a different kind of prison. Can she escape this pre-destined fate?

Telamon, the Chieftan’s son, befriended Hylas against his father’s wishes. Stuck between honoring friendship and dishonoring his house, can he help Hylas escape and will he reveal all he knows?

Gods and Warriors is the first in an awesome new series by Michelle Paver, who is famed for Wolf Brother and the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series. She’s moved a tad further into present, leaving behind the stone age setting of Wolf Brother to delve into the Greek Bronze Age. This is similar and yet different to the stone age; its people still worship the gods of nature - The Lady of the Wild, The Earthshaker, The Angry Ones - and live, for the most part, in enclosed villages, but they are overseen by Chieftans who rule great swathes of land and who have grudges and feuds to bear upon neighbouring chieftans. They have bronze weapons, wear more sophisticated jewellery, and tame horses with carriages. In Gods and Warriors I see the beginnings of the beliefs and values that invade classical Greek literature, the ideas of honour and fate (and hubris) that fill Homer’s stories (for more on this, see my review of The Song of Achilles).

The tale kicks off with Hylas’s first, adrenaline-pumping escape from the mysterious foreign warriors who have destroyed his camp, and it rarely lets up on the tension from this point on. Why are the Crows after him? Will he escape and find his missing sister? The rest of the story builds upon this basic beginning, sweeping across mountains and sea, squirreling into caves and shipwrecks. He and Pirra are thrown together as tenuous allies, trying to extricate themselves from both the hunters and a prophecy regarding a powerful dagger that they have stumbled upon. Did Hylas ‘stumble upon’ the dagger or did the prophecy choose him? And what is Telamon not telling him?

Gods and Warriors really flows well, all the different parts fitting together quite beautifully, coming together at the end and yet leaving me with a series of unanswered questions, to keep me on tenterhooks for book two. And I wonder: will book two tell Hylas’s sister, Issi’s, side of the story? That would be really interesting. This is a great story to set young minds alight and I’ve no doubt it will become a bestseller.

Why We Broke Up, by Daniel Handler

Why We Broke Up is the story of Min Green and Ed Slaterton. Well, actually, it’s the story of Min Green and her six week relationship with Ed Slaterton, beginning to end, including, of course, why they broke up. Min collected all sorts of bits and bobs while they were together - beer caps from the first night they met, a toy truck Ed found at a party and gave to her, a note he slipped into her locker - but now it is time to let them go, to give them back. She’s going to thunk them down on his front step in a box with a quote from her favourite song written on the lid: “You either have the feeling or you don’t.” And she is writing him a letter to go with it.

Why We Broke Up is Min’s letter to Ed, each chapter brought to focus around one of the objects in the box. How it came to be, the memory she associates with it, what happened around it, with it or to it, why it is important. Its a story of first love and, ultimately, first heartbreak. Its a story of trying to beat the odds, of being yourself and how, in the end, Ed, too, was himself. It’s brave and daring and familiar and new, and heartbreaking and uplifting and scary and sad all at the same time. It’s intelligent and thoughtful, and there’s very good reason why its being billed as a “John Green if you like, you’ll love” book. Why We Broke Up is overflowing with all the great qualities that John Green brings to his writing, but it’s different too. It’s as good as John Green, but not a John Green copy. It’s an ode to relationships and to boys and to love and to being yourself. It’s complete and cathartic. I loved it.

And there’s not much more that I can add to that, except by telling you to visit the Why We Broke Up Project. Post your break up story, and read those of others. Oh and, by the way, Daniel Handler is also known as Lemony Snicket. How cool is that?

The Siege, by Helen Dunmore

The Siege begins with springtime, with the release from winter’s grip, with the melting of the snows and the budding of new life. It begins with Anna planting her vegetable garden, and tending the children at the nursery where she works. Such new growth stands in stark contrast with the winter that has just ended, and in even starker contrast with the winter that is to come: for this is Leningrad, 1941, and the Germans are on their way; Leningrad is a marked city.

Helen Dunmore builds this story beautifully. From the fresh spring we travel with her and her characters through the summer, to autumn and the approach of war; from the early preparations for the winter stores to the preparations for siege, barricading the city, battening down the hatches, and all that that brings. As winter takes hold, she conjures an ice-filled world of desperation. This is a world where gold jewellery must be bartered for a single loaf of bread, where your mother’s precious dressing table must be sawn up for fuel, where the simple process of walking up the stairs is an act of endurance.

The Siege is harsh but feels incredibly real. One of the things that I am often struck with in war images - whether on the page or on film - is how cities and lives become transformed. How a person can go from leading an everyday life, going to work, eating, drinking, to this other life, this life of horror and hardship; how a city goes from a place of living to a place of bombardment and destruction. In her subtle way, Dumnore shows us how this happens. She writes:

“Sector by sector, building by building, barricades are going up. Pillboxes, bunkers and machine-gun nests are being set up, trenches are being dug, and key defensive positions identified. A new map of the city is emerging, which has nothing to do with homes, shops, schools, parks or restaurants. It is do with patrols at every crossroads, with mined bridges, with sight-lines, steel tank barriers, pillboxes, and the artillery positions which everyone calls Voroshilov hotels...
“Even the trees in the parks have become something else. Now they are defensive positions, behind which a man can crouch, watching, alert, his cheek pressed against bark which is carved with lovers’ initials.” (pg. 136)

I am reminded of an image from the HBO series Band of Brothers: the soldiers are marching through a bombed out German town, the buildings are ruins, shells, and yet there are people there, living there, trying to eek out some form of survival amid this utter destruction. It’s shocking an incredulous all at once. My maternal grandfather fought in the first world war, and something my mum always says he told her was that, “You can get used to anything.” It is scary how destruction and hunger can become the norm, and this is essentially what happens to Dunmore’s characters in The Siege. They are desperate, they are scraping their lives together, boiling leather bookbindings to get whatever nutrients they can out of them, and yet they maintain their dignity whilst also fighting for their own individual survival - which means, ultimately, putting yourself above all others, and your little brother above yourself.

Two other things really stood out for me whilst reading The Seige. Firstly Anna’s father’s tale of General Hunger and General Winter. This is a story told fairly early on in the book, supposedly recounting another war, but it serves as a clever warning for what is to come, the shadow on the horizon of the warm springtime.

Second is Dunmore’s way of switching point of view. Most of the book is written in third person, telling Anna’s story, looking over her shoulder. But, on occasion, there are snippets of second person point of view, which is quite unusual and generally regarded as a risky way of writing. This is because second person uses ‘you’, basically addressing the reader directly. Done poorly, this can be alienating, but Dunmore uses the technique carefully and extremely effectively - here, it enables us to become part of the story, to be in the city, to feel the cold, to more fully participate in the story and understand what her characters are going through.

“If you read one book this year, it should be The Siege,” my cousin told me. I had heard the book praised before, but this particular advise is what made me finally pick it up and read it. I’m glad I listened - for anyone who wants to read real quality writing with a digestible story, The Siege should absolutely be on your list.

The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket, by John Boyne

Barnaby Brocket has a problem. At least, his parents tell him he has a problem (well, to them its a problem). Ok, let’s face it: he’s just not normal - or not by their standards, anyway. Barnaby Brocket’s problem? He floats. Mr and Mrs Brocket just want to fit in, to not stand out, to be N-O-R-M-A-L, and Barnaby’s insistence on floating is causing havoc in their lives. For a start, people are noticing and surely people will soon begin to talk, and this is not what Mr and Mrs Brocket want. They want to be normal. But then, what exactly is ‘normal’?

The Terrible Thing that Happened to Barnaby Brocket is not so much a story about the terrible thing that happened to him as it is a story about what happens after the Terrible Thing happened. It is a Terrible Thing, but it leads to an amazing adventure and to meeting lots of different people - people who some (Barnaby’s parents, for instance) might consider to not be entirely normal. Along the way Barnaby discovers that ‘normal’ is just an idea, and that it’s not only perfectly okay to not be ‘normal’, but that it’s usually a lot more fun too.

“ ‘Anyway, the point is, just because your version of normal isn’t the same as someone else’s version doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you.’ [said Marjorie] 
‘Quite right Marjorie,’ said Ethel. ‘If I’d listened to my mother when she said 
there was something wrong with me I’d have lived a very lonely life.’ 
‘And if I’d listened to my father, I’d have been miserable.’ 
‘Who wants to be normal anyway?’ cried Ethel. ‘I know I don’t.’ ” (pg. 92)

This is a very simple story and a very simple idea told absolutely beautifully. John Boyne has woven one concept - what is ‘normal’? - into a dozen different threads, presenting the idea in several different forms that repeats his message without actually, well, repeating himself. Each character reveals a childhood where parents have tried to make their children in their own image, to make them fit within the borders of their idea of an ideal life, only to reject their children when they try to step outside of those walls. Ironically, even Barnaby’s own mum and dad chose a different pathway to the one their parents tried to push them down, and I spent much of the book wondering whether or not Mr and Mrs Brocket would realise the extent of their hypocrisy by the end. Will they learn to accept their child as an individual or will they still try to change him? And what will Barnaby choose? Is it more important to him to accept who he is or to be accepted by his parents?

I hadn’t really intended to read this book, but I picked it up for a peek and then couldn’t put it down. It’s got to be one of my favourites for this age range (9-12) so far this year, though any adult is likely to find it as equally enjoyable as their youngster. In places it reminded me of Roald Dahl’s Matilda - the child who is so much smarter and more aware of the world than the parent is.

“And who was to say that he wasn’t the one who wasn’t normal anyway...” [Barnaby asks] “Was it even normal to want to be so, well, normal all the time?” (pg. 273).

It is brilliant, full of humour and lightness. Even when Barnaby finds himself in potentially scary situations - and is himself quite scared - he remains calm, accepting that he is where he is and that he can’t do much about it. I was nervous for him, but, somehow, he never got all that nervous for himself. Watch out for a lovely Harry Potter reference, enjoy the Oliver Jeffers illustrations, and - if you’ll forgive the pun - float away for the afternoon.

You Against Me, by Jenny Downham

You Against Me is the story of Mikey and Ellie. Mikey’s fifteen year old sister, Karyn, has been raped, or so she claims. The perpetrator? Ellie’s brother, Tom - but he says he’s innocent. When Mikey goes round to confront Tom, Ellie answers the door. It’s not love at first sight, but Mikey figures if he gets to know her, he might learn something useful that can help his sister. But Ellie quickly draws him into her world and things become complicated: what will happen when Ellie finds out who he is? What will happen when Mikey’s sister finds out who he’s dating? And, most importantly, who is telling the truth?

This is a difficult and sensitive subject well tackled by author Jenny Downham. By writing from the perspectives of Mikey and Ellie, who are involved but are on the sidelines, rather than the two people to whom the event in question actually occurred, it enables Downham to take half a step back from the rape itself, creating an additional story outside of it and thus preventing the book from becoming too overbearing. It’s also a very clever method of story construction because, like the two characters we are hearing from, until a certain point in the story, I could not be entirely sure who was telling the truth. I started off absolutely certain that Karyn was telling the truth, but once I met Ellie and saw her brother through her eyes, doubt crept in. Downham kept me questioning for about half the book, at which point she introduced some changes that made it clearer what the truth was, which then made me question whether or not that person would come forward with the real story. Outcome? I spent the whole book on tenterhooks.

Overall, I found You Against Me quite compulsive, with very well constructed characters who got into my head to the point that, when I put the book down, I kept thinking about them and their story until I could pick the book up again. I think the most outstanding thing, though, is the fact that Downham very subtly raises an incredibly important set of moral questions around both rape and feminist issues. Is a girl ‘asking for it’ if she wears ‘slutty’ clothes? What about if she kisses a guy and then says no to sex? Does that make her a tease? If someone goes out with several different people in a short time, why does that make a girl a slut or a slag, but a boy just a player or a ladies man? Is it ok to get someone really drunk so they’ll agree to have sex with you? Or, is it ok to sleep with someone when they are really drunk, even if they seem up for it? Because they’re not really capable of giving informed consent, is that simply taking advantage or is it rape?

These are a million questions teenagers and adults alike bandy around. Just because something is accepted as the social norm, does that make it right? What Jenny Downham has done - extremely successfully - is to somehow make the reader think about these issues, but without specifically naming them; instead of stating the questions specifically they kind of work their way into the story through some sort of word-based osmosis. She got me to think about it without preaching about it. This is exactly what good ‘issues’ fiction should do, especially when it comes to teenagers: they’re more likely to take serious thought about it after reading the ideas in this manner, than if they were presented by rote in a classroom. ‘Show not tell’ at its best.

Tigers in Red Weather, by Liza Klaussmann

 “The epitome of East Coast glamour, scene of vodka martinis and moonlit conspiracies, Tiger House is where the beautiful and the damned have always come to play,” reads the blurb for Tigers in Red Weather. When I first read this, it sounded glamourous, romantic even - I pictured that idyll of lounging in the summer sun, not a care in the world; the rich husband, the green expanse of lawn, the white painted boathouse. But reading it again, I can see what it really says, the clues it is giving as to what this book really contains - “moonlit conspiracies” and “the beautiful and the damned” jump out at me, and it sums the book up quite perfectly. I am naive and perhaps picked this book up thinking the wrong things, but ironically, this is exactly what the story inside gives away: what looks like glamour and perfection on the outside inevitably has a dark undercurrent running through it.

Set predominantly in the late fifties, Tigers shows a post-war society where women have a certain role they are expected to play: happy housewife and social entertainer. Told by the five main characters - firstly the women, Nick, her cousin Helena, Nick’s daughter Daisy, then the men, Nick’s husband Hughes and Helena’s son Ed, gradually piecing together an entirely different picture. A picture of unfulfilled matrimony, of frustrated histories, of secrets and hidden bitterness.

Its a gentle story, beginning in 1945 as Nick and Helena separate after wartime hardships to start their lives anew as married women, before jumping twelve years ahead for the reader to see where their lives have taken them. This is the summer of 1959 and they have all gathered at Tiger House. Daisy has her first crush and is bent on trouncing her sugary rival, Peaches, in the annual tennis championships, but things are turned upside down when she and Ed find a dead body, though it seems to have a bigger impact on the adults than it does on her. Hughes, after years of essentially ignoring his wife, suddenly finds he can’t resist her, but is he too late to win her back? Helena, demoralised and unhappy seems to be completely oblivious of everything going on around her, but is she really as ignorant and soft as she appears? And Ed. There is definitely something odd about that boy, but Hughes is the only one to see it - where will it lead and what will the consequences be?

Tigers greatly reminded me of Joanne Harris’ more recent work, her darker novels like Gentleman and Players. Everyone has a role that they must play and on the outside everything looks pristine. Its like that old saying about the duck: calm on the surface, but paddling like hell underneath. Ed hits the nail on the head on page 324: “I told you,” he [says], “no one says anything they really mean. None of it’s real.” At the end of the day, they are all pretending - saying one thing, when what they are really thinking, or what they wish they were really doing, is something quite entirely different. It makes the reader wonder how much you can ever really know another person.

I really enjoyed the book. Each character has a secret embedded within them, something that trails around behind them, a weight on their back, that they don’t want to admit to themselves let alone to those closest to them. It’s a very revealing experience to read. There is Hughes and his wartime affair. Nick and her love for a man who for years has responded to her only by pinning her into the housewife role she hates, rather than treating her as an equal in their marriage. Helena and her nasty, abusive husband; in her weakness, instead of turning against him, she turns against the only person who genuinely wants to help her. Daisy who cannot admit that her fiancee is her more interested in her mother than in her. And, again, Ed. Ed is the one who is closest to seeing it as it is, and even saying it as it is. But he has his own secrets. It is extremely clever of Klaussmann (who is, incidentally, the great great great granddaughter of Herman Melville) to leave his viewpoint until last - through everybody else’s stories, she leads us to our own conclusions regarding Ed’s role in the unravelling of Tiger House - but, even then, do things really play out quite like the reader thinks they do?

What at first appears to be light is shadowed by darkness. There are the trappings of the big house and the big summer party, but all is not as it seems. “If there’s one thing you can be sure of in this life,” Nick says, “It’s that you won’t always be kissing the right person.” But who is the right person? And how do you know? How long can you hide from yourself?

The Recruit, by Robert Muchamore

The Recruit is the first book in Robert Muchamore’s massive ‘CHERUB’ series. Until I started working in the teen and children’s department at Waterstones it wasn’t a series I had paid much attention to, but in recent weeks a great number of quite grown up people - handsome boys in particular - have waxed lyrical about the wonders of Muchamore, so I felt it was something I really ought to try - especially if I want to call myself a children’s bookseller. This turns out to have been a very wise decision (I am now struggling to resist the urge to go and buy the entire series - another 19 books, if I count the two spin-off series as well).

CHERUB stands for... Well, actually no-one knows what CHERUB stands for (though I’ve been reliably told this is revealed in the spin-off, Henderson’s Boys). The premise is simple: MI5 for kids. Not Anthony Horowitz / Alex Rider style - lone teenager becomes spy - but an entire branch of the British Intelligence Agency consisting of children. Why? Well, because no-one suspects kids, right? Kids are just around, doing what kids do, they’re not going to be bugging the house or watching you to gather intelligence. Kids are background. Kids are the perfect cover.

In The Recruit we meet James. Inner city kid, no dad to speak of, just him, his mum, and his little sister. He gets by, he’s smart but doesn’t apply himself, he doesn’t seek out trouble, but it usually manages to find him nevertheless. I found the start of the book a little bit stilted, the writing a little bit stiff, but then events take over and the story kicks up a gear. And then another gear. And then another gear. Invited to take the CHERUB entrance test, will James pass? Is he up to the physical and mental challenges ahead? Muchamore has written a story with the perfect balance of action and characterisation; he raises a number of moral issues in a subtle manner, draws the reader into the events that ensue, and then rounds things up nicely at the end. I couldn’t ask for more.

On the back of the book is printed a ‘not suitable for younger readers’ warning. Interestingly for a title that is categorised as teenage fiction, though, is the fact that the main character, James, is only twelve. Honestly, I don’t think it would be a problem for the younger range of teenagers to read this book - they might not pick up on the subtleties, but there wasn’t anything drastically gruesome or harrowing. It is perhaps the concepts that could be considered inappropriate for younger readers, but I can’t imagine too many thirteen year olds having a massive problem with them.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, by Jeff Kinney

Diary of a Wimpy Kid is another massively popular series in the 9-12 fiction range. It’s presentation  is pretty unique, and makes it the perfect book for struggling readers or for younger readers within the age grouping - it’s produced in a diary format which includes a lined paper effect, a font that emulates handwriting, and is packed to the brim with the diary-writer’s sketches. This diary style means not only that the story is broken up into short, easily digestible chunks, but the sketches add both an extra level of humour and an extra twist on the story that isn’t necessarily described in the written part of the story, whilst not making the book seem childless - in fact, the images are so integral that if they were removed, much of the story would be lost.

The Wimpy Kid himself, Greg Heffley, is pretty average. He’s not a geek, but he’s not one of the cool crowd either. Essentially, he’s just trying to do his best to get through school with the smallest amount of hassle as possible - both from others, and on his own account. He does the bare amount of work to get him by, and he’ll help out in school only if there’s something in it for him. Its funny and cringe-worthy all at the same time, and thus the perfect combination.

As an adult, I found Greg just that little bit too annoying and selfish - and he's so horrible to his supposed best friend. But then, like I said, I’m an adult and not a ten-year-old boy (and even when I was a ten-year-old, I leaned toward the geek side of the school classroom). In other words, this book was not written for me, therefore my feelings on Greg’s irritatingness means not a jiffy. I have yet to meet a young customer who isn’t completely addicted to the series, and I can see why: Jeff Kinney definitely knows his audience. Gotta go and watch the movie now...