Luna Rae is Not Alone

Luna Rae knows that something is different. It's not just their new house on the new estate, or the sofa still wrapped in its cellophane wrapper. It's not just the new school, or the girl on her table who is mean. It's not just her dad acting strangely and leaving her to look after her little sister while he mopes about. It's that something is not being said and she knows it's because she is a child that nobody will tell her about it. And in the space where nobody says anything and everyone pretends everything is lovely and fine, that is where Luna Rae's imagination has been known to 'catastrophise', or so her old teacher, Mrs Younger, used to say. A school baking event - which she and her mum would absolutely love - and a new friend with a secret clubhouse, is sure to make everything right, isn't it?

Hayley Webster's first foray into middle grade literature is an absolute delight! The reader is thrown into Luna Rae's world and the inner thoughts that completely shape her; we feel the worry, the need to pretend, the fear, the excitement of new friendships and the honesty. We are taken on her journey in a most captivating way. The story has a simple truth and a rawness of emotion about it that is so beautifully endearing, I didn't want to put it down!

Links to: friendship, families, change, bullying, truth, separation, child-carers.

192 pages / Reviewed by Donna Burkert, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 9+

Luna Rae knows that something is different. It's not just their new house on the new estate, or the sofa still wrapped in its cellophane wrapper. It's not just the new school, or the girl on her table who is mean. It's not just her dad acting strangely and leaving her to look after her little sister while he mopes about. It's that something is not being said and she knows it's because she is a child that nobody will tell her about it. And in the space where nobody says anything and everyone pretends everything is lovely and fine, that is where Luna Rae's imagination has been known to 'catastrophise', or so her old teacher, Mrs Younger, used to say. A school baking event - which she and her mum would absolutely love - and a new friend with a secret clubhouse, is sure to make everything right, isn't it?

Hayley Webster's first foray into middle grade literature is an absolute delight! The reader is thrown into Luna Rae's world and the inner thoughts that completely shape her; we feel the worry, the need to pretend, the fear, the excitement of new friendships and the honesty. We are taken on her journey in a most captivating way. The story has a simple truth and a rawness of emotion about it that is so beautifully endearing, I didn't want to put it down!

Links to: friendship, families, change, bullying, truth, separation, child-carers.

192 pages / Ages 9+ / Reviewed by Donna Burkert, teacher

Suggested Reading Age 9+