A review by aotora
Katy by Jacqueline Wilson, Madeleine Leslay

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I genuinely liked this book - I never read the original and this book uses some problematic words like cripple and invalid - but whilst invalid is never really corrected - cripple is. Katy is understandably really angry after the accident - learning that you won't be able to walk again or run or do most of the things you did before makes you angry and depressed and she just wants to rile everybody up. So when she says she is a cripple one of the nurses corrects her and tells her that she shouldn't use that world again and she explains why she shouldn't do that - I feel like that was presented well for kids and should be used as a great conversation starter about why we shouldn't use that word but we should use other more appropriate words. I think that the word invalid was just never really corrected because it was used in the original book I guess - the book is pretty realistic. It's about Katy. A wild kid who loves to run, jump and explore but cannot really connect to her step mother or her step sister because she is still grieving her mother. Then she has an accident and she is suddenly wheelchair bound and her life turns upside down - the only things I really didn't like in this book was fat shaming - one of her brothers is constantly called greedy and big and his entire personality is him overeating and stealing food from other kids and the fact that at one point her father says that she should listen to Izzy since she is her mother - she is not though. Her mother died and she understandably doesn't want to call Izzy mother or see her as a mother - but that's brushed aside since they end up having a pretty decent relationship by the end of the book. Overall a great book for kids about someone suddenly becoming disabled and dealing with it as a young kid.