A review by hweezbooks
Brand New Boy by David Almond
challenging
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
Darwin Avenue Primary Academy is as average a school as it gets, and exactly where George gets sent to visit. This new boy is a little strange, and is constantly tailed by Miss Crystal, a lady taking notes.
George writes in perfect lines, does complicated math and plays awesome football. But as it turns out, George’s makers are the “New Life Corporation” and he’s but a million-pound investment about to be recycled into parts to make way for George Version 2.
Here’s where you begin to realise that David Almond is proving his chops again. The award-winning author of Skellig, and The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas (illustrated by Oliver Jeffers) shows all of this from the innocence of a child’s eyes.
Daniel, and his bestie, Maxie, just want to get George on his own, away from his minders, away from all the weirdos. Who’s the one that’s weird anyway?
“At one moment, he seemed like the rest of us, and the next he was hardly like a boy at all.
Maybe he’s not even human.
But he touched all of us.
And when he’s not here, it’s like he leaves a hole in all our lives.”
Almond spouts a lot of truisms and this book has such a good heart. All children are “entirely new” and to be treasured.
Lots of food for thought for young readers 9+ about what is in fact being different, and AI or not, the beauty of a child’s simplicity of purpose.
📚: @definitelybookskids
George writes in perfect lines, does complicated math and plays awesome football. But as it turns out, George’s makers are the “New Life Corporation” and he’s but a million-pound investment about to be recycled into parts to make way for George Version 2.
Here’s where you begin to realise that David Almond is proving his chops again. The award-winning author of Skellig, and The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas (illustrated by Oliver Jeffers) shows all of this from the innocence of a child’s eyes.
Daniel, and his bestie, Maxie, just want to get George on his own, away from his minders, away from all the weirdos. Who’s the one that’s weird anyway?
“At one moment, he seemed like the rest of us, and the next he was hardly like a boy at all.
Maybe he’s not even human.
But he touched all of us.
And when he’s not here, it’s like he leaves a hole in all our lives.”
Almond spouts a lot of truisms and this book has such a good heart. All children are “entirely new” and to be treasured.
Lots of food for thought for young readers 9+ about what is in fact being different, and AI or not, the beauty of a child’s simplicity of purpose.
📚: @definitelybookskids