The Boy at the Back of the class by Onjali Q. Raúf

🍌🍌🍌🍌🍌 We were absolutely bananas about this book.

Blurb:

There used to be an empty chair at the back of my class, but now a new boy called Ahmet is sitting in it. He's nine years old (just like me), but he's very strange. He never talks and never smiles and doesn't like sweets - not even lemon sherbets, which are my favourite! But then I learned the truth: Ahmet really isn't very strange at all. He's a refugee who's run away from a War. A real one. With bombs and fires and bullies that hurt people. And the more I find out about him, the more I want to help. That's where my best friends Josie, Michael and Tom come in. Because you see, together we've come up with a plan. . .

Our Review:

This is the heartwarming tale of friendship, curiosity and most importantly hope. This book is sometimes funny, sometimes sad and sometimes both at once. The author writes in such an amazing way and is really insightful into the thoughts of the main character and narrator. The dialogue is humorous yet poignant and the story has a lot of 'show not tell'. It brings up issues of the refugee crisis in Syria and racism here in England which are so important for young people to be aware of. The age rating is around 8/9 +.

By Edward