TTS Readers
The Final Year
The Final Year is a book that I wouldn't normally pick up off the shelf because of its poetry style but I enjoyed it more than others that I have read. It has left a good impression because of its heart-warming story and relatable experiences. I recommend it for those who are interested in reading about school from a student's perspective or would like something interesting to read.
Harley
The Things We Leave Behind
The things we leave behind by Claire Furniss follows 16 year old Clem and her younger sister Billie as they flee dangerous London to try find safety in Edinburgh, carrying only a notebook filled with memories and stories from their past. Claire Furniss explores the themes that family and sisterhood, refugee experience, loss, grief and hope. Overall I found the book very enjoyable and would recommend to people 13 and up who enjoy stories about family survival and social issues
Kainat
The Things We Leave Behind
This book passed far beyond my expectations and sent me down a rollercoaster of emotions. As the story progresses you could see the bond between Clem and Billie grow stronger and stronger. I would recommend this book to anyone of any age as it can be an eye-opening experience that makes you realise how important family really is.
Charlie
King of Nothing
This is a good book its about what its like to have no built in purpose. I would recommemed this book to people who like to be leaders and enjoy complex ideas.
Sophie
The Final Year
I rate this book a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is a very good book and is an excellent extraordinary verse novel about the final year of primary school. I recommend this book to people in primary and secondary and even adults because it’s appropriate for almost all ages. It is about a teacher who had a great impact and supported his students and really helped them with school. The kid sometimes had anger issues and had to have a method to help him calm himself down to make sure he doesn’t go crazy. The boy talks a lot about how it’s his final year in primary and that it’s an important year and you need to take it seriously. Overall, it’s a very good book and I would recommend especially to people who are in primary school.
Mila
The Final Year
The book was fantastic to read in fact I would say it is one of the best I’ve ever read. I love how it uses short but effective style of writing making it an easy to read. I also love the characters inside of this book such as: Nate, Caleb and Jax. It’s just so good to see their lives change throughout the book such as when Dylan was suffering with a rare heart infection and we saw the true side of Jax and Nate come out but then Dylan gets cured and they find their way again. But the book is fantastic and definitely one of my favourites.
Hayden
All That It Ever Meant
This book was about a family who's mum just died, following that event Mati and the rest of the family go on a "road trip" to Zimbabwe. Each member of the family grieve about the death of the mother differently, anger, sadness, fear.
Overall I liked the book a lot and it brought light to how different people deal with death.
Tyler
The Final Year
This book is about a school boy called Nate who is in his final year of primary school. Where he has to overcome a lot of obstacles that come his way including something that happens to his little brother Dylan. I'd recommend this book to someone who is anxious about going into year 6 or going into secondary to show even if times are hard everything will become okay. Overall, I really enjoyed this story.
Amelia
The Final Year
This book was all about a young boy called Nate who is in his final year of primary school, however he needs to overcome difficulties that come his way. For example, his closest friend was put into the other class. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to children roughly the same age as Nate as they can take advice and would find it exciting to read.
Matilda
All That It Ever Meant
The book is very interesting full with lots of twists and turns. It dives into culture, family, friendship and loss. It helps me understand all about Zimbabwe and places. A great book that was very interesting!
Edward
The Things We Leave Behind
I really enjoyed this book. I love how Clem expresses her feelings through stories and how she reveals secrets throughout the book and gets the reader engrossed. They escaped to Scotland for safety. It demonstrates the determination and how much they love each other to go all that way together and how Clem loves her step sister even tho they aren’t blood related, it shows that family isn’t always by blood, it's got lots of important morals for the reader to learn.
Jasmine
All That It Ever Meant
All That It Ever Meant is a story that follows Matiponesa on a road-trip in Zimbabwe. It shares what it is like to have lost a member of your family, leaving the rest your family in despair and in a round of constant arguments. It also shows how tough the hardships of immigration and not having a sense of belonging are and how you can face them. One of the best things about this book is that Mati and her family become closer whilst delving into their heritage and meeting other family members.
Harley
The Final Year
I like this book as it’s easy to read and it’s poem based (which some might prefer to a regular book). I’d recommend this book to a pre-teen/Years 6&7. Overall, I think the book would be better for a younger child rather than teenagers as it isn’t that hard to read and quite easy to finish quickly.
Lola
King of Nothing
I would give the “King of Nothing” a positive review for its humour but also relatable content throughout. Young teens and some adults would find this an easy read and enjoy the novel. It involves overcoming challenges as a teenager. Overall, it’s a great choice of book and I would recommend it.
Lola
All That It Ever Meant
This book follows a young girl who takes a trip to Zimbabwe following the death of her Mother. She soon meets the meticais who want to hear all about her story. In this book we see amazing character growth and heartwarming messages. Somethings that I think that could’ve have been better was the pacing as I believe it was quite slow. I suggest this book to any teenager who has a chance to pick up the book.
Ewan
King of Nothing
This book follows a young boy named Anton. At the start of the book he is the 'king of the school'. As the story progresses he realises that his 'friends' aren't quite what they seem. This causes him to try to change how he talks to people and his view on life.
I enjoyed how the book reflects modern day situations in some schools. It was enlightening to see him reflect on his current situation and make positive changes.
Despite enjoying the book, I feel like it was a little predictable.
I would recommend this book to children at the start of secondary school as it wasn't a particularly challenging read. I think it may be a little upsetting to primary school children because it deals with some violent and sensitive topics.
Overall, I would give this book 4/5 stars.
Emilia
King of Nothing
The book is hilarious and has high levels of masculinity. The book is about "the king of year 9" Anton he then later becomes friends with Mathew the unpopular kid in the school and this makes Anton question life. I enjoyed how funny and serious this book is about teenage life.
Ryan
The Final Year
The Final Year
In this book the story follows a year six student struggling through life and attempting to control the beast within him with the help of his kind teacher, Mr Joshua. The young boy, Nate, and his family face many tough times as they battle through poverty. Nate's mom tries her hardest to support her three sons of all different fathers on her own but even she doesn't know what to do when the youngest, Dylan, has heart problems. Everything seems to be going wrong in Nate's life: him and his best friend Turner are drifting apart and all Nate wants to do is let his "beast" inside of him out. Yet with the help of Mr Joshua and Caleb he keeps calm through all that is happening and everything falls back into place. The book ends with him, Jackson, Dylan, his mum and auntie Sally leading a happy life with Nate and Turner getting ready to face secondary school together as friends.
I enjoyed this book a lot due to the helpful lessons behind it. For example the book shows how with the guidance of friends and trusted adults everything goes to plan. Nate struggles through difficult times but always make sure to comfort his mum and look after his brothers. Even with the little he has he is happy.
I also felt that this book was slightly relatable as set in primary school so readers might've experienced similar things to him, for instance drifting away from close friends.
Overall I really liked this book because of the thought behind the storyline and all the writing and description was great too.
Malik
The Final Year
I quite liked this book, I liked how there was at least one poem to describe characters and events. I didn’t like the informal language and it was slightly harder to read. Overall, this was a good book and I would recommend to younger readers.
Georgie-May
The Final Year
I think this book is quite good but I don’t like the way it’s written and it is confusing sometimes. The plot twist at the end is interesting and also shocking. This book is also quite easy to read as there is not a lot of words on each page and I like how the main character and his friend become friends again at the end. Overall,I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to teenagers and people who like poems.
Yuvraj
The Things We Leave Behind
In this book we follow a 16 year old girl, Clem, trying to escape London with her little sister Billie. This follows the events of the new prime minister - Toby Knight who is trying to deport citizens out the country. Her step-mom is arrested and her dad publishes things against Knight and is also eventually arrested. Clem and Billie then escape by train and have to find their way through life full of people against them.
I really enjoyed this book and how the author wrote it, going between present day at Edinburgh where Polly takes her in and back to her telling the story of what happened . This adds a sense of suspense to what's actually happening . Another thing I loved about this book is the plot twist at the end. We find out that that Clem hasn't been telling the whole truth and we learn Billie was killed at the start during the stampede. This makes you question everything you read making the book even more interesting.
I recommend this book entirely to kids, even adults. It is so engaging and interesting to read. It makes you never want to put the book down.
Ella
Little Bang
This book is written from the perspective of the two main characters - Mel and Sid. These teenagers, who come from very different backgrounds, meet and set in motion an unstoppable chain of events that will figuratively blow their worlds apart. Mel is an Irish Catholic "good girl" with a love for science and big plans for her future whilst Sid is the opposite - a dreamer, some might say lazy and without any clear goals in life.
After a disastrous first date, Mel discovers she is pregnant. The author handles this scenario with compassion and humour, allowing the reader to empathise with Mel's predicament and the difficult choices she has to make. These choices are particularly hard as the story is set in Northern Ireland where abortion is illegal. In addition, Mel's own religious upbringing and Catholic faith add an extra dimension to her decision making. In contrast, Sid sees the pregnancy as an opportunity for him to straighten himself out and gives him a reason to work. The lack of clear communication between the couple is relatable, given their ages and the length of their time together, but this leads to misunderstanding. In the end, the decisions made by Mel and Sid lead to different destinies than they might have expected.
Edward
The Things We Leave Behind
This was a really good book with a rollercoaster of emotions and builds lots of suspense throughout the story, I would highly recommend this book to anyone and any age. A key theme in this book was nostalgia, which made it really special and expressed the bond between Clem and Billie.
Matilda
The Things We Leave Behind
This book was a whirlwind of emotions. The characterisation of this novel relates to modern day events . I absolutely loved the relationship between Clem and Billie and made me realise that family is more important than anything. I would highly recommend this book to anyone.
Amelia
Play
The book ‘play’ is a very fun book to read with lots of wonder and adventure inside of it. I particularly liked it when at the start of the book Mark was talking about his best den he made which was in the shape of an L. Also this book talks about the friendship of four friends and shows how friends are always needed to face challenges together and it won’t always be easy for one another but overall I think this book is amazing and definitely one to read.
Hayden
King of Nothing
I give this book a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
When reading the book King Of Nothing it made you imagine and really picture what was going on and was very interesting. I would recommend this book to around ages 10 and above especially if you like reading about school and how people change over time. It’s because it’s about a boy who used to be naughty in school and a bully but eventually turned into a real friend and got called a ‘loser’ by his old friends. This can change peoples lives and thoughts because of the meaning and how people can change and become a better person no matter their back story. The reason, Anton (the main boy) changed was because his mum made him go to a camp when he met ‘the biggest loser in school’ Matthew and they became best friends and Anton had changed and became a way better person who didn’t make fun of people or be naughty.
Mila
The Final Year
The book, "The Final Year" was an excellent book about all of the things a young boy must face when moving from year 5 and going into year 6. The storyline was very good with many different events that made you want to keep on reading. I would recommend this book to a younger audience from year 6 to year 8 since these people may be able to relate more. Overall, this book was a fantastic 10/10!
Edward
The Final Year
It was a very interesting book with some extreme and captivating plot twists.
Nate (the main character) used the poems to describe how his life was going which I really liked.
Overall I really enjoyed the book and it kept me captivated the whole time I read.
Tyler
The Final Year
I became attached to Nate while reading "The final year". The book was all about the change and adaptation that Nate had to go through when moving to year 6. When Nate's brother Dylan became seriously ill, I felt sorry for the pain and suffering he was forced to go through. Nate's journey through year 6 is something many students can relate to. How Nate's anxiety is expressed as a monster is very smart as you can see him battle with it through the story. Overall, "The final year" was a very enjoyable book with lots of things many people can relate to.
charlie