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Narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden
Laura DockrillUnabridged — 9 hours, 37 minutes
Narrated by Elizabeth Knowelden
Laura DockrillUnabridged — 9 hours, 37 minutes
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"Heartwarming…. Don't be surprised if you find yourself craving cheese toasties, jacket potatoes, banoffee pie, jammie dodgers, and a trip across the pond.” –NPR
"BB's honesty, her comfort with her own body, and her love for her family and best friend shine through. Full of heart, BB's authentic voice will strike a chord with anyone who doesn't want to be defined by the way they look." —School Library Journal
06/01/2019
Gr 7–10—Sixteen-year-old Bluebelle, known as BB, is large and not ashamed of her size. After having a serious asthma attack, BB is told to lose weight and start exercising. She strikes a deal with her mother: keep a food diary, go to the gym, and arrange an apprenticeship at Planet Coffee (where she works) and she can quit school. Throughout the summer, BB uses her food diary to write about her love for her little sister Dove, her thoughts on her parents' separation, her crush on fellow Planet Coffee employee Max, and her love of food. When Dove is badly hurt in a parkour accident, BB is devastated. She struggles with feelings of guilt and her inability to open up to others. As the summer draws to a close, BB has to choose what she wants from life and not what anyone else wants for her. BB's honesty, her comfort with her own body, and her love for her family and best friend shine through. By the end of the story, she may have lost weight, but that is incidental. VERDICT Full of heart, BB's authentic voice will strike a chord with anyone who doesn't want to be defined by the way they look. Recommended for all collections.—Kefira Phillipe, Nichols Middle School, Evanston, IL
2019-04-08
Bluebelle joins a growing cadre of body-positive YA protagonists in Dockrill's novel, originally published in the U.K. as Big Bones (2018).
Sixteen-year-old Londoner BB is fat. She states as much purely as a matter of fact. Though confident in her size, she is less confident about her future. Rather than return to school after summer holidays, BB wants to stay on as an apprentice at the local cafe where she works. When the nurse at her wellness checkup suggests she keep a food diary to help her control her weight and complications from asthma, it quickly becomes a bargaining chip: BB will keep the diary and go to the gym in exchange for her mother's blessing for her apprenticeship scheme. The food diary quickly morphs beyond a log of her food intake, as chapters headed with a variety of food items, from trifle to panini, serve as launchpads for BB's running musings on food, friendships, family, and life in general. This is a device trying too hard to be clever, as the foods referenced often make only a passing appearance. BB is often long-winded, turning what would otherwise be a fun coming-of-age beach read into a tome. BB and most of the supporting cast read as white, though her best friend, Camille, is identified as mixed-race with an Afro.
Though the sparkling heroine does not need to lose weight, the book itself could do with some slimming. (Fiction. 12-18)
| BN ID: | 2940172227189 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 07/16/2019 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Age Range: | 10 - 13 Years |
Crumpets
The first thing I ate after my asthma attack was a crumpet. OK. Not a crumpet. It was more a set. A set of crumpets.
“Can you push them down again, please? They still look raw.”
“As if that’s what you’re thinking about now, BB, after you’ve just nearly died,” Dove snaps as she pushes the crumpets back down into the toaster. “Besides, you don’t get a raw crumpet, you idiot.”
I am not one of those people that just can’t eat. I can always eat. Even when I’m sick. Even when I’m sad. I can even eat when I watch people being sick on TV.
“Don’t call me an idiot. You’re lucky I’m alive. Push them down again.”
I like my crumpets really toasted and slathered in thick butter. I like it when all the butter trickles into the holes of the crumpet and leaks through the bottom and puddles onto the plate, then you get to soak up the salty yellow pond with a warm sponge of crumpet innards.
“You know Mum’s gonna make you go to the doctor’s now, though, don’t you?”
“Yep.” I pull a clump of mascara out of my eyelashes and roll it into a little black ball like a squished fly. “And Dr. Humphrey is going to tell me I’m fat.”
“Overweight. They don’t say fat at the doctor’s.”
“Fine, overweight, then. Whatever.”
“It’s stupid anyway. Everyone is basically overweight on that stupid chart thing.”
“You’re not.”
“On that chart thing I probably am.” NO WAY IN HELL. Dove could make an HB pencil look fat. She leans her arms onto the counter, taking her weight. She hovers there, kicking her legs like she’s tiptoeing on thin air.
“Although I do think those nonsense BMI chart things were, like, created in, like, the fifties when everybody was tiny. . . . Have you seen Grandma’s wedding dress? It’s like a dress for a doll. I wouldn’t even be able to get one leg in that. The things are tiny; they aren’t realistic anymore. These days even our feet are huge.” I see smoke rise out of the toaster in foggy streams and I panic. “OK, they’re done, pop them out now.”
“I reckon you could’ve probably done this yourself, BB,” she says, jumping down and dumping the clumpy warm discs in front of me.
“Dove, I nearly just died, the least you can do is make me some crumpets. Pass the butter.”
