The Amazing Edie Eckhart: Book 1

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Oscar makes new friends playing football, and Olivia wins a place in the school musical. Boyfriends and girlfriends complicate school. How do they sort out their friendship, and do they make new friends? This is the first book I have read where an entire family is shown to be accepting of LGBTQ+ people from the beginning of the story. A lot of books centre around self-discovery and coming out, but this story explores family and community relationships. Bea’s older sister is especially unhappy with the move, so in the hope of cheering her up, Bea desires to bring Pride to their new home. Without a support network, life can be extremely isolating, especially in a remote community. As a child of the countryside, I welcomed the exploration of LGBTQ+ identities outside of an urban setting. I’m a society where children’s books don’t often portray the main character - a child - with disability, nor even dare to mention anything remotely LBGTQ+ this has all the elements to give enough info but not rammed down the readers throat. The plot is great, the friendships up and downs are relatable and it’s got good depth to character. Although Edie is just starting High School, kids under this age group would still enjoy the story and I plan to read this to and with my 8 year old.

As a child I found solace in books. I loved going to the local library bus and taking part in reading challenges. Fictional adventures accompanied me through the school hallways and on the playgrounds of my youth.But life is far from simple when you move up to big school, and Edie finds herself under pressure to make new friends as her best and only since primary develops new interests and devotes himself to football and his shiny, new girlfriend. Using verse rather than prose, the book follows Stevie’s thoughts and inner monologue, not only focussing on her feelings but also on her parental relationships, anxiety, friendships, and love of reading. And it is Stevie’s love of reading, especially about sea-creatures, that leads her to research in a library. I would recommend this book for everyone, including parents/teachers/adults of all kinds. There are excellent jokes that will make you giggle too, Clare Balding and Alan Carr both feature (lol), you’ll have to read the book to find out more! The plot followed Edie as she starts secondary school in year 7. This proves challenging for Edie as she is joined at the hip to her best friend Oscar. But when Oscar joins the football team and gets a girlfriend, Edie is suddenly on her own. With a bit of encouragement from her form teacher, Edie auditions to write for the school play but ends up auditioning herself!!! How will this play out, good or bad?

But while she’s plotting her reunion with Oscar, she accidentally gets cast as the lead in the school play. As Edie discovers a passion for performance, she also finds new friendships, talents, and dreams. After all, it’s easy to shine on and off the stage when you’re Amazing with a capital A. It’s such a happy book. Full of kindness and giggles, I am far from the target audience. I’m forty. I wasn’t reading it with or to a child. I was reading it for me. I really like Rosie Jones, and I can’t remember seeing any books with a disabled main character when I was a kid, and that would have been nice because my mother was in a wheelchair. A wonderful book about a young girl with cerebal palsy. Edie was a very funny character, perhaps due to some of the likeness from the author herself. The writing style is nostalgic with hints to Jacquelin Wilson. Overall a story about how disability does not define you and is often your greatest asset. Mr. Murphy motivates Edie by saying that her performance is not as good as it could be, and as an actress Edie practices until she is the best she can be. I think that it was a good idea because after that conversation Edie works extremely hard practicing her performance to prove Mr. Murphy wrong about her performance skills.

I didn’t really like Oscar throughout the book because as soon as Edie branches out and finds an interest for her that doesn’t involve him, he becomes quite unsupportive. I think this is quite mean because Edie supports Oscar with his football training and matches. Each generation has a series of children’s books that is guaranteed to spark nostalgia in the decades to come. They grew alongside the characters that they love. For my parents, it was The Famous Five by Enid Blyton. For me, it was Rainbow Magic and Goosebumps. Now, Rosie Jones is bringing this joy to another generation. She also is supported by Mrs. Adler. I think Mrs. Adler is a good role model for Edie because she feels that she can trust Edie enough to share things about her life which makes Edie comfortable enough to confide in Mrs. Adler at a time of need for Edie when she didn’t really have anyone to talk to.

My daughter read this book just as she started high school and RAVED about it, so I thought I would see what she was talking about. I have no doubt that Edie will be a terrific role model and this book is another important step in normalising disability.It’s also equally as important that non disabled children have access to these types of books because it helps them learn and understand their peers better. Edie has Cerebral Palsy. Before I read this book, I didn’t know what Cerebral Palsy was, but I do now, and Edie tells us how she’d like people to talk to her about it. I really liked the way it was written as Edie’s diary. It’s like a friend chatting to you and you learn about her feelings. Edie is also very funny.

I'm now very annoyed that I convinced myself a few months ago that the financially responsible decision would be to not buy the second book when I saw it in the bookshop, and to wait until I'd finished the first instead, because I NEED THAT BOOK IN MY HANDS RIGHT NOW. I really wasn't sure how sweary, adult Rosie would translate into a middle grade book aimed at kids, but this book was fully wonderful. The story was fun, the characters interesting and the issues raised are complex enough to be realistic, but explored in a way that youngsters would enjoy and understand. I’m a little bit different. I have a disability called cerebral palsy, so I talk slowly and fall over a lot. It’s never really bothered me because I’ve never known anything else. When heavily pregnant form tutor, Mrs Adler suggests Edie audition for the school play, Edie gets the lead and decides to nab herself a boyfriend by Christmas. She negotiates her way through failed dates with boys who would be better as friends, eating sausage rolls, and learning her lines. Despite her oldest friendship falling by the wayside with a huge argument, Edie makes friends with set-designer, Flora, who becomes very important to her. This was an outstanding book from a new author who also lives with cerebral palsy, giving the story real insight into the experiences of a disabled tween taking those first big steps into real independence. Edie’s disability is obviously a key element of her story, but it never takes over to *become* the story. Instead, we see how Edie faces some big changes in her life, dealing with the occasional unthinking comment or obstacle as a result of her cerebral palsy but being a very average tween girl at the same time. This is very far from the kind of “inspiration porn” stories that are often shared regarding disability and is instead a story that is genuinely heartwarming and also laugh-out-loud funny, Sophie was also surprised and delighted to spot some strong, unexpected LGBTQ representation here too.

I received a free ARC of this book, with thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley. The decision to review and my opinions are my own.* What I love is that this is a story of an 11 year old girl who does all these things, but happens to have cerebral palsy. It’s by no means central to the plot - just a part of what makes up this funny, excitable 11 year old girl. The Secret Sunshine Project follows a young girl called Bea. When Bea attended London Pride with her family , she had one of the best days ever. But after her father dies, Bea and her family move to the countryside to live with her Gran. We also meet some other girls, Georgia was eventually pretty nice but dang that girl needs to understand that there are some things you shouldn’t say. XD Poppy was such a sweetheart. I love that the main character in the story has cerebral palsy, as there is definitely not enough representation of disability in fiction, but more importantly, her CP is part of who she is but not what the story focuses on. The heart of the book is Edie’s struggle to uncover who she wants to be, how she wants to relate to other people, and to understand and balance her conflicting feelings – relatable to anyone, of any age.