Wonderful story! Absolutely wonderful. ( )

Jake is a bit of a dreamer. He gobbles encyclopaedias, plans to be a fish painter when he grows up and he doesn’t notice his mother is pregnant. Jake seems to be quite solitary until he meets Stella and her large and slightly unusual family. This is a gentle story of friendship and growing up with a surprising and sad twist in its tail. This book would be best for pre-teens that enjoy slower paced stories that make you think. ( )

This was a remarkable and compulsive book with a surprise twist at the end which I really wasn't expecting. It was clearly written as a "book to get boys reading" with a male narrator who develops and grows up through the story and I would recommend it as that. I would also say that as someone vastly outside that target audience - an adult woman - I still found it very enjoyable, well written and a worth seeking out.
I will be looking to see what else the writer has published! ( )

Jake was happy with his Mum & Step-Dad until a new baby sister arrives. Then he makes a new friend, a girl called Stella who is from a very large, very strange family. Two things then happen while Jake is with Stella’s family that test him – first he thinks one of her siblings is drowning off a pier & two- one of her siblings runs to see him and is killed by the mother running over her with her car. A lovely sad & happy simple story about families.p.65-73.Stella & Jake go fishing off the pier with the young ones & one falls in so Jake rescues it.

Jake's life changes abruptly the minute his new sister Daisy and his soon to be friend Stella enter his life. Discovering what life is like when it is filled with little children, Jake starts to adjust only to have tragedy strike and make him question everything