Away With Words

CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPRESS HOW INCREDIBLE THIS IS! Holding back the full review until nearer the publication date, but this is one of the most beautiful explorations of language, the power of words, and communication in general I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Brave, clever, and innovative, Away With Words demonstrates the very best of what children's fiction can do - it's pure, lyrical magic from start to finish.

I loved this! Such a clever and original concept. When people speak, the words can be seen as well as heard. Words hang in the air and fall to the ground, shaped and coloured to reflect the mood and situation of the speaker, ready to be swept up at the end of the day or left to fade away. Or to be collected. Gala has moved from Spain with her dad, to live in Scotland with his boyfriend. She is learning to speak English and desperately misses her home in Spain. She meets another girl, Natalie, who has her own difficulties with spoken English and the two new friends begin writing poems, using their collected words, to cheer up their classmates. This goes well and the poems make lots of people happy, until someone copies the idea but sends unkind messages instead. Gala and Natalie have a lot to overcome if they are to convince everyone that they are not behind the latest set of poems.

I loved this book. The idea that people can see your words as you speak was just fascinating. I really loved seeing how Gala's relationship with the new people in her life and with the new country she'd moved to developed as she became more confident at the language. But I also love how her friendship with Natalie isn't focussed on the spoken word. I think the way Natalie and Gala find their voice through collecting other people's words shows how valuable each word is to them and how they can be so easy for other people that they get wasted. This book also shows how words can be used to lift people up or to hurt and tear people down. I definitely thinks some amazing conversations could be started by using this book in the classroom.

Sophie Cameron has another emotional rollercoaster of a book on her hands. She has such a skill in portraying somewhat complex issues in the most accessible way. Stunning!

Sophie Cameron has done it once again - I am always in awe at the way she can take such big, complex topics and make them approachable to young audiences while still doing them justice and never feeling like she has to dumb anything down for her audience. As someone who has previously moved from a non-English speaking country to an English speaking country with accents unlike those most familiar with via TV etc as youngin, this sure made me relive some ~trauma, which is probably the highest compliment I can give it, since the novel did such a fantastic job at capturing that experience.
Anything that explores linguistics and cultural displacement, and I love quirky takes of magical realism, so this was definitely my cup of tea even though I am nowhere near the target audience.
I'd say fans of WONDER would particularly enjoy this heartfelt story of difference and acceptance.