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You are here: Home / Archives for pregnancy

Baby Love by Jacqueline Wilson

March 16, 2022 By achuka Leave a Comment

ACHUKA Book of the Day 16 Mar 2022
Times Children’s Book of the Week 19 Mar 2022
Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Week 27 Mar 2022

Waterstones
Amazon
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“Given Wilson’s immense talent to amuse, she deserves great credit for undertaking this much more sombre task.” Bfk 5-star review

A heartbreaking, compelling and timely story for older readers about teen pregnancy, family trouble and unlikely friendships, set in 1960.
Cover and chapter head artwork by Rachel Dean.

When Laura meets a French exchange student, Leon, she is flattered by his interest in her. She’s never had any sort of boyfriend before. One night, Leon walks Laura home – and her life will never be the same again. Things start to change for Laura – first her moods, and then her body. Laura isn’t prepared for what she learns next – and doesn’t even know how it could have happened. When her family learns her secret, they are horrified. Sent away to save them from shame, Laura meets girls just like herself, whose families have given up on them – and they become a family for each other at the most difficult time in all their lives.

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Filed Under: BookOfTheDay, YA Tagged With: 1960, 60s, pregnancy, teenage pregnancy

First Day Of My Life by Lisa Williamson

January 7, 2021 By achuka Leave a Comment

Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Week 3 Jan 2021

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Amazon
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“a moral story about overcoming self-interest to look after others, and a compelling drama”
The Times

It’s GCSE results day. Frankie’s best friend, Jojo, is missing. A baby has been stolen. And more than one person has been lying. Frankie’s determined to find out the truth and her ex-boyfriend Ram is the only person who can help her. But they’re both in for a shock… EVERYTHING is about to change.

Filed Under: YA Tagged With: pregnancy, teenage pregnancy

Unpregnant by Jenni Hendriks and Ted Caplan

January 27, 2020 By achuka Leave a Comment

Veronica is top of her class – and somehow she’s found herself gazing in disbelief at a positive pregnancy test. Even worse, her ex-best friend and the high school’s legendary malcontent, Bailey, is the only one there to help. In this warm and darkly funny road trip story, Veronica and Bailey drive a thousand miles to an out-of-state abortion clinic – rediscovering their friendship in the process.

“An abortion road trip might seem an unlikely comic setup, but Veronica’s story is filled with addictive, giddy hilarity – a warm depiction of enduring friendship.” GAURDIAN Review

Waterstones

Filed Under: YA Tagged With: abortion, pregnancy, road trip, teenage pregnancy

A Small Madness

April 23, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

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I don’t think I’ve read a book with such intense and compelling emotional momentum since Virginia Euwer Wolff’s Make Lemonade (and that’s going back a bit).
If you want to read an authentically Young Adult book about an unwanted and wilfully denied pregnancy, with a vividly harrowing outcome, then this is that book.
Except in the rawness of its engagement with the reader, it is very different from the novel I compared it with above. Touchell writes as an unfashionable ominiscient all-observing narrator. Her writing is flawless and often verbally exciting in the best poetic sense. But the language is always being used for dramatic purpose, not for decoration. It conveys mood, atmosphere and character.
I could ‘see’ every character in this book extremely vividly.
There are three main characters: The lovers, Rose and Michael, and Rose’s very different friend Liv, who is in some ways the most sympathetic character in the book. But the supporting roles are just as important. Michael’s brother, Tim, and the authoritarian, church-going father. Rose’s mother. Liv’s mother.
It is difficult to write much about the story without giving spoilers – suffice to say that everything that happens is horribly real and believable.
It’s a five-star recommendation for sure.

via A Small Madness.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: pregnancy, review, reviews

Trouble by Non Pratt – Guardian Review

May 17, 2014 By achuka Leave a Comment

from last Saturday’s Guardian Review – a week late posting this…

Trouble by Non Pratt, reviewed by Linda Buckley-Archer

so much to admire in this well-constructed novel, which deserves to reach a large audience: its pace; its humour; its (sometimes unpalatable) honesty; its keen observation; above all, its author’s good judgment in allowing the story speak for itself and in not attempting to provide answers for the many questions it raises.

via Trouble by Non Pratt review – a refreshing take on teenage pregnancy | Books | The Guardian.

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: debut, pregnancy, reviews, teen, YA

Wondrous Reads: EXCLUSIVE: Cover Reveal – Trouble by Non Pratt + US/UK Comparison!

September 28, 2013 By achuka Leave a Comment

Well, Non Pratt, commissioning editor of Catnip Books kept very quiet about her forthcoming novel from Walker when we met earlier this week.

Here Wondrous Reads does a cover-reveal on her blog, showing both the US and the UK cover designs.

And she quotes the synopsis:

When fifteen-year-old Hannah Sheppard discovers she’s pregnant, her life begins to crumble, and the people she thought she could rely on leave her floundering. She finds an unlikely friend in new boy Aaron Tyler, who up until now has avoided getting too close to anyone in case they discover the reason he left his previous school. An intense friendship develops between Hannah and Aaron – but will they ever trust the other enough to reveal the secrets they’re both so desperate to keep hidden?

US cover

UK cover

http://www.wondrousreads.com/2013/09/exclusive-cover-reveal-trouble-by-non.html

Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: cover, debut, Non Pratt, novel, pregnancy, teen, Walker, YA

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