Tackling the TBR list

TBR – To Be Read. 

My TBR pile has been growing over the last 12 months since I started working in a school library. Not only do I have the books I want to read for pleasure to go through but I also want to have an in-depth knowledge of our collection so when a student says “I can’t find a book”, I can help them with their choices.

I brought home a nice pile to get through over the Christmas holidays and top of my list is Raining Fire by Alan Gibbons.

Alan came to visit Bradbury School in Hong Kong, where I previously worked, and he led a fantastically motivating day.  Since then, we have connected via Facebook where he continues to inspire me. He is a tireless campaigner for libraries and set up National Libraries Day, which is now National Libraries Week and he is part of the Speak up for Libraries coalition.  He writes Realistic Fiction which can be hard-hitting and often violent but never gratuitously. Raining Fire is no exception.

The blurb reads “Alex and Ethan are growing up on an estate where there are just two choices: sport or crime. Ethan is selected for a football training programme in the US, his chance to escape the gangs that terrorise his neighbou=rhood. But Alex is drawn into an explosive feud with a gun at its heart.”

SPOILER ALERT

The book could easily have taken the easy way out and let Ethan be a footballing success but Alan doesn’t do that. There are no easy choices, no get out of jail free cards in this story. Life isn’t straight-forward and every action has a consequence. Knowing what is right and being able to do it become two very different things and hard choices have to be made. Alan doesn’t shy away from this but still leaves us with hope. This is a fast-paced novel that I think will have a particular appeal to reluctant readers, especially boys who think books are boring, who can’t find a book that tells a story from where they sit, for all those who come to school to find a place of safety; I hope they connect with this book and with Alan, he speaks for them and to them.