Thunderhead
Sophie Beer
Thunderhead
Sophie Beer
When I listen to music it speaks to me, fills up my soul until I'm bursting with the rainbow-sprinkled, breathless, blush-red joy of being ALIVE.
Meet Thunderhead: awkward, music-obsessed and a magnet for bad luck. Their favourite things in life are listening to records and hanging out with their best (and only) friend Moonflower. But Thunderhead has a big secret. And when Moonflower moves schools, they're faced with the reality of surviving the wilderness of high school alone. Make new friends? NOTHANKYOUVERYMUCH. As two big life events approach, Thunderhead posts playlists and heartfelt diary entries as an outlet to try to make sense of their changing world, to try to calm the storm brewing in their brain and to try to find the courage to unfurl their heart.
Drawing on Sophie Beer's own experience of hearing loss, this indelible illustrated middle grade novel about music, disability, friendship and fandom is immediately engaging, utterly authentic and entirely unputdownable.
Review
Angela Crocombe
Written in diary format, this debut novel is a funny, powerful story about a teen music fan. Thunderhead is utterly music-obsessed but also going deaf. She has two tumours in her eardrums that need to be operated on and she will lose most of her hearing afterwards. She is also starting high school without her best (and only) friend, Moonflower, who is going to a different school. Thunderhead starts writing an online blog on a defunct music forum to vent her frustrations.
When Thunderhead meets Moonflower’s new friends, she is thrilled they love music, but pretends she likes their favourite bands and foolishly promises she can get them free tickets to a gig by her favourite musician. Meanwhile, there are hospital and doctors’ appointments as she prepares for her operation.
With musical playlists at the start of every chapter and line drawings throughout, this is a delightful own-voices story for readers aged 10+.
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