A Different Life

Libby Starling is a North London fifteen-year-old whose life changes dramatically overnight after swimming in the sea on a school trip. She contracts a mysterious illness which leaves her unable to walk. Teenage concerns about school, family and friends - and in particular a boy Jesse - are overtaken by the full gamut of physical, mental and emotional readjustment. In this first person narration, readers are taken through very detailed stages of Libby's progress from initial confusion and despair in hospital to reconstructing her life with a strong equality perspective. By the end, her friends at school have waged a successful campaign to have their headteacher accept her back at her old school as a wheelchair user and Libby has had her first date with Jesse. Libby's family also go through a learning curve. After her father initially immerses himself in a campaign on the dangers of pollution in British waters, both parents gradually learn to tune in more sensitively to Libby's needs. This story reads less like a novel and more like a first-hand, highly informative account. Characters function largely as representatives of particular perspectives on disability issues. Instruction underlies this book and it would have benefited from more editing. But the narrator's voice is engaging and will perhaps encourage readers - in the words of the school campaign slogan - to 'Use Your Imagination'.