The New Boy

Holly Keller has just the right touch in this book. She depicts Milton's struggle as a new boy trying to become accepted and sensitively shows the difficulties the rest of the group have in adapting to fit him in. No matter what he does, whether he is good or bad, he remains the odd one out until another child joins the class and becomes 'the new boy'. Holly Keller seems to specialise in books exploring areas that children find hard to deal with but her charm is that she never judges - just lays the situation before us and leaves us to come to our own conclusions.