Flow

In a vivid and bitterly poignant opening chapter, the dyslexic hero of this book hurls his school dinner towards the jeering faces of the children who are mocking him as he struggles through a lunch hour of frustration with the work that everybody else has finished. He flees up onto the fells, where he seeks solace by fantasising about owning a dog 'who would love him loyally and uncritically'. But also roaming the fells is a feral, sheep-killing hound whom the child is eventually forced to confront. This is a good, solid story about loneliness and comradeship, struggle and survival. Children in Years 5 and 6 and their parents and teachers, will probably find it particularly sympathetic.