Raz Beri

Billy Turpin is a thirteen-year-old football-obsessed boy. Nothing unusual there.

Billy has cerebral palsy and is a wheelchair user. This means he finds playing football very difficult. He is brilliant at it on the computer but not in real life.

Billy’s favourite team is Earl’s Court FC. He is stunned when their First Team players agree to host a PE session at his school, with his year. Will his heroes, particularly the captain, Danny Cash, live up to his expectations or will Billy have to form completely new opinions based on his interactions with the players?

Stephens has written a three-dimensional, believable character in Billy. The one criticism to be made is that he readily uses ableist words such as ‘spastic’ and the title of the novel Raz Beri, Cockney rhyming slang for ‘raspberry ripple’ – ‘cripple’. This could put some readers, including schools, off using Stephens’s book which would be a shame as, in the end, Billy totally reclaims the slur by showing the power of a group of disabled people choosing to use the language together.

This book also smashes the stereotype that grass roots sport is often not enjoyed by disabled people.