The Amazing Edie Eckhart: Book 1

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It’s a really lovely story that captures exactly what it is to be eleven and starting a new school - the new routines, the navigating of friendships, new hobbies and becoming more independent. But after joining a computer and coding club at her new school, Emmy finally feels like she has found her rhythm. This is a story about challenging ourselves, understanding and accepting others, and navigating changing relationships – perfect reading for starting secondary school!

It felt incredibly real, and I'm sure lots of young readers will relate to the situations Edie Eckhart finds herself in. The Amazing Edie Eckhart follows Edie, a pre-teen with cerebral palsy, as she starts senior school and discovers her love of the performing arts. I hope this isn’t the end of Rosie Jones writing as I think she could take this character further or introduce us to other children who have additional needs.The book contains excellent disability, LGBTQ, young carer, and sausage roll/pizza/Maccy D’s representation throughout. The Amazing Edie Eckhart is a fantastic middle-grade story about Edie, who is just starting out at secondary school.

Eleven-year-old Edie Eckhart and her best friend Oscar are excited to be starting secondary school together, so are devastated when they are put into different classes. But while she’s plotting her reunion with Oscar, she accidentally gets cast as the lead in the school play.She muses: 'when Thor was stripped of his power and banished to Earth by Odin, did he mope around and throw his hammer out of the pram? She negotiates her way through failed dates with boys who would be better as friends, eating sausage rolls, and learning her lines. If I had known, I would have waited a year or two, but I love Rosie Jones and was too eager to share it to read the book to myself first. Rosie’s The Amazing Edie Eckhart series is inspired by her own experiences of navigating a school with cerebral palsy.

While at primary school, Oscar was always on hand with his ‘Edie First Aid Box’ to supply a plaster or spare pair of tights, the book shows how Edie is now (albeit reluctantly at first) learning not to lean on him more than she needs to.I have no doubt that Edie will be a terrific role model and this book is another important step in normalising disability. But then school started and we saw that he was quick to find a new club, new friends, even a girlfriend… but if Edie dared to even have something of her own he would get huffy and angry. She has to make some new special relationships when she moves to secondary school and her best friend goes into a different class.

Edie slowly has to come to the realisation that she is letting her disability hold her back when she doesn't need to. The first in a series, this entertaining book sensitively explores the challenges and joys of growing up. However, the road is not smooth and at the Halloween disco Ben and April find their friendship tested. I love that the main character in the story has cerebral palsy, as there is definitely not enough representation of disability in fiction, but more importantly, her CP is part of who she is but not what the story focuses on. It's a scary time for every child but Edie has to cope with being stuck in a different class to her very best friend, Oscar.I really like Rosie Jones, and I can’t remember seeing any books with a disabled main character when I was a kid, and that would have been nice because my mother was in a wheelchair. However, it will be children living with disabilities and particularly cerebral palsy that will really benefit from this book.