Nate’s Final Year Tests Friendship, Family and Change
Nate’s final primary-school year becomes immediate and emotional through his verse voice. Matt Goodfellow captures friendship, family worry and change with a directness that should resonate with younger readers facing transitions of their own, and adults supporting them. The verse format keeps everything close.
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The final year
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Nate’s Final Year Tests Friendship, Family and Change
Nate’s final primary-school year becomes immediate and emotional through his verse voice. Matt Goodfellow captures friendship, family worry and change with a directness that should resonate with younger readers facing transitions of their own, and adults supporting them. The verse format keeps everything close.
- Book Synopsis
-
See that tall, skinny kid with the ball in his hand
sayin see ya later to his mate?
That's me:
Nathan Wilder
Nate.
10 years old
and a week away from the end of Year 5.
Life can be tough in your last year of primary school. Tests to take, preparing for the change to high school. Nate is ready for it all, knowing his best friend PS is at his side - they've been inseparable since Nursery.
But when they are put in two different classes and PS finds a new friend in Turner, the school bully, Nate's world turns upside-down. As he struggles to make sense of this and forge new friendships, he's dealt another blow when his youngest brother, Dylan is rushed into hospital.
His new teacher, Mr Joshua, sees a spark inside of Nate that's lit by his love of reading and writing and shows him how to use this to process what's going on. But with so much working against him, and anger rising inside him, will this be enough?
A powerful and lyrical story about finding your place in the world and the people that matter within it.
Ideal for readers who:
- Choose moving verse novels tackling primary school transitions, changing friendships and finding your voice.
- Want to follow Nate’s final primary year through playground bullying, family hospital worries and big changes.
- Recognise the unique pressures of Year 6, unexpected class shifts and the daunting move towards secondary school.
- Respond to lyrical, highly accessible stories that manage to keep raw feelings close to the page.
- About The Author
- Now a multi award winning full-time poet, Matt Goodfellow visits schools around the UK and beyond, inspiring children and adults to get involved with poetry through his performances and workshops and working with organisations including National Poetry Day, the Forward Arts Foundation, the Premier League, the National Literacy Trust, Book Trust and CLPE. His debut novel, told in verse, The Final Year, illustrated by Joe Todd-Stanton, written for middle-grade readers won the CLiPPA Award for Children's Poetry 2024 and the Children's Book Award for Older Readers 2024 (Federation of Children's Book Groups) amongst many others. The follow-up to The Final Year, The First Year, is published in April 2025. He is also the author of Caterpillar Cake, illustrated by Krina Patel-Sage and shortlisted for the CLiPPA award in 2022, Shu-Lin's Grandpa, illustrated by Yu Rong and shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal 2022 and a contributor to CLiPPA-shortlisted poetry collection Being Me: Poems about Thoughts, Worries and Feelings, all published by Otter-Barry Books. He has written two poetry collections for older readers: Let's Chase Stars Together, shortlisted for the CLiPPA award 2023, and Tomorrow We Begin, published in 2024. Matt lives in Stockport.
- Product Details
-
- ISBN
- 9781915659040
- Format
- Paperback
- Publisher
- Otter-Barry Books, (07 September 2023)
- Number of Pages
- 288
- Weight
- 324 grams
- Language
- English
- Dimensions
- 198 x 129 x 22 mm
- Categories: