Customer Reviews

Georgie

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Georgie lives in a home for children with mental problems. He trashes his room and his clothes when things get too much. Georgie feels as if his whole world has been taken away from him when he is told he is moving, but the home itself makes him feel worse. Then he is moved to the last place for kids like him and he starts to make a connection with the world again. But somewhere deep inside his mind is the reason he is at the home and he may not be ready to remember.

This book is incredible. Georgie is the kind of character who gets inside your head and under your skin and makes you realise how lucky most of us are. This book has the kind of depth that I found reading "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson and "Cut" by Patricia McCormick. Like both of these other books "Georgie" is a relatively short book but it feels longer because of the intense emotions that are riddled throughout the story.

This book is amazing and I highly recommend it.

Georgie Bayliss has lived in a children's institution for several years. He is violent; he smears feces on the walls; destroys his clothes; refuses to leave his room for meals; refuses to attend school or leave the grounds and destroys whatever is in his reach. He is also electively mute and lashes out at others when provoked. In reading Georgie's reasons for attacking his fellow inmates, one can see that his behavior was not without good reason. Why institution staff don't appear to engage him more in activities or understand what he does seems rather odd.

At the start of the book, readers "meet" Georgie in this institution in Wales. Unable to cope with the boy, he is transferred by bus to another institution in the country. Once there, Georgie meets angels. The first angel is a teacher named Tommo who is instrumental in helping Georgie confront his memories of death and loss and provides him with books and a pleasant bedroom; the second angel is a student named Shannon who immediately likes Georgie and wants to reach him. In time, the pair bond and Shannon takes Georgie under her wing. Readers can't help loving the staff at this second institution.

The other children in this home have a multitude of behavioral/mental problems and I like the humane way each child is treated. Tommo really is an angel of sorts and one cannot help but feel encouraged about the nurturing environment in this Welsh institution.