Lenny's Book of Everything - Karen Foxlee

Winner of 2019 Indie Awards in Children's Fiction category.

This book of Everything is really something.

THE BARE BONES... (a brief overview)

‘Lenny's Book of Everything’ is a magical journey through the imagination of a child. Each month Lenny and her younger brother Davey relish the arrival of the next issue of the encyclopaedia and the knowledge it contains. While their physical world is a small, sparsely furnished unit they share with their struggling mother, each issue transports them to the joy of a bigger world, full of opportunity. But Davey has a mystery illness, and nothing in the encyclopaedias can teach them how to understand what the future brings.

This book shares the simplicity of a time before ipads, Netflix and Playstation. When Greyhound buses transported you to places far away (because aeroplanes were only for rich people) and the week's groceries were bought from the local minimart.

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FLAVOURS OF... (other books like this one)

I don't know why, but I kept thinking of The Bridge to Terebithia. Perhaps it was the themes of friendship, love and the escape that imagination brings.

SNAGS ON THE BARBIE (rating out of 5) ****

The sweetness of 'Lenny's Book of Everything' is like a sticky dish of Honey Soy Chicken Wingettes. And it will stay with you long after you have finished.

There is a lot of chatter about this book, which is marketed at Upper Primary kids. I'm not sure I'd

recommend it to this demographic. I think it's rich literature, but the emotions are deep and (I felt) unresolved. Books like 'Wonder' have a similar emotional current but this can be transformed into energy for positive action ie "When given the choice between being right or being kind choose kind". But the deep emotion this book leaves with the reader has no real resolution. That's the only reason it's one snag short of a five snag barbie for me.

“There'd been an evening thunderstorm and we lay sticky with sweat in our beds listening to the rain. The sadness flower was fully bloomed instead my chest. It made me feel empty. It made me feel full. It made me feel like all the glittering wet Grayford streets were inside me. All the lost kittens and sad old ladies waiting at bus stops and pigeons with broken legs.”