Tom Palmer Guest Editor Book of the Month
Chosen by Tom Palmer, Guest Editor for April 2024.
I’d like to recommend Top Thorn Farm by Denise Clarke as my book for this month. I read it recently and was struck by how the author – a former school librarian – chose to write it because the students at her secondary school wanted books that featured farming and tractors. But there were very few books that dealt with rural communities.
How was she going to encourage them to read for pleasure? She decided to write Top Thorn Farm. To fill that gap. To represent the community she knew. Top Thorn Farm is a great read.
Jamie is about to do his GCSEs, but there’s trouble on his father’s farm. Some of it of Jamie’s making. Jamie is at a crossroads in his life. What does he do after school? He can’t just work with his dad on the farm as he wants to. The book shows his journey from being lost to finding a path for himself.
Thanks to friends, family, teachers and a school librarian. I have worked in hundreds of rural schools, from Cumbria where Top Thorn Farm is set, to Norfolk and everywhere in between. I’ll be recommending this to teachers and librarians and the students as I go. Starting with this review.
Top Thorn Farm by Denise Clarke is available to buy through Sam Read Bookseller, Grasmere at £7.99
Jamie Bouthwaite is in his last year at school and impatient to be driving tractors around on his family’s Lakeland farm. For him schoolwork has never figured high on his agenda and he’s always been happy to leave the academic stuff to his sister Sally.
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Jamie Bouthwaite is in his last year at school and impatient to be driving tractors around on his family’s Lakeland farm. For him schoolwork has never figured high on his agenda and he’s always been happy to leave the academic stuff to his sister Sally.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Top Thorn Farm and determined it is suitable for children aged 13-14 years old
Top Thorn Farm features in the following genres: School Stories, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Stories about Family and Friends, Featured Books for 13+ readers, Recommendations
Paperback. Not Available.
Top Thorn Farm was written by Denise Clarke and published by Independently Published
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