The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh

The Costa Judges said: ‘Heart-warming, humorous and full of hope and joy.’

The judges for The Branford Boase Award commented:   ‘I loved Billy and his journey’; ‘readers absolutely inhabit Billy’s world’; ‘there’s so much to empathise with, and children will love the jokes’; ‘lovely touches of detail throughout’.

A letter from the author, Helen Rutter;

Dear reader,

I’m so excited to be writing this letter. I love a good letter at the best of times but this is one I never imagined I would be asked to write!  My name is Helen Rutter and I am the author of The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh. I worked as a jobbing actress throughout my twenties (my first job was a year-long theatre tour of Jaqueline Wilson’s Double Act, playing one of the twins!) and after my son Lenny was born, I started writing shows and performing them at the Edinburgh festival, alongside my husband, the comedian Rob Rouse.

Lenny has a stammer and a couple of years ago a shared anecdote sparked an idea for a book. Rob told me that Lenny had been playing table tennis in the village hall with a little boy who was deaf. I started to imagine how a boy with a stammer could communicate with a boy who needed to lip read. Lenny had also recently started making jokes at moments when his stammer was particularly strong and I was enjoying seeing him flex his comedic muscles, and using humour to deal with something that was incredibly challenging for him. I had a very strong and clear realisation: ‘Oh my god, I’m going to HAVE to write a book!’

I wrote a chapter every day and read it out loud to Lenny before bed, who told me when I had not hit the mark or pointed out the moments when I had really understood what it was like for him. I took a lot of things from our life and had to check in with him that he was happy about how I was telling the story: experiences with speech therapists, school performances and Lenny’s love of the drums are all in there! But as I wrote the book, the character of Billy slowly started to become someone entirely distinct from Lenny. Someone with his own story and struggle.

Lenny is now twelve years old and his stammer comes and goes. The difference now when we talk about it is the gentleness with which he treats himself. He is no longer fighting it or embarrassed and I am no longer scared for him, for what it may mean for him. We have all just accepted it as a verysmall part of his story.

Maybe that’s why it arrived as an idea when it did. It was no longer defining him/us and with that came a lightness that allowed me to see it for the unique (but hopefully universal) and inspiring story that it is.

Me and Lenny are both super proud of Billy Plimpton and we love him to bits. We can’t wait to see him on the shelves in February and have him tell his story to people who may never have met anyone like him, but who have experienced all of the very same feelings that he does during the course of the book.

I will hopefully meet some of you in the future and I really hope you enjoy reading about Billy Plimpton –The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh.

Best Wishes

Helen x 

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A review Rosie Watch, from a teacher's perspective;

This is a beautifully and sensitively written book about a boy with a stammer. A boy who desperately wanted to lose the stammer in order to fit in, but who realised throughout the course of the book that it is possible to stand out and fit in.

The story is written through the eyes of Billy Plimpton and it is obvious the author has a real understanding of children and stammers by the way Billy is portrayed – his worries, his way of dealing with issues, his concerns, and his techniques for dealing with his worries. The writing shows a real depth and understanding of a 12-year-old.

However, in addition to coping and managing his stammer there are many other threads running through the book that make it such a good read. There is his lovely relationship with his grandmother, Granny Bread, and the shock of her death. His relationship with his peers and his anxieties of Senior school and his very normal family life.

There is also a real feel-good factor running through the book and the outcome of how he fulfils his dreams. 

The book is so readable and approachable. I think children will love the inclusion of the many lists, such as  'the stammer survival list' and the ‘how to stay hidden list’, that he makes throughout the story and the series of memorable, if somewhat cheesy jokes. 

This would make a great class read or a book for anyone with a worry who needs a bit of a boost and who doesn’t.

Find more great classroom reads for KS2 here.

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On being shortlisted for the Blue Peter Book Awards Best Story, Helen Rutter said: “I did a little dance around my kitchen when I found out that I was shortlisted for this award, I may have even made up a little song (but don’t ever ask me to sing it). I love books that make me smile, laugh, think and cry and that is what I tried to create with The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh. 

“When I was a kid, I read the same books over and over and never got bored. When you find a book you love it becomes like a friend. Even if you have not yet found a book you love, it's out there somewhere and when you find it you will know, you just have to keep looking. The idea that there might be kids out there who feel that way about my story makes me so so happy… in fact I may need to do a little dance again!’”

Find all the shortlisted titles for the Blue Peter Book Awards 2022