My Other Life - Polly Ho-Yen

This is a lovely book about a girl called Mae living with asthma, who makes frequent, frightening visits to hospital as a result of her condition. Faced one day with the prospect of visiting an alternative world through a portal where she could live WITHOUT asthma, she has to weigh up the pros and cons of what else might change and what option to choose.

A heartwarming and thought-provoking book about choices, consequences and facing challenges, this would be a great book to use in classrooms as a prompt for discussions about health, making choices etc.

I believe the reading notes for this book were created by CLPE (@CLPE1), so high quality and well-thought out, and that it is part of a series of books from Bloomsbury aimed at developing readers, with complex issues dealt with through captivativating stories and content - there is a list of questions to use at the end. Chapters are relatively short, so this would be equally good to use as a class read-aloud or as an independent text, and there is relief and addition to the text with frequent illustrations throughout.

I'm a big fan of Polly Ho-Yen already, and am adding this to the list of recommended reads in my classroom next year!

Text links: (similar themes of portal stories/challenges/choices and consequences)

• The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman

• The Midnight Library - Matt Haig

• The Wild Way Home - Sophie Kirtley

Thanks to:

NetGalley for the eARC (@NetGalleyUK)

Polly Ho-Yen (@bookhorse)

Bloomsbury Publishing (@KidsBloomsbury)

Review August 2020 by Rich Simpson (@richreadalot)