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  • Boy Underwater

  • By: Adam Baron
  • Narrated by: Rafe Spall
  • Length: 4 hrs and 40 mins
  • 5.0 out of 5 stars (6 ratings)

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Boy Underwater cover art

Boy Underwater

By: Adam Baron
Narrated by: Rafe Spall
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Publisher's Summary

Selected as Waterstones Book of the Month.

Shortlisted for The Carnegie Award.

Boy Underwater is a heartbreaking story about family, friends and secrets. And it’s very, very funny.

Cymbeline (yes, really!) has never been swimming - not ever, not once - so he’s a bit nervous at the prospect of his first school swimming lesson ever. But how hard could it be? He’s Googled front crawl, and he’s found his dad’s old pair of trunks. He’s totally ready for this.

But he’s not ready for an accident at the pool to reveal a family mystery that turns his life completely upside down. Only Cym and his friends can solve it because, as usual, the grown-ups aren’t telling them anything.

For the answers you really need, sometimes you have to go deep....

©2018 Adam Baron (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Critic Reviews

"An absolute corker of a tale, whose delicate themes – mental health, missing loved ones – are handled with fluid grace." (Observer)

"This poignant novel is about love and loss, but, told from the viewpoint of a child too young to grasp all that grown-ups do, it is also funny. With evocative monochrome illustrations, it bears you up as soon as you plunge in." (Sunday Times Children’s Book of the Week)

"Involving and wryly funny, full of tenderness, eccentricity and intriguing meditations on the function of art, this story of grief, depression and the different facets of identity is well-served by Benji Davies’s thoughtful illustrations." (Guardian)

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J

A great story! Explores some pretty big themes for a children's book - mental health, death, adult relationships. I devoured this in just two sittings. Recommended for 11 years and up as other reviews have stated.

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