How to be the new person by Anna Branford

With the mobility of population in our current age, increasing numbers of children face a lot of change. For schools a mobile student population is so common that it is unremarkable. This does not however diminish the fact that being that new person is always difficult. Hence there is a growth in numbers of books that deal with change. How to be the new person by Anna Branford is such a book.

Branford is author of the equally delightful series about Violet Mackerel. How to be the new person, is told through the clear eyes of ten-year old Hazel Morrison. Hazel loves to secretly make up instructional videos for doing all sorts of things. In the opening of the story this habit is becoming quite frenetic as Hazel feels the residual effect of her family going through a very hard time with Hazel’s older sister Tess. The reader gains a small, limited window into Tess’s issues as would be the appropriate and normal perspective for a young sibling narrator such as Hazel. Extreme bullying resulting in mental issues for the victim (Tess) is alluded to. So serious is the issue that the family have had to relocate. With such an upheaval and such concern for the vulnerable Tess, the younger sibling (Hazel) is quite ignored. We as readers though have a very real insight into Hazel’s problems which seem to go unnoticed by her parents. Hazel becomes increasingly reliant on repetitive list making and increasingly agitated.

The transition to a new school is skillfully described including the all too common uncomfortable, forced buddy system where the embarrassed newcomer is paired up with an unwilling student “friend”.  Because How to be the new person is partially set in a current real-life classroom, projects and books typical of current class work are mentioned including Pearl versus the universe and the verse novel Toppling by Sally Murphy.  Literally toppling maybe symbolic of what is happening to Hazel.  Both Branford and Murphy beautifully evoke small protagonists learning how to deal with the hard realities of life.

A special aspect of How to be the new person is the important and protective friendship that develops between Hazel and the old lady next door called Veronica. The message that change is not confined to when you are young but rather is a life-long issue that has to be faced again and again is an important one.

How to be the new person is a delightful and easy read for mid-primary school age students and an instructional book about learning to accept and deal with change.

Themes: Change, Mental illness, Bullying, Exclusion, Siblings, Cross-generational friendship.

Wendy Jeffrey