We’re participating in a book tour for Double Felix by Sally Harris this week.
Double Felix by Sally Harris is a new book, also illustrated by Maria Serrano. It tells the story of Felix, an eleven year old boy with OCD. He does things in twos. This is from skipping on every second step to tapping door handles twice. Or even just placing everything in pairs.
A new girl starts in school, Charlie Pye. She has cereal for lunch and lives on a boat – and more importantly hasn’t grown up with rules in her life. It’s a whole new world for Felix. How can he possibly deal with someone who has no rules or order in their life?
It’s safe to say, Double Felix has become one of H’s new favourite books. She’s on her fifth or sixth read already. (whispers – it might have even replaced Jaqueline Wilson’s ‘Katy’ as the new-favourite)
So what was it about Double Felix by Sally Harris that made H go back and read it again? Here’s H (age 8)’s opinion :
I like it. Felix does things twice, he’ll say things twice. He goes to see Hugo Fielding, a counsellor at school which helps him. He’s taught to fight back against the thing in his head – Basil the Bully (named after the Basal Ganglia in the brain).
A girl arrives at school, she doesn’t wear the correct uniform and that annoys Felix to start with. They become friends, and that helps him a lot. He has someone to talk to and play with. They don’t seem to have anything in common, but their friendship grows. I really liked that.
I asked H what it was that she liked. She couldn’t really pinpoint what it was, but liked that it had a happy ending.
She breaks the rules and to start with Felix can’t deal with that. His life revolves around the number two – he doesn’t like odd numbers, he doesn’t like to get odd numbers on things. Only even. Even the chapters are in even numbers! The only odd number chapter is Chapter 27. This is because it’s the last chapter in the book, and Felix has learned to accept odd numbers I think.
It’s a really good book and I’ve really enjoyed reading it. I feel like I’ve learned about people who have OCD a little bit by reading this book.
Sally Harris’ website is over here
Double Felix by Sally Harris is available to buy now over here. (affiliate link). We were sent the book for the purpose of review, all opinions are our own.