I wake up in the bed that isn’t really mine. What have I done to deserve being stuck in this place again? I ask myself despite the fact that I don’t believe in the concept of karma and its spiritual principles of cause and effect.
Even if karma actually exist, I’m pretty sure I haven’t done anything to deserve seeing its bad side. But I once read – I don’t remember where – that everything that has happened in our lives has been preparation for moments that are yet to come. Maybe that is true. Or maybe it isn’t.
Or maybe it’s just too damned philosophical for me to understand. I don’t know.
I gaze out the window. From five storeys up, the view is surprisingly cheerful considering that I’m looking at the outside of a children’s hospital.
Seventeen-year-old Adam is back in hospital for more surgery. Despite surgery, chemo and radiotherapy, he’s here again. Treatment for his brain tumour has meant that his schooling is interrupted and friendships are difficult to initiate and to maintain. It’s lucky then that he has two enduring friendships from his childhood and a new friend who is also a frequent hospital visitor. Adam starts writing down his story to show that he is more than the illness that is recurring. He continues it, including flashbacks, as a way of getting through long days in hospital.
Friendship is important to most people, but it’s especially important to teenagers and Adam is no exception. He’s lucky enough to have a family, parents and a brother, but it is his friends who keep him going. Through them he has a link to the world beyond the hospital walls, and some semblance of normalcy. Their friendship allows him to be a teenager, who is much more than just a medical diagnosis.
‘Paper Planes Don’t Fly’ is a portrait of a teenager who just happens to also be sometimes unwell. Recommended for mid-secondary readers.
Paper Cranes Don’t Fly, Peter Vu
Ford Street Publishing 2017 ISBN: 9781925272765
review by Claire Saxby, Children’s author and bookseller
www.clairesaxby.com
I began as a tiny spark
Assemblies are pretty much the same everywhere, even first day of the year ones. 
Mr Bronsen said cricket was a game you had to live and breathe. At first, I didn’t get that. But I was beginning to understand. It meant having a cricket ball in your hands – all the time. It meant reading about the Australian cricket team – past and present. It meant listening to the experts and watching the game whenever you get the chance. And, of course, it meant playing. It also meant lying in bed at night dreaming of walking out to play for your country. 
The explosion that killed my parents happened halfway through Second Lesson. We all heard the dull thump, even though the Presidential Palace was fully two kilometres from school. Mr Chibei, our new teacher, was writing the traditional word for patriot on the chalkboard. He went still for a moment. The rest of us looked up at the windows. I don’t know what we expected to see – mightbe smoke? Mighbe the looping white trails of rebel mortars? – but all we saw were fat-bellied clouds.
The same thing happens every time. Everything seems normal. the air is quiet and the trees are still. then the loud crash and I lose myself in the chaos. Bodies everywhere, unconscious or dead, I cannot tell. People screaming and running in every direction; me, trying to figure out what has happened. 
Before Archie Cunningham was born, his mum developed an overwhelming craving for cakes and other cake-like delights. Vanilla slices, cupcakes, lemon tarts, cookies, ice-cream cakes, chocolate mud cake with triple chocolate icing – no cake was safe when Mrs Cunningham was around.