A children's novel in verse? It works a treat

Telegraph

23-04-2025

A generation ago, children's novels written in verse were something of a rarity. But in 2019, they made up almost half the novels shortlisted for the Carnegie medal – and this uplifting story by Matt Goodfellow is the genre's latest gem. Goodfellow's first novel, The Final Year (2023), used blank verse, spoken in the first person, to relate the experiences of a working-class boy called Nate during his last year at primary school. The First Year uses the same format, resuming the story as Nate prepares to start secondary school.
Nate has not had it easy. When we first met him, his younger brother was suffering from a life-threatening heart condition, his single mother was struggling to cope, and Nate's emotions all too often found expression in an anger which he named 'The Beast'. But, as The First Year begins, things are looking up. Nate's brother is better, and his home life has stabilised a little: 'I've noticed Mum smoking a bit less / there's more food in the cupboards / and not as much booze about …. Sometimes Mum actually wakes me up with a brew / and a bacon butty … / I like it! '
When Nate starts at his new school, much of the narrative focuses on issues that will be familiar to every reader. He sets about making new friends, and staying out of trouble: 'I'll sum the rest of the first week up / Rushin. / Rules. / Gettin lost. / Tryin not to die in corridor crushes.' But when the school bully sends Nate's friend 'flyin against the wall', Nate's anger once again threatens to get the better of him: 'The Beast comes outta nowhere / tears along my veins to my fists / fills my brain with flames.' And when the father whom Nate has never met suddenly appears, disappointment inevitably follows. ('When I was proper little / I'd ask Mum / why other kids / had a dad / but I didn't. / Then I learned / to stop askin / cos I hated / seein her cry.')
Goodfellow is brilliant at capturing the voice of his young speaker who, as with all the best schoolboy narrators, combines innocence with a beady eye for observation. And yet Nate is no average 11-year-old. He can recognise a swift (they 'whirl and swirl / like crazy little fighter jets, / sunlight glintin on their underwings'), and he has an empathy beyond his years, which extends even to the boy who has been bullying him. (His father is 'a proper wrong 'un'; and 'if that's what he's been around / then that's what he's gonna become.') In lesser hands, Nate might seem too good a narrator to be true. But Goodfellow writes with acuity, giving us a coming-of-age novel which combines kitchen sink realism with a feel-good factor reminiscent of Paddington Bear.