My Especially Weird Week with Tess

LoveReading4Kids Says

At last, we have an English translation of a book which has won awards in its native Holland and across Europe and been made into a highly successful movie (My Extraordinary Summer With Tess, 2019), and what a treat this book is!

Vibrant, fast paced, and fresh, its characters leap off the page. This is the story of a thoughtful introvert, Sam, on holiday on the Dutch island of Texel, where he meets Tess, an islander who is bossy, boisterous and most definitely not an introvert. Yet these unlikely friends join forces to carry out Tess’s bizarre plan to get to know her father, who has no idea that she exists.

Tess has found his name in one of her mum’s old scrapbooks, found him on the internet and invited him to stay for free in their holiday home – without telling him that she’s his daughter and most definitely without letting her mum in on the plan. She intends to test him for a week to see if she really wants to have him as a dad, but of course all kinds of things go wrong.

While delightfully accessible and humorous this book also skilfully deals with some big issues, leaving her characters, and her readers, knowing a great deal more about themselves and about life, family and community. A rich and rewarding read that makes me hope to see more of this author’s work becoming available to English readers.

Joy Court

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