Raz Beri - Matt Stephens

I'm delighted to be part of the Raz Beri blog tour; today I'm sharing an extract from the book:

Raz Beri – Extract one

I could feel my heart pound against my ribs. I could hear the blood inside my ears.

‘What about me?’ I said. The words hung in the air like a fart at a tea party. I must be mad. What was I thinking? I felt like I was rolling into a black hole but I had to do it. I had to show them. I had literally dragged myself through mud to get here. There was no way I was going to miss this moment.

Rio and Danny Cash started to laugh but stopped when they realised that no one else was.

‘Oh, you’re serious,’ said Danny Cash. There was silence for ages. ‘No offence mate, but how are you gonna score a goal?’

I said, ‘Yeah, I’m serious, Danny.’

Wow, it felt good.

‘Danny, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that you can score with any part of your body except for your arms. Are you good enough to cross the ball at my head height?’

He looked a little offended. ‘Yeah, course I am.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘I’m going to ask my mate Rio to help me.’

Even Mia was looking at me like I was mad, now.

‘Billy…’ she whispered.

Rio was stood there with his mouth open. Literally. Lower jaw hanging, lips parted like a Venus Fly Trap.

‘Rio mate, do you remember at dinner time,’ I said, ‘when we were messing around and you were seeing how fast you could push me?’

Rio stared at me disbelievingly. I was making it up at high speed as I went along. I had never, never spoken more than a short sentence before in front of an audience. They were hanging on my words, no one was laughing. It felt great.

‘Well, I want you to push me as fast as you can straight at the near post. Danny, I’m relying on you to beat your man and put the ball on my head. I know you can do it. OK Rio? Let’s go.’

The Blurb

Billy has cerebral palsy and he's had enough of his classmates treating him differently.  But then Mia arrives and announces a school visit from her uncle: a famous footballer.  Maybe being a star footballer in front of his classmates will help Billy prove to his class that he can be just like them.  But when even the famous footballer turns out to be just as bad as the school bullies, Billy begins to realise that perhaps he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone but himself. 

My Review

Told in the first person, Raz Beri is a book about accepting difference.  The bullies in this book are truly awful and the name calling and acts of bullying really made me wince.  But there is an uplifting quality to the book as well and I loved to see Billy's confidence grow as the book progressed.  The friendship that builds between Billy and Mia is lovely to see and is pivotal to the book.

Bullying, friendship and family all feature strongly in this book that reminds us all that we deserve to be proud of who we are.  I'm sure that this book will go down well in school this term.

Raz Beri is out now.