Jo Cotterill

JELLY (2018)

EXCLUSIVE WEBSITE FULL OF JELLY HERE!

Containing behind-the-scenes emails about front covers and editing, as well as deleted scenes from the book, poems, videos, and FULL teaching resources to be used with classes from Y5 to Y8. Check it out at jellybook.club!

FCBG Pick of the Year 2019

WINNER Reading Rampage, Leicester secondary schools 2019

Selected by Empathy Lab and Peters for the Read for Empathy collection 2019

Angelica – known as Jelly to her friends – is the life and soul of the classroom. Quick to pick up voices, she loves doing impressions of her teachers to make everyone laugh. Even the teachers can’t be cross with her for long!

But Jelly isn’t quite as bubbly as she pretends. At home, her super-slim mum drinks green tea, runs a beauty business and has an unkind boyfriend. Jelly isn’t super-slim. In fact, she’s the biggest girl in the class – and she knows it.

But when you’re bubbly and larger than life, you’re not supposed to have self-esteem issues, so Jelly keeps her worries confined to a secret book in which she writes expressive poetry. No one, not even her best friends Kayma and Sanvi, know about the book.

And then Mum meets a new boyfriend. Lennon is nice. He’s travelled a lot and knows interesting things; he plays the guitar; and he’s really, really good at listening. Jelly takes a big step when she shows him her book…and Lennon is exactly the right person to read her poems. He likes one of them so much he asks if he can set it to music…and he thinks Jelly should sing it in the end-of-year talent show instead of doing her impressions.

But is it really wise to show people what you’re like on the inside? Isn’t it better to carry on pretending to be someone you know people like?

Jelly contains handwritten poetry and a specially-written song called ‘Happy Face’.

Out June 2018, published by Piccadilly Press, ISBN 978-1848126732

Published in the USA and Korea.