The childrens novel chosen is 'Billionaire Boy' written by David Williams, the novel offers some scetches throughout the book which are illustrated by Tony Ross.


Billionare Boy is about a boy called Joe Spud. He is the richest boy in the world, althought this wasn't the case. Joe's father came up with the idea of scented toilet paper and opened the company of 'Bum fresh' which then expands and becomes a multibillion comany.  Joe has whatever he desires, from a  2 million dollars for his birhday, a crocodile, a theme park in his backyard to owning his own formula one track.  But Joe doesnt have something, something that he wants the most, something money can't buy.  A friend.   Joe therefore decides to change his life and move back in with his mother and become a 'normal' boy again in the hope to make new friends.

This was a very engaging book, I believe the inclusion of sketches throughout the book added to this.  The book also uses alot of 'slang' words to keep the young reader engaged, due to this factor if  I was to use this book in my classroom I would rather use this book as a shared reading for the class compared to a guided reading book due to the element of interaction with the reader. 


The second novel chosen is titled 'Louis Besides Himself' written by Anna Fienberg. 
This was initially a hard book to understand, as it was only until around the 3rd chapter the characters where really introduced the first two contained a lot of diagloue betweem the characters but they weren't fully established. 


The book follows the life of Louis who lives with his Dad and sister, Louis' mother died when he was a infant.  The being chapters discuss Louis's relationship with his father, with his dad into wrestling whereas Louis is much more interested in his books.  Louis also have troubles conneting with his friends as they are very much interested in different things and starts to believe that their friendship is drifting a part due to these differences.

Louis is confronted when he comes face to face with an intruder in his own house.  This intruder actually turns out to be a friend of Louis who has run away from her own personal family problems at home.    Through helping his friend stay at his home while she sorts out her own personal problems, Louis realises that him and his friends arent so different after all.  This novel covers issues of friendship, family and change and I found that this would be perfect for a young boy for independent reading.