Just Finished Reading... Natural Born Loser by Oliver Phommavanh

Raymond is a Year Six student at a primary school which has a poor reputation. There are bullies. The place is shabby. The last few Principals have been in and out with incredible speed, and are not missed. Now they have a new Principal, Mr Humble, who has some good ideas and is prepared to back up students who have ideas of their own. The first thing he does is audition for prefects - and Raymond, who has never considered himself a leader, goes along with his soccer-playing friend Zain and is startled to find himself chosen. In his first speech, he blurts out that the new prefects will do something about air conditioning their terribly hot classrooms.

With Zain and two girls, Ally and Randa(the Hermione Granger of this team), he works at fundraising. They need $20,000 for just two classrooms, and decide that the youngest students should not roast. Suddenly there are activities everywhere. There is parent support and donations from the local shops. There are bullies trying to sabotage the fundraising...

This is a sweet and gentle story with characters you can care about. Raymond is learning to be a leader - and that you don’t have to be a superstar to be respected, when someone points out to him that as an ordinary person he is the one other kids are most comfortable with. He also discovers that there are plenty of former students who have affectionate memories of the place and are willing to help out, including his mother.

I liked that this was a multicultural school like the ones where I have worked for many years. Raymond is Philipino. Zain is from Ghana. Ally is probably white, though we aren’t told. Randa wears a hijab, including a waterproof one for fundraising water balloon fights. The school bully is just a bully, not a racist. The only issues are the school’s reputation and how to raise a lot of money. Oh, and it was nice to read about a primary school that still has a library and someone to run it!

I did wonder why it might cost that much money for two classrooms. I guess it depends on the kind of air con, and my school had a qualified electrician(the campus teacher librarian, in fact!) to install them for free when our kids did a chocolate drive.

But the author is a former primary teacher, who even wrote himself into his first novel, Thai-Riffic! as the teacher, so he would have some idea of these things.

I will be donating this book to the multicultural primary school where I volunteer, after the holidays. I am sure there will be plenty of takers!