Pearl Beach

About this book

13-year-old Billie has spent all her summers at Pearl Beach, a sleepy seaside resort in Australia. But this year things feel different. Her best summer friend Andy seems to have grown up much more than her, she's wearing makeup, she has a smartphone, she’s interested in boys. But Billie still feels like a kid, she’s only just started getting her period and wants to do all their normal summer adventures.   

Growing up, and this confusing transitional time of life, is sensitively explored in this masterful verse novel. And there’s another subject to look at. Billie’s Auntie Edith who owns the summer house comes to stay. Edith is a Holocaust survivor and that always seems too devastating and huge to talk about so Billie has never really got close to her. But this year it feels different and Auntie Edith and Billie become real friends, and we get to know what Edith went through.  

This is a wonderful coming of age novel interweaving poetry, growing up and history. Pearl Beach is easy to read and gripping and very beautiful. It will suit keen readers but also it could revitalise those that are going a bit off the boil about reading, which can be common for 11 or 12-year-olds who want to move on from their earlier reading but haven’t quite got into teen books yet.