Joe Grant lives in a bubble. Not a literal bubble, but a bubble none the less.

Joe has a condition which means he can’t go outside. He is only 11, but he can’t remember life outside his high up hospital room. Joe doesn’t regularly see many new people, but he is very excited when he stars in an annual documentary (he is in it every year).

One day a new nurse comes in, the new nurse is called Amir. Amir is odd. He believes in aliens. He believes that the builders, that are doing road works outside, are putting a giant magnet in the road, so that aliens can land there.

The next odd thing Amir does, is that he offers Sky TV to Joe. That may not sound odd to you or me, but as you may expect, Joe said yes. The next day Amir comes in, and says that his brother, Rashid, is currently on the roof of the hospital installing a Sky TV satellite. Amir does more odd things, he and his brother install a load of TVs onto Joe’s wall, connected up to CCTV.

But Amir’s most dangerous idea is yet to come. He says that he can take Joe outside…

I love this book, because it is very touching, and it connected with me, even though I couldn’t relate to Joe’s condition, but it makes me realise how lucky I am to be able to go outside, and have a family (Joe’s parents are dead, all he has is his sister).

It made me cry a bit at the end.

I just want to thank Bags of Books for a bunch of review copies of books, I’m reading the last one now.