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    Planet Joy
    Planet Joy
    Planet Joy
    Ebook123 pages2 hours

    Planet Joy

    By Jenny Valentine

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    About this ebook

    For readers aged 9+ comes the third book in a sparkling series about family, friends and finding the joy in life! From Guardian award-winning author Jenny Valentine, this is the perfect series for fans of Jacqueline Wilson, Cath Howe and Lara Williamson!

    Meet ten-year-old Joy Applebloom, a girl with a knack for finding the silver lining in even the darkest of rainclouds.

    After years of travelling the world with her family, Joy feels like she’s finally found a place she can call home. She’s settled in at school, has a new best friend called Benny and she’s finally making a difference in the world.

    But when a new girl, Phoebe Dark, joins class 6C, Joy discovers there’s a whole world out there that she hasn’t explored yet . . . Could Plane Tree Gardens be just the beginning?

    A heart-warming and joyful series about family, friends and never being too small to make a difference, with gorgeous illustrations from Claire Lefevre.

    'A delight for its warmth and humour, but principally because the writing is alive and stunning' The Sunday Times on A Girl Called Joy
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Release dateApr 14, 2022
    ISBN9781471196560
    Author

    Jenny Valentine

    Jenny Valentine worked in a food shop for fifteen years, where she met many extraordinary people and sold more organic bread than there are words in her first book. She studied English literature at Goldsmith's College, which almost made her stop reading but not quite. Her debut novel, Me, the Missing, and the Dead, won the prestigious Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in the UK under the title Finding Violet Park. Jenny is married to a singer/songwriter and has two children. She lives in Hay on Wye, England.

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      Book preview

      Planet Joy - Jenny Valentine

      My name is Joy Applebloom, and I am nearly eleven years old. My family used to be always on the move, in different parts of the world, but then we stopped and came back to the UK, to 48 Plane Tree Gardens, which is where my grandad lives. He is Mum’s dad and his name is Thomas E. Blake. Home to him is a tidy house on a street of other tidy houses. The five of us are all packed in tight like sardines in a can, but with a lot more conversation about table manners and a constant queue for the bathroom.

      According to my big sister, Claude, our real address is The Square Root of Nowhere. She says if we don’t get out of here soon she is going to combust, and the rest of us one hundred per cent believe her. Grandad says he would rather she didn’t do it on his hall carpet, because thanks to Dad and a certain dropped cup of coffee, he has just paid to have it professionally cleaned.

      When we moved back to live here, there were a lot of quick changes.

      Claude and I went to an actual school for the first time ever, instead of doing our lessons on the move.

      Mum and Dad started looking for jobs and flats and doctors and furniture and other long-term things that you can’t just put in a suitcase and take with you when it’s time to go.

      Grandad’s house went from so quiet he could hear a pin drop to so noisy he couldn’t hear himself think.

      We made friends and noise and mess and chaos. And even though we have been here for a little while now, life is still crammed full of upsides and silver linings and surprises.

      Claude says, ‘You would think that. Even if we were stuck up to our necks in a crocodile-infested swamp in a monsoon.’

      My sister thinks I have silver linings drawn on the inside of my eyelids.

      Dad says he doesn’t want to think about what she has on the inside of hers.

      All I know is we are being bombarded with exciting new things. They are fizzing like just-discovered comets through our sky.

      I have a new teacher and a brand-new hobby, and I have started learning a whole new set of languages that I never knew existed.

      There is new girl in 6C, who is even newer than me.

      Our old teacher Mrs Hunter has a new actual knee.

      Claude has at least two brand-new political causes. She is very busy getting angry about the state of the world and standing up for things and fighting the oppressor and going on marches. My sister is twenty-four-hours-a-day LIVID, and for once, Mum and Dad say she has every right to be, and that they could not be more proud.

      She also has a new boyfriend, and a new favourite word, which is PRIVACY, and apparently she is not getting any of it. Dad says he doesn’t know where she is finding the time for love when she is so busy being absolutely outraged about everything, and Claude sticks her chin out like a fighter and opens her eyes up extra wide, which is her way of saying MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

      Grandad has a new interest in gardening because of his new friend, whose name is Miss Hedda Wolfe. Together, they have turned his grey concrete backyard into a flowery paradise, bird-filled and buzzing with bees. It is quite a transformation, and I am not just talking about the garden. Grandad used to be spotless and sort of nailed down and grey, and now his hands are always muddy and his cheeks are mostly pink and his fingers have turned out to be extremely green. It is like the old Grandad got dragged through a hedge backwards, in the best possible way. He used to spend a lot of time sitting very still in a chair and now he is mainly digging or snipping or crouching over seedlings with his bum in the air. He does a lot of whistling. He says Hedda Wolfe has given him a new lease of life, and he is grateful because it was me who introduced them.

      I look at Grandad’s cat, who has a sparkly new collar and extremely high cheekbones and a thousand-yard stare.

      I say, ‘Well, it was Buster, really.’

      Miss Wolfe lives at number 57. Buster used to disappear to have his dinner there and stay the night, and now so does Grandad.

      Claude does not want to talk about it.

      Dad has just started his new job at the big community centre at the bottom of Sunningdale, the block of flats on the Meadows Estate where my best friend Benny Hooper lives with his family. It has been refurbished which means it is as good as new. Now, the community centre is called My Second Home and it is going to be a drop-in place for the elderly, and a preschool nursery and a library and a café, all in one place, around one courtyard. Dad is the executive chef. This means he is the one in charge.

      ‘Just like at home,’ he says, and everyone rolls their eyes. Even Grandad.

      When Dad talks about his new job, I can tell how much he likes it. Apparently, the team at My Second Home are performing Community Magic, and Dad says he cannot wait for us to see it. We are all going to the big open day at the end of the month. Grandad is bringing Hedda Wolfe as his plus one, and Benny’s whole family is coming, which means Claude’s new boyfriend will also be there due to the fact that he is Benny’s big brother, Sam.

      Claude has a new smile and Mum has bought herself a new dress. Dad says both of these things are delightful and surprising. He calls it the dawn of a new era, which makes Claude look like she wants to bury herself head first in the bin.

      The new girl in 6C looks like she wants to be buried head first in a bin too. She is definitely not looking like she wants to be in school, that’s for sure, and I sympathize because I can still remember how that feels. I think she is very enigmatic and mysterious. So far, Benny says he is finding her about as cheerful as a ghost train and less enthusiastic than a hole in the ground. But something tells me that she is about to come out from behind what is eclipsing her and turn out to be our newest friend. I tell Benny I am almost convinced of it. I am hoping that this feeling isn’t what Claude has started calling, ‘Life on Planet Joy.’ This is my sister’s way of saying that I know nothing about the real world and I am way too optimistic about people and life in general. I am crossing my fingers that the new girl doesn’t agree with her. Only Claude can make the word upbeat sound like it is dripping with poison.

      Lastly, I’m almost certain that we won’t be staying in Plane Tree Gardens for much longer.

      I think I overheard Mum and Dad talking about it. I’m not supposed to overhear their conversations, so I can’t know, but if it’s true then we are on the move again, and I’m honestly not sure how

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