There must be something good about this book, because it’s been shortlisted for the Carnegie award.

I have just finished reading Heartbeat by Sharon Creech. It grabbed my attention at first because of the poem format, which I have never seen in a book before. I think this book must have been put on the shortlist to add some variety to the award. I thought this because the book doesn’t really have a story. The story is told by a girl of twelve called Annie. She loves to run with her good friend Max. She lives with her pregnant mother, her father and grandfather. The characterisation is quite poor because the poem format is very limited for description.

Another big problem is that, after reading the blurb; you don’t need to read the book. Nothing happens. There is a chapter roughly every two pages, and many things will be repeated again and again, as Annie doesn’t really do much except draw and run.

The idea of an apple on the cover seemed a bit strange to me, as the only reference to an apple is where Annie has to draw apples in art for a hundred days. Her Grandfather takes a bite out of it! This is one of the highlights of this book, but if I was designing the cover, I would have drawn a pair of running shoes, as this is what the book’s about.

The book is set in America, but you can’t really tell this unless you study the language and the spelling. It’s 180 pages, but to understand the story you wouldn’t need to read all of them.

This was a good and innovative idea for a book, but it hasn’t been used to its full potential in this particular story.

Three out of ten.