The Night Bus Hero

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Annoyed, Hector waits until opportunity arises and ramps up his plan to get revenge on the homeless man. Your class will count the syllables in each line of the haiku poem and see whether they were written correctly. The importance of trying to catch the thieves in the act quickens the pace and results in a tidy ending with a clear moral message.

Ruby was born in an unspecified part of Africa, later ending up on display in the mall, where she met Ivan, Bob, and Julia.

I thought this book was going to be PRETTY interesting, but as I read the chapters I noticed that it wasn't PRETTY interesting but first - rate! It ends a bit quickly and his character transformation is a bit sudden and convenient but I enjoyed it and will be recommending to fans of Stewart Foster, Wonder, Lisa Thompson etc. His partner in not-crime is Mei-Li, who helps at her father’s local soup kitchen and so acts as the connection between Hector and the homeless community. In her spare time, she delivers emergency aid convoys for refugee families surviving in Calais and Dunkirk, and supports interfaith projects. The inclusion of the Night Bus route map (laid out by Pippa Curnick who also did the striking front cover) is a lovely touch, and helps you to mentally draw together all the robberies with the surrounding landmarks.

Angry at the world, Hector decides to run off with the homeless man's trolley after school the next day. With an engaging mystery, we journey through the world of homelessness and friendship, questioning how we treat others, prejudice, stereotypes and what kindness is.

Raúf handles his development in a very natural way, taking care to show gradual change without overwriting his actual character. This book was about a boy named Hector who always bully’s kids in his school they all think he is a menace but he wants to prove them all and wrong he did this by helping a girl in his class work in the soup kitchen and help find the thief. What starts off as an attempt by Hector to avoid the consequences of his actions turns into a thrilling adventure with Thomas and Mei-Li, featuring a daring thief, a case of mistaken identity, a secret code and a growing understanding of not just what life is like for the homeless, but the wildly different circumstances that can lead people to lose everything.

Usually I don’t mind ‘cos some of my best, most brilliant ideas have come from sitting in detention. As with her previous novels, Onjali Rauf addresses important ‘real-world’ topics with open-heartedness and the sense of triumph in knowing that big changes can start with small people. Unrepentant, he does however later see this homeless man appear to be the culprit behind a series of bizarre but fiendishly clever robberies in the city of London. And all the while, events inform reader and Hector of what it is like to live rough, to live where you aren't wanted, to feel the consequences of another person's cruel prank.

I send a few books to a school in London on a monthly basis, and Raúf's books are perfect for this, because of their themes and the diversity of the characters. Told from the perspective of a bully, this book explores themes of bullying and homelessness, while celebrating kindness, friendship and the potential everyone has to change for the good. This boy isn’t a likeable rogue or the class clown, he’s an annoying bully who thrives on the admiration of his bullying friends.