My Life as an Alphabet

Miss Bamford set her students the assignment of writing about their life but each paragraph had to revolve around a letter of the alphabet - 26 letters therefore 26 paragraphs in alphabetical order. Twelve year old Candice became really involved in the project producing a chapter for each of the letters as she recounted the story of her complicated life.

Candice lives with her parents and also has an uncle living nearby. She has a pet fish - Earth-Pig Fish - a penpal in America and a new friend, Douglas Benson from Another Dimension. Candice is very bright and gets on well at school. She particularly likes her English teacher, Miss Bamford. However, because Candice looks at life differently from the other children in her class she had no real friends until meeting Douglas Benson. Douglas believes that he has come from another dimension where his real parents live and he is trying to find a way to return home.

Several years earlier, Candice's sister had died from cot death and her parents never recovered from the loss. Her mother has also had breast cancer and is depressed most of the time. Candice's father works with computers but would prefer to be a programmer, designing a program that everyone wants to use. He used to work with his brother but they are not talking to each other. Candice just wants eveyone to be happy and tries to create situations where family issues can be resolved.

There is much humour in the book but it is also a moving story. In each chapter the story weaves back and forth as we learn more about Candice and her family and her attempts to bring the family members happily together. 

In 2019 the film, H is for Happiness, based on the novel was released. My Life as an Alphabet was an Honour Book in the Children's Book Council awards in 2014. My grand-daughter is reading this book for school in year 7, hence Grandma is reading the book too.