Two Weeks With the Queen by Morris Gleitzman

I love it when a book surprises you. I love it even more when you think a book will be good before you read it and then it surpasses even those high expectations. I love it when a book makes you cry huge sobbing tears. I love it when a book makes you laugh hysterically. I love it when a book touches you with characters that are so loveable and three dimensional. This book did all of those things and is officially now on my list of favorite books ever. So taken over by this one. Colin is thirteen and is a very smart little kid. Despite his heart of gold, he gets awfully jealous of the attention that his younger brother, Luke, gets from his parents. Even when his brother passes out at Christmas and gets rushed to the hospital, he's still jealous that his brother has stolen the show. But he loves him. And it affects him deeply when he learns that his brother has an incurable form of cancer. His parents don't want him to have to watch his brother die, so they ship him off to stay with his aunt and uncle in England while his brother gets treatment in Sydney. Colin decides that he is NOT going to let his little brother die. He'll get the queen to help him...or find the best doctors in the world...or go to whatever means he needs to to have her cured. Along the way, he forms a bond with a young man who's partner is also fighting for his life and they form a bond that's amazing. I can't even put into words how much I loved this book. It's only 127 pages, but this book is more powerful in that amount of space than books I've read that were 800 pages. Gleitzman is just such a touching and such a charming writer. Even in the darkest moments of the book, there were things that made me laugh hysterically. And then I was sobbing with the next paragraph. This is exactly the type of book I love and I wish I could find more of them. I'm betting that Gleitzman's novels are all wonderful. And I've ordered two of them already from Paperback Swap...can't wait to read them now!