Angie Moon and Harry Christmas are the very bestest, bestest of friends. They were born two days apart in the same hospital, live next door to one another, go to the same school and have been with each other every day. Well nearly.

Angie has been given a diary for a gift and begins to write in it, explaining she’s been given diaries before and she usually writes a couple of pages and then gives up. Not this time. There are lots of cool things to write about, beginning with a tree hut that spans the boundary between their houses, with a ladder in each yard.

Angie and Harry love their new space where Harry can gaze up at the clouds and study them (through their roof windows), and Angie can paint pictures of them, using her imagination to transform them into magical beings and shapes.

Angie’s Grandma comes to stay, and after a visit to a quilt exhibition, (which might sound boring), but is fascinating including a special quilt made by young girls in a Japanese prisoner of war camp called Changi. Grandma was one of 2400 people imprisoned by the Japanese, (in a camp designed for only 600), and also one of the quilters.

Harry and Angie are fascinated by her story, and she begins to share letters she’d written whilst in the camp and had hidden from the soldiers until they were freed.

Harry has been getting head aches and Angie can’t understand why he’s spending so much time in bed, and even when he goes to hospital, she’s cross he’s not home to share their tree house and Grandma’s letters. The sicker he gets, the more Angie struggles with time away from her bestest friend.

A story of friendship, illness, understanding and growing up. Angie is bombarded with an endless tumble of emotions. Cloud Boy is also a small window into the lives of the prisoners of the Changi camp in Singapore, and the quilting that kept their spirits up, their monotonous days slightly more bearable, and their thoughts off the constant bottomless hunger.

The Changi letters are in the hand of an 8 year old, and not too daunting for a young reader 8+. They are based loosely on an actual prisoner’s story shared with the author, which we learn more about in the back of the book. The diary structure is easy to read, authentic and sad, but all woven through with the conflicting emotions of a young girl dealing with a close friend’s illness. Beautifully written.

Author – Marcia Williams

Age – 8+

(Friendship, Best mates, Treehut, Tree house, Cubby house, Neighbours, Illness, Sickness, Headaches, Hospital, Love, Family, Changi Prison, Singapore, Prisoners, Quilt, Diary, Loss, Grief)