I’ve heard great things about Helen Rutter’s books and in my classroom we read a lot of quick flicks published by Barrington Stoke. Combine the two together and we’re onto a winner.

A great story that explores mental health and neurodiversity in children, I really enjoyed this read and think that it would appeal to a range of children across my classroom.

Josh and his “Brian” don’t always work well together. When Josh is struggling at home with changing dynamics, he goes to stay with his grandmother who he barely knows but comes to learn is very similar to him.

The story is realistic, doesn’t shy away from hard to talk about topics, divorce/family split, anxiety, mental health etc etc. A really enjoyable and worthwhile read.

Book 206 of 300 ~ 2024

🌟🌟🌟💫

I feel for this kiddo. Many a time, I have an overactive Brian/Brain myself, and it always starts so close to beddy bye time.

Such a witty and yet sensitively handled approach to mental health, overthinking, and general anxiety well.

I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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I think the author tried to tackle a tough topic for kids, but missed the mark a bit. I can't see this engaging my students as a lot of what happens in the beginning is missing details. A lot happens within 100 pages and its all very surface level. I think this sacrificed substance for content.

Helpful for families/schools with young people coping with the same mental health issues.

I liked this. It could have been a full novel, so to fit quite a lot into the Barrington Stoke format was quite an achievement, though it did feel in a way rushed. But for the audience this is a good taster of both the problem of having anxiety/overactive thoughts and possible ways to cope.

Josh calls his brain Brian, it seems to the reader to control a lot of what he thinks, does and sometimes says. This sounds exhausting, and is clearly upsetting for both Josh and his family. With an older brother an mum constantly fighting, Josh is told by Brian all the time that things going wrong are his fault.

A trip to his grandma's very rural home, time with her in the quiet, learning from her own experiences and wisdom... this might be the tonic Josh - and Brian - need.

I am not a mental health professional, but a lot of the techniques discussed here sound useful, though I expect might need adult supervision and motivation to implement properly, if a young person wanted to try them.

It's a sweet story, I wanted to give Josh a big hug and stop him feeling the cause of every problem out there. I feel this has uses in homes and classrooms and is the right length and scope for an upper primary reader to engage with alone or with adults.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

I loved this - it was like looking in a mirror, absolutely nailed what it’s like to live with a neurodiverse brain. This book should be available to all secondary age kids to see themselves or to see another point of view. Outstanding writing.

A gentle yet biting book on children and mental health

Taking a humorous but realistic tilt at one boy's mental health, Rutter has given us a comedy that masks reality. With the genuinely funny narration of Josh and his Brian, his inside voice who tells him things aren't good at all, we delve into what makes this particular family tick and how different people use different ways to cope with the stresses of life, no matter what age. A lovingly empathetic book, I found that this helped me to reflect on my own mental wellbeing and what I could be doing for my own family, and I'm sure that it will spark the same conversations in the young people this is aimed at.

A lovely and detailed four stars.

I really love that we are truly trying to break down the mental health stereotype by training and teaching children that is okay to strike but giving them ways to cope when the voices in your head get to loud. A wonderful middle grades book on mental health

In a Nutshell: A middle-grade novel about a boy who struggles with his overactive “Brian”. This had great potential, and some of the content has great value, but somehow, the overall book didn’t come together well enough for my liking.

Plot Preview:
Since childhood, thirteen-year-old Josh has called his brain “Brian”. Brian is very active in Josh’s life, constantly poking and prodding him towards good ideas as well as mean insults. Brian also creates a lot of insecurity by making Josh feel guilty for the family arguments between his mother and his elder brother Charlie.
When the situation at home gets too bad, Josh is sent to stay with his maternal grandmother for a few days. But she stays in a small shack in the middle of nowhere, and Brian protests vehemently. Will Josh be able to push Brian’s nagging away and strengthen his own voice?
The story comes to us in Josh’s first-person perspective.

The concept of the book is great. I love the idea of a brain that works against its human. So many of us have the inner voice that makes us question our decisions, and Brian seems to be the manifestation of the most criticising ones. The cover art and the title also made me believe that the focus of the story would be mainly on Josh’s learning how to handle his “Brian.” However, the implementation seems to be somewhat disjointed.
The book begins in a light-hearted way, with Josh introducing us to Brian and some funny outcomes of his interference. But soon, we get a glimpse of the fights between his mom and Charlie, and of how Charlie acts as a typical elder brother: mildly aloof and somewhat bullying. Then the story shows how the family arguments escalate to such an extent that Charlie decides to go live with their dad, who has his own family and a bigger house. When Josh’s mom struggles with her emotions, she decides to send Josh away to her own mom, from whom she has been somewhat estranged. There Josh learns that his grandma is a recluse who works in her own garden, and also that she too had escaped from city life after her “Briany” found it overwhelming. Josh finally learns from grandma how to tackle his Brian, but has she herself learnt how to tackle Briany yet? When Josh finally returns home, he is a bit calmer, though the situation at home is only mildly better.
See the issue? All of the above happens within just 96 pages. The story goes from one issue to another without focussing in detail on any. Each of the above scenes is a major conflict and needs proper settlement, especially in a book aimed at children. But the approach is more go-with-the-flow, with no dominant main point. Just when it seems like the final quarter would sort out everything neatly, the plot brings in yet another conflict.
Moreover, many key things aren’t revealed in the book, mainly because we get the story in Josh’s first-person voice, and whatever he isn’t aware of, we also don’t come to know. So we are not aware of how their dad or their stepmother feel about Charlie suddenly living with them without informing them beforehand, or how their mother contacts their grandmother when the latter doesn’t even have a phone. Josh tells us that his mother and his grandmother haven’t been in touch after a major fight years ago, so it is also not clear why his mother decided to send Josh all the way to a relative stranger (to him) when his own dad seemed to be accommodating enough. Charlie’s sudden good behaviour towards Josh is unexplained. Even the whole “Brian”-brain thing is left without any elucidation. The overall effect is hence quite jumpy.
It might have been easier to like the book had Josh been a boy worth rooting for. But he seems to be deflecting all his negative behaviour on to Brian. Whenever something goes wrong, it was Brian’s fault and not Josh’s. Now this might be a genuine mental health condition, but we never know the details as there’s nothing about Brian’s origins. Brian seems to be a boastful, manipulative bully, so some of his lines might be a bit traumatic to littler readers. (Worse: they might find him funny, though his behaviour actually ticks off all red flags.)
To top it all, the book has mentions of vaping, of parents’ bitter divorce, and of running away from home. Josh also tends to allot rude nicknames to his peers and teachers, and judges them by appearance. When he terms his grandma a ‘witch’ just for how she looked, the book nosedived for me with no hope of recovery.
I usually love this publisher’s books for the way their writing follows the Hi-Lo format, with stories aiming at the middle-grade level but the language pitching a little lower so that the books are accessible to those with lower reading prowess. They are never afraid to tackle topics that might be considered dark for this age group. But this book turned out to be a rare exception, not because of the topic but because of its handling.
Basically, I had expected this book to focus on a young boys struggling with his hyperactive mind. But it turned out to be more focussed on other topics, with the title and the cover serving more as clickbait.
The book has B&W illustrations which are decent but not outstanding. I didn’t appreciate Josh’s annoying expression in many of the sketches, so I wasn’t a fan of these.
This is just one opinion. So please do go through other reviews and see if the book might work better for your young one. It's a little complicated, but read with adult guidance, it might work decently for kids with loud interruptive brains.
2 stars.
My thanks to Barrington Stoke for providing the DRC of “Me and My Brian” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.

A very interesting little tale, that introduces young readers to a strange-seeming mindset, and while the text of it doesn't define it, seems to successfully show it as an earnest and important issue for the main character, Josh. Brian is the lead's mis-spelled Brain, and it's reacting to – and making much worse – the situation at home, with our lad's older brother and their mother having a right falling out. Brian thinks he knows exactly what is what about this, the absence of the husband/father, that issue, that problem – and has evil things to state about everything, pouring it all into Josh's mind (alongside some half-hearted business plans) and almost making the lad seem bipolar.

So while one minute he's gallantly washing cars for the neighbours the next he's spouting selfish vitriol about everyone. That climaxes when the brother moves out, and when he's told to go and reboot at a grandmother's very rural shack for a fortnight. Now, the thing is I said it's almost being bipolar, just as much as what he meets with when there with the gran and her cat is almost mindfulness. They're not either, but it's that kind of thing, and the plot then continues to make us doubt whether the latter will be enough to quieten and lessen the effect of Brian's outpourings.

I think I wanted a hard-and-fast explanation for all this. I know nothing put me in the heightened mindframe of Josh, so I can't fully relate, but it feels as if there should be some kind of diagnosis made here, rather than just a bullied kid's hormonal, scattered brain being at fault. Certainly for me the story would have been improved with a nailed-on issue. For junior readers (and this is written to have an accessibility of an eight year old's book but subject matter of one nine-plus) I think they might not even 'get' this, preferring the braggadocio of Brian and cheering Josh on for engaging with its worst excesses. If they see the intent and don't work against it, I think this is a pleasant read, but one I can't fully applaud. Three and a half stars.

Thank you so much to Barrington Stoke and Netgalley for the ebook to read and review.

Josh is struggling with his Brian aka his brain, it talks too loudly and too often telling him everything is his fault, that everything is getting worse. He doesn’t know how to quieten him, then his mum sends him to stay with his estranged grandma and learns her Briany is just as loud and she helps guide him to control his Brian a little.

This was so sad but so sweet, so many things kept happening, changing in his life all of which had a negative effect on him. The weight of all these events caught up to him and his Brian wouldn’t stop obsessing over everything telling him all the bad and awful, intrusive things making him believe everything was all his fault.

I really adored when he was with his grandma, though he didn’t know her, as soon as they met they formed a bond, a connection and he found himself relaxing around her more and more, though Brian still wasn’t quiet the life being still and mundane helped him, the fact she was struggling all the same helped him, and he found new ways to help ease his Brian for a little while.

This is such a great book for children to read, mental health is real issue that people of all ages struggle with and this story helps explain so much of it, so I think children that are struggling themselves with changes in their lives, with their mentality or those around them with it, will find it helpful and a great read. It’s also a wonderful book in general regardless of mental health struggles, the story will touch your heart seeing young Josh struggling so much.

Josh is having a hard time and his brain, Brian, is talking way too much! Josh's mum and brother are arguing lots and he feels lost, trying to quieten the voices in his head. When he goes to visit his Grandma in the countryside, she teaches Josh the beauty of stepping away and how to quieten Brian.
A great, accessible read with tips on how to cope when the negative voices in your head becomes too loud

I never read a book so fast!

I love the cover, the title and the realistic characters in it!

Josh is struggling with his mind talking to him about fears and negative thoughts all the time. His bigger brother keeps fighting with his mom. His mom seems totally helpless and he can’t share what he’s going through because of the situation with them.

However, he gets to be with his grandmother from his mom’s side and gets to learn new skills of the outside world. The grandmother understands what he’s going through and he gets to share his feelings for the first time!

This is such an emotional read for me. I just wish it was a bit longer and the issues tackled better towards the end.

Love the book though and it will be a big hug for those who feel misunderstood living with mental health issues.

Totally recommended!

Thank you, Barrington Stoke, for the ARC.

Josh is having a really tough time dealing with all of the thoughts Brian has, and when he’s sent off to stay with his Grandma over the Easter, things can’t really get any scarier! I really liked this depiction of anxiety and this is definitely one for any classroom!

As with all Barrington Stoke books, not a word is wasted. The story is pacy and engaging but doesn't neglect to describe the settings well too. Every word moves the story on and helps the reader to be fully immersed in the story. In just over 80 pages, I think this is pretty impressive! In such a short space of time, I feel that I know Josh and his Brian, as well as the other central characters, well.

Josh lives with his mum and brother, Charlie. They argue all the time and Josh's Brian - his nickname for his brain - constantly tells Josh that it's all his fault. Brian also makes Josh say and do things he doesn't always want to do too and when Charlie moves out to live with their dad, things get worse. Josh's mum is struggling and his Brian is determined to convince Josh that it's all his fault. As the Easter holidays approach, Josh's mum comes up with a plan and Josh goes to spend the fortnight with his grandma in her remote cabin up North.

I really enjoyed this story. I found the characters to be likeable and realistic but mostly, I liked how Josh's anxiety was explained using Brian. I think this will resonate with children experiencing similar feelings and will hopefully help them to realise both that they are not alone and also that anxiety isn't a result of something that they have done wrong. I also liked how the strategies Grandma gave Josh were explained as these would be easy for children to follow

I have a small Briany myself so it was great to read a book that appreciates how hard it is for someone with an internal monologue always telling them the negative side of things. It is a quick read (love a Barrington Stoke book) about dealing with the difficulties of life but full of empathy and compassion and gentleness.

Over the last few years Helen Rutter has written some incredibly funny but also moving children's stories; The Boy Who Made Everyone Laugh and its sequel are still popular in primary classrooms.

Me and My Brian follows another path tackling mental health and well-being ; Josh is finding life a challenge- his brother has moved out to live with his dad and his new wife and daughters; his mum is struggling and most of all Josh's brain ( named Brian) just won't shut up - bringing negative thoughts and anxiety.

Josh's mum decides it would be go to stay with his grandmother who he has never really met- she lives alone in the countryside away from other people. Josh is reluctant to go but soon begins to understand that anxiety and the power of the brain trying to control thoughts can affect people of all ages. An unlikely bond is formed.

This is a short but beautifully composed story- there is power in its succinct approach leaving powerful messages and potential strategies for dealing with mental health.

This is an ideal book for 9-12 year olds struggling to find a calm within; a great book for discussion and ideal KS2 PSHE read.

Highly recommended for parents and teachers but also a great read for young people who are finding life and their thoughts a challenge .